I downloaded a ****** item and ever since i have been repeatedly attacked!!!!!!! Every few minutes a PORN DIALLER pops up, and opens IE to begin a stream of German porn sites. I have deleted hundreds of times and edited the registry, but it still pops up, THIS SUCKSSSS!!!!!!!!! I am now going to have to REFORMAT!!!!!!!!!!!! I will lose tons of files because I'm afraid to carry them over. THIS DIALLER ACTS LIKE A VIRUS BUT IS NOT DETECTED BY ANTI VIRUS PROGRAMS!!!!!!!!! IT WILL REPLICATE ITSELF FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I WILL NEVER OPEN LIMEWIRE AGAIN, IT SUCKS!!!!!!!!!! NOTHING BUT VIRUSES AND BULL****!!!!!!!! MOST OF THE PROGRAMS PEOPLE SHARE ARE INFECTED OR ARE BULL****!!!!!!!!!!!! BEWARE OF LIMEWIRE!!!!!!! I WILL BE PASSING THIS MESSAGE ON TO EVERY CHAT ROOM AND DISCUSSION I CAN FIND!!!!!!!! I HOPE GNUTELLA SHUTS DOWN, IT"S ALL BULL****!!!!!! AND FOR THOSE SCUMBAGS AMONG YOU SHARING "KIDDIE PORN" I HAVE REPORTED YOU AND YOUR IP ADDRESS TO THE FBI!!!!! I HOPE YOU ROT IN A CELL WITH A GUY NAME LEROY!!!!!!!! I HOPE THEY CAN FIND LIMEWIRE LIABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

dude!! dont' reformat. I bet there's a way to delete the thing. Can you do some google searches? I'd repost this on all the gnutella forums with a more descriptive header eg. "How do I delete this porn dialer? Please help." If all else fails I bet you can even email the german site and ask them how to delete the program.

The possibility, that this has to do with limewire is small. I can think of two ways, how you got this system hijacker on your computer.
The first is, you may have downloaded and viewed a .exe, .doc, .rtf, .vbs or similar file through a filesharer. If it was this, you cannot blame anyone but yourself.
The second is a website, that exploits vulnerabilities in Internet explorer (ActiveX, Jscript->ActiveX and so on) to edit your registry and run code on your computer. On the lavasoft forum there is a thread about such a site, that behaves similar to what you described and uses a misspelled name of a popular domain, to trap surfers by a typo. Removing this can be tricky, but people can help you, if you post more technical details about it.

Clear your IE cache, deleting offline content too. Go to Symantic and run their online virusscan.

No, no, reformat!

And then install a proper operating system and some proper software.

God I get sick of this lame 'oh windows is so vulnerable to viruses' crap. Microsoft don't fix it because they get so much media publicity from it, d*ck. What else could get them on the 6 o'clock news three times a year? That's a multi-million dollar timeslot.

internet explorer substitute:
http://www.mozilla.org

windows xp substitute:
http://www.linux.org

have fun :-)

Amen! Try Mandrake 8.2 for a Windows alternative.

I can't knock Limewire because I love the website creator softwares I've gotten from Limewire. I just pity Limewire for the potential customers they lose due to the problem of these porn dialers attached to MANY downloads here. Most folks don't know how to get rid of the dialers, and the word is getting around to avoid Limewire because of these porn dialers. Steve196, these dialers are being picked up in other ways, but they are being attached to Limewire downloads as well. What an easy way for them to trick folks into huge phone bills as well as to pick up new sicko customers! Most folks can't get the dialer out of their system, and don't realize they are dialing everytime they accidently activate it while trying to close it!

Unfortunately, these dialers aren't a virus...so they're not detected by your antivirus software. They aren't a typical program...so you can't use your uninstall utility to find and remove them. And Steve196...it IS coming from SOME Limewire downloads. I've picked it up ONLY when downloading from Limewire.

This is how I've gotten rid of it on my system...first of all, the minute I see it loading, I do NOT click the "X" to close it...this just activates more things to pop up. I click in the left corner and choose "close". I right-click the dialer's icon and view the properties in order to see where the heck it's tucked into my puter. I scroll my program files for it...it's always been found by digging this way~~~~~>My Computer, Programs, WINNT, Dialers. If I've tried to hi-lite and delete the dialer in the program files, it won't do allow me to delete it. I drag the whole danged dialer file to the recycle bin. I look for any icons the program installed on my desktop and in my startup menu, right-click and delete the icons. Then, I empty my recycle bin. Lastly, I go into my Tools, Internet Options, Content, Certificates, and click on each tab of each type of certificates. I look for any certificate with names/words which appeared in the properties description of the dialer. I delete these certificates. These certificates basically give the dialer permission to reload into your system. Get them out! Finally, I change the security settings for the items which allow scripts to run on my computer to "prompt". (If you disable them, you can't navigate many websites...if you set these to "prompt" when one is running...well...you start to recognize that when you click on a link, you know a script should run and to click "ok" to the prompt, but if the prompt appears for no reason, you know something is trying to run on its own...click "NO". Usually removing the certificate is enough to finally kill the stupid dialer off. I don't find that I need to leave the security settings on prompt. The prompts can make you nutty if you surf the web alot, and I haven't needed them once I discovered removing the certificates.

I'm no whiz...I can't tell you too much in the line of explaining why...but this has gotten the darned dialer out of there. I ONLY pick that dialer up when I download some software at Limewire...and no, it's NOT adult software.

Oh...forgot...empty your temporary files and cookies~~~~>Tools...Internet Options...delete cookies...delete files...delete history (if you don't want to delete all your history, just hi-lite the links in the history list and delete them). Be sure you empty your trash! I know dif OS's use dif. terminology & menus...but you get the idea.

And no, I didn't download any obvious exe, etc. files. I downloaded only zips...scanned for viruses before opening. So what do you recommend? I've had many successful downloads without viruses or dialers and such. Had one backdoor virus...that's it. When the antivirus picked up on the backdoor virus, I opened Limewire's shared folder and deleted the software download without opening it. Lately it seems many of my Limewire attempts have the dialer attached.