AOL Explorer's Spyware - It Wrecked My Computer

Question

I recently installed the free AOL Explorer and free AIM 5.9 (AOL Instant Messenger 5.9). I have IT Company's SpyStopper Pro which acts like a firewall for spyware, scripts, cookies, worms, scanners, etc., and does a pretty good job of it. I have never seen this software catch as much spyware as when I installed AOL Explorer and began browsing from its AOL homepage, clicking various links and so on. In no time at all, almost 200 actual spyware items had been stopped by SpyStopper Pro. This is unusual, as many months of browsing with Netscape and IE with this anti-spyware program running had rarely lent itself to more than 20 or so actual spyware items being stopped in one browsing session.  And I am talking about mainstream browsing of AOL linked websites. Then, after catching the 200 items, I ran another popular anti-spyware program and captured over 150 more spyware traces, including keyloggers, much adware, spyware/viruses, etc. Has anyone else seen this much spyware on AOL linked sites - or is it reserved (am I being just a little bit suspicious here?) just for their new 'free' browser?  By the way, they are now offering 2 GB's free mail (without virus scanning) at no cost forever. With all this spyware forcing me to restore my system by using drive image software (Acronis True Image 8.0) to an earlier cleaner point, I'm not sure 'free' is worth it. I'm just glad I created the clean image so I could restore it. (By the way, Acronis is now offering True Image 9.0, but I would wait on that until they develop a more stable build of that new software. I read on their forums that a lot of users are having problems with the new version.) But any comments on the spyware aspect of the new AOL offerings, or AOL and spyware in general, would be appreciated. Thank you.

RoadiJeff · Answer

I'm not sure what new AOL Explorer you used to cause this to happen. I have AOL as one of two different ISPs I use and it doesn't cause any problems for me. I mainly keep AOL around because several family members use my account who would otherwise have to pay for Internet service on their own.

I run regular spyware scans with the provided AOL spyware protection, Spybot, Ad-Aware and Microsoft's AntiSpyware. They occasionally find a few things but nothing like what you described.

jrr48 · Answer

Thank you for your response. FYI, I do not run the paid AOL Software package, which is really a whole 'experience.' AOL Explorer is really just a browser, like IE, Netscape, and Firefox. As you know, some browsers are more susceptable to spyware than others. I guess AOL Explorer is very vulnerable on this point. I run the anti-spyware software you cited (except for Microsoft Anti-Spyware) and many more. I find that they are all finding traces that their other competitors do not, thus the necessity of running more than two or so such programs. Of course, one always runs the risk of conflicts in that case. But I really think that AOL Explorer (the browser) may be more vulnerable than the paid AOL software package on the spyware front. Thx again for your reply.

Virus & Spyware

AOL Explorer's Spyware - It Wrecked My Computer

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