Is XUPITER your home page? You've got SPYWARE!! (fix available)

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Is XUPITER your home page? You've got SPYWARE!! (fix available)

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Greetings from The VACM Team,

In This Issue:
----------------------
- Is XUPITER your home page? You've got SPYWARE!! (fix available)

You are free to forward this critical information to anyone
you wish as long as it is not modified in any way.

People wishing to subscribe to the VACM Alerts may do so at:
http://apcsnh.com/vacmsign.htm

***************************************************
* The Bottom Line...
***************************************************
Among all the SpyWare and AdWare sneaking into people's systems,
XUPITER takes the cake. It will change your browser start
page to XUPITER, tracks your web usage, pushes popup ads to
your system, and you probably got it by installing software
you downloaded from the net.

If you read the License Agreement of said softwares, our guess
is that you will be a bit miffed as everyone else. The
XUPITER License Agreement basically says:

"users web browser, start page, search page, auto search option,
bookmarks and default error page will be changed, along with
the Xupiter accessory toolbar added to the web browser.
Active desktop panel will be installed on the users desktop which
will enable active desktops on the system for special promotions.
Our software license requires that users browser start page be
set to Xupiter.com in order to continue use of the Xupiter
toolbar, from time to time we verify that users start page url
is set to Xupiter.com, if it is not we reserve the right to
alter it back."

Yikes! Makes you want to start reading software license
agreements much more carefully doesn't it? Not to mention,
thinking twice about downloading free software and installing
it.

Not only does XUPITER track your usage and send it to its
marketing people, but it also disables several Windows
functions, hides its files and updates itself to try to
avoid you being able to remove it.

The good news is that the devious XUPITER can be removed
with a free SpyWare removal tool.

***************************************************
* What You Should Do
***************************************************
If your browser's start page mysteriously started coming up at
XUPITER, you are being spied upon. Even if you change your home
page to something else, the XUPITER spyware will change it back
to XUPITER.

To remove XUPITER (and all other spyware and adware that is
secretly spying on you and sending private information to
unscrupulous, greedy good-for-nothings:

1. Download and install SpyBot Search & Destroy.
[Editor's note: Ad-Aware has fallen to our #2 position on the
best Spyware removal tools list. They seem to have started
slacking off and have not been providing spyware updates for
some time now. Although it is the easiest spyware removal tool
to use, you may want to consider installing our new #1 choice
for spyware removal tools- SpyBot Search & Destroy (SSD).
It's free to download and use for personal use, and if you
want to express your gratitude to the creators of SSD you can
easily make a $5 donation via their web site.
Download SpyBot Search & Destroy here:

Get SpyBot Search & Destroy

2. When you run SSD, be sure to use the built-in "Update" option
first, to get the latest Spyware/SpyBot removal capabilities.
Note that if you have Zone Alarm or another firewall installed,
you will have to allow SpyBot Search & Destroy to access the
internet.

To get SSD's latest updates, click the "Online" button in the
left hand column, then click "Search For Updates" at the top
of the main screen.

Next, click the "Info & License" button in the left hand column
and make sure you it shows that you have at least the following
version:

SpyBot-S&D 1.1 Rel 4

Once you have the latest updates, it's time to scan for and
remove the spyware, auto phone dialers and other nasties from
your system(s). To do this, click the "SpyBot-S&D" button in
the left hand column of SSD, then click the "Check for problems"
button at the bottom of the main screen. SSD will search your
entire system. This will typically take several minutes, after
which time you will see a list of everything that was found.

On the list of problems found, SSD will already have checked
off the items that should be removed. Unless you really know
about the internals of Windows and the registry, VACM suggests
that you do not check or uncheck anything else in the search
results window.

Next, to remove the problems found by SSD, simply click the
"Fix selected problems" button at the bottom of the screen.

When you have finished running SSD, set your browser's start
page to something useful, like Google.com or any other
favorite site you prefer. Then, reboot your system.

Note that SSD makes a backup of everything it removes in the
unlikely event that it removes anything that causes any of
your software to not run correctly. Also, remember that
many of the "free" software programs that you can download
DO CONTAIN SPYWARE, and once the spyware component(s) have
been removed, your "free" software may refuse to work.

This is the case with such things as Kazaa, some of the
free tax software that's out there and many other freebies.

Our recommendation, as noted in the previous VACM Alert-
better to remove the spyware and not be able to run the
free software that put the spyware on your system in the
first place.

Best Regards,
Marc Deschenes, VACM Editor
The VACM Project at
Automated PC Solutions

*** Be sure to check out the appendix at the end of this alert
if you are having trouble booting your computer into "Safe Mode".
The process is all spelled out for you there.

Why should you be very
concerned about Spyware?

Learn how to avoid Identity Theft and Windows corruption in this
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How did they steal my Identity?

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******** APPENDIX - Handy How-To Tips **********

* How To Boot into Safe Mode

Shut the computer down so that the power is off.

Turn the computer on, wait 1 second and begin pressing the F8 key
on the keyboard, once every second repeatedly. Do this until
the Windows Startup Menu appears. If you get a keyboard
error, press F1 to resume and then continue pressing the
F8 key once every second, or your PC may tell you to press another key for BIOS setup.

Select Safe Mode from the Windows Startup Menu, then press
the Enter key on the keyboard.

Windows will then boot into Safe Mode.
NOTE: This may take longer than a normal boot.

At the end of the boot process a dialog box will appear
informing you that Windows is in Safe Mode. Click OK on this dialog box.

Windows is now in Safe Mode.

If you miss hitting the F8 at the right time, Windows will boot
normally and you will not see the "Safe Mode" message. In this
case, start from the top of these instructions until you get the
boot menu screen where you can choose "Safe Mode". This can be
a little tricky the first time you do it.