i have things randomly popping up like adds saying "congradulations you have won.." how do i get rid of them?

Okay your issue is ADWARE related. These popups are usually cuased by a "caller" such as Backweb, My Search Assistant, 180 SearchAssist, Marketscore, and others. These callers do just what their name implies, they call in random adds by url or IP addresses. Some embed themselves into the System Registry and are intergrated into the inner workings of Windows.

FIX IT!!

Fixing this issue is most easily done by following the steps below.

1. From the Control Panel/ADD REMOVE PROGRAMS, go through and remove all software that you do not recognize. Leave anything that you are unsure of and email me the list, I will go over the list and tell you what is what, where it lives, what id does for a living, and where it was born. Then you can go in and remove whatever you feel is not needed or may be a threat.

2. Goto my site Downloads.Comstar-computers.com (that's computers.com becuase Yahoo likes to hide your fix URL's.

3. Download and install AVAST ANTIVIRUS HOME, Ad-Aware SE 1.06r (Beta 7 if you wanna try the newest version), and Spybot Search & Destroy 1.4

4. Install all programs and allow them to update fully.

5. Run AdAware 1st and remove and bad junk it finds.

6. Run Spybot (Don't forget to immunize after updating) and let it FIX any errors it finds.

7. Load Avast Antivirus, go into DEMO mode unless you want to keep this near perfect FREE AV program.

8. When the Avast loads, close the help screen and then you will be looking at the Avast Console, just above the PLAY/STOP buttons, you will see a smaller button, click it and a menu will appear, select SCHEDULE A BOOT TIME SCAN. Let the PC reboot. Avast will get all *** up in your PC and get rid of almost any virus/spyware/adware.

9. Click START/RUN type in MSCONFIG and hit enter

10. Access the STARTUP ITEMS tab (Windows 2000 users will need to download MSCONFIG.EXE from my site as well.

11. Remove the checkmarks from EVERYTHING except your AV programs. Avast runs ASHDISP.EXE for your info... You may notice Spybot or Adaware in this list of programs, if so, it is becuase some of the errors they found can only be removed after a reboot so leave those checked.

This will also speed up your boot time and improve overall PC Performance.

12. Click APPLY and then OK and then the PC will request a reboot. Allow it.

13. Upon a reboot, you will see a new popup window telling you that you are booting while running the System Configuration Utillity. Click the checkmark box and select OK (It won't come back).

Now there could be one other issue and I hope like hello that it's not your issue. But sometimes a red circle with a white X (Sometimes it's a red Sheild) and it pops up talking about YOU'RE INFECTED... This is called Spyware Blaster or WinBlaster. These are false reporters known as Ransomware. Buy me to fix the problems I just created, or look at the porn I put on your screen.

Yeah it's a bad one so look out for that. CA's E-Trust Antivirus seems to remove it in most cases.

Popup blockers, such as the Yahoo and Google toolbars, will only stop web based popup advertising. They can help somewhat but will do nothing to stop popups on a computer that is badly infected with trojan downloaders that are contacting other computers to download and deliver the pop up ads.

Try a full cleaning and dis-infection routine, if you are getting excessive popups, or are getting popups even when you are offline.

This is the one I use (it will take some time).

1. Scan for virus and remove (free online scan) with BitDefender

http://www.bitdefender.com/site/home/

2. Scan for trojans, adware and spyware and remove (free online scan) with Ewido

http://www.ewido.net/en/

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And after your computer is fully cleaned of spyware I would suggest IE-SPYAD to prevent further problems, if you are using IE browser:

"IE-SPYAD adds a long list of sites and domains associated with known advertisers, marketers, and crapware pushers to the Restricted sites zone of Internet Explorer. Once you merge this list of sites and domains into the Registry, the web sites for these companies will not be able to use cookies, ActiveX controls, Java applets, or scripting to compromise your privacy or your PC while you surf the Net. Nor will they be able to use your browser to push unwanted pop-ups, cookies, or auto-installing programs on your PC."

http://www.spywarewarrior.com/uiuc/resource.htm

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And if your popups say "Messenger Service" at the top Title Bar. Read Here:

Older versions of Windows (pre XP-SP2) can get "Messenger Service" popups which are caused by Microsoft leaving the almost never used Messenger Service enabled by default. These type of popups will have the words "Messenger Service" up top in the title bar. This was corrected in Windows XP- Service Pack 2.

Understand that the Windows Messenger Service is completely different from, and not in any way related to, "MSN Messenger", "Windows Live Messenger" "yahoo Messenger", or any other well-known instant messaging system. Therefore, disabling the Windows Messenger service will have no effect upon your use of any other instant messaging applications. They will continue to work without trouble.

To disable this service in older versions of Windows use the free, Shoot The Messenger from:

http://www.grc.com/stm/ShootTheMessenger.htm

Good luck.

Your PC is infected with adware. Use this free scan to remove it.

http://superantispyware.com/

SUPERAntiSpyware is the most thorough scanner on the market. Our Multi-Dimensional Scanning and Process Interrogation Technology will detect spyware that other products miss! SUPERAntiSpyware will remove ALL the Spyware, NOT just the easy ones!

Easily remove over 100,000 pests such as SmitFraud, Vundo, WinFixer, SpyAxe, SpyFalcon, WinAntiVirus, AntiVermins and thousands more!

After your PC is clean from adware, install a free pop up blocker.

http://toolbar.yahoo.com/

Oh dear - it looks like you've found out the hard way just how bad Microsoft Windows is! Before connecting a Microsoft Windows system to the internet, you must first take as many precautions as you can. So many people think it is safe to use Microsoft stuff :(

For now, you can use SUPERAntiSpyware

http://www.superantispyware.com/

FREE edition to clean up your infestation.

But remember that even though you've cleaned this one out, Microsoft Windows is still vulnerable!

* Make sure you always run up-to-date anti-virus and anti-spyware programs.

* Always install all Microsoft security updates as soon as they come out.

* Ensure you have a properly configured firewall.

* Never use Internet Explorer (use Firefox instead) or MSN Messenger (Use GAIM or Trillian).

* Never download anything you don't understand.

* Never click on any ad banners.

* Never use any "P2P" file sharing programs.

* Consider the upgrade to Linux or Mac OS X to be free of adware / spyware / trojans

You probably have spyware/adware.No anti-spyware can detect all spyware/adware..You need at least two anti spyware programs. The two I recommend are No Adware(Over 42,000,000 Downloads by people in over 100 Countries) and Spyware Remover

They can both be found on this page:

http://www.anti-spywares.info/

Download, install and update both programs.

Run full system scans with both programs, they are able to find the problems and remove them.

Finally,Make sure you have 2 antispyware on your computer and 1 antivirus and also 1 firewall.

GOOD LUCK!

I've seen install this or install that or Linux is better than Microsoft blah blah blah......Microsoft XP and Vista have been proven to be the most secure OS out there with the most current patches.

Do what you will but please make sure you get a broadband router. A decent router with NAT (network address translation) will protect your connection no matter what OS you'll use and it will hide your exsistance from most script-kiddies and internet baddies.

Slainte!

To remove annoying pop-ups from your internet interface you can use Pop-up Blocker.

I found a free download of Pop-up Blocker here http://bit.ly/popup-blocker

Download Internet Explorer 7. It does a great job of blocking pop-ups and even has a "phishing" filter.

Adaware or Spybot work wonders

it sound like spyware to me download a few free anti spyware programs and after update them then run scans with them

get ad-aware here http://www.download.com/3000-2144-10045910.html

spybot search and destroy here http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index....

AVG anti spyware here http://free.grisoft.com/doc/20/lng/us/tpl/v5