Did they change the name of Hijack This to Alertspy or is Alertspy something else?
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have never heard of 'AlertSpy'; I know nothing about it. I first became aware of 'Hijack This' when I had a similar problem. A program I knew nothing about was causing my computer to try and go to a certain site immediatly on boot up. Trouble is, the site had been discontinued, so all I would ever get was a 404 message (immediatly on boot up, without even asking for the URL.) I zapped the mysterious program but then on bootup it was right back there doing its thing again, time after time. A friend of mine said we would have to go kill it in the registry where it was hiding, always looking for a way and time to restart itself. He told me where to find Hijack This on the net; I got it and installed it. It gives you many warnings in the process of installation, essentially telling you if you don't know what you are doing, to get back out of the way and find a _real-man_ to do the job. My friend talked me through it over the phone, and once the proper registry entry had been located and deleted, that was the last of the problem; at that point, following the hijacking process, I had to turn the computer off, wait a couple minutes then turn it back on.I thought to myself at the time the spammers/hackers/whoever who go and deliberatly tamper with your system registry in the process of installing their crap should be ashamed of themselves. But my friend pointed out 'this is the internet. There has been no shame around here in years ...' When I first told my friend about the mess I was certain I would have to do a fresh install of Windows to get rid of it. But Hijack This cured it all, and even rebuilt the registry in the process. PAT]