2995 addware infections

greetings and salutations my friends...i am having some troubles with second life...whenever i install it i am unable to go ANYWHERE on the net...so i ran pestpatrol and found 2995 infections all of which were in the second life folder...after i removed the infections i was finally able to browse the web.i have since installed second life 3 times and the result is the same.unable to connect to the net till i purge my system of second life...what the duce is going on?

What operating system are you using?

What firewalls, hardware and or software, do you use?

What anti-virus do you use? Do you let it run in realtime protection mode?

What anti-malware do you use? Do you let it run in realtime protection mode?

What operating system are you using?
XP...my fave operating system...and if i get enough of them i get to go up a level

What firewalls, hardware and or software, do you use?
windows firewall

What anti-virus do you use? Do you let it run in realtime protection mode?
i have several...AVG,spybot search and destroy,pestpatrol,addaware2008...and yes i let the ones that have the realtime protection run

What anti-malware do you use? Do you let it run in realtime protection mode?
same as above

All the programs you list have realtime modes if they are paid for versions.

Having all of those running at once might be a problem in and of itself.

You don't actually say which of those are running realtime protection, though.
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If you are actually getting adware installed or downloaded and an anti-malware program is running in realtime mode then you shouldn't have to do a special run to find out about the adware. It should tell you at the time it appears and gets detected.

I'd be thinking about trying Hijack This in conjunction with one of the forums where you post the Hijack This report and see what the supposed experts say. Note that when you use Hijack This if you aren't an expert you shouldn't let it do anything but make a report. Show the report in a forum and see what the folks that read the reports all the time have to say.

Alternately I might do something like this:

Update AVG, pestpatrol, spybot and adaware.

Disconnect from the net by unplugging the network connector.

Disable spybot, pestpatrol and adaware.

Disable system restore.

Make AVG do an exhaustive scan and repair, quarantine or delete things as indicated.

Make Spybot do a complete scan and let it repair as indicated.

Make PestPatrol do an exhaustive scan and repair.

Make AdAware, let it do an exhaustive scan and repair.

If you haven't died from old age by the time all that is through, then you could re-enable System Restore and plug the ethernet cable back in or otherwise re-connect to the internet.

Then I'd go to an online scanner like Panda's and let it do a thorough scan.

That's not necesarily exactly what I'd do, but something like it. I might get too impatient to run that many exhaustive scans, but I'd sure make at least one of the anti-malware programs check every single file on all hard drives.

I would not run all those in real-time mode. They might be interfering with each other and bogging your system down.

Personally I have used AVG and Windows Defender in the past and found that to work pretty well. Currently I am using Avast and Windows Defender and find that works ok. I'm not sure which I prefer between AVG and Avast.

If you like a low-key anti-malware program, one that doesn't badger you, Window Defender is hard to beat so far as not bugging you goes.

I imagine that someone far more knowledgeable about such matters will pop up with some better suggestions

You don't say if you get an error message when you have browser trouble.

Also, what browser?

Are you re-downloading the SL installer each time? I would delete the old installer and redownload a fresh one each time if had that sort of problem.

I run both AVG 8.0 Free and Windows Defender in real time at the same time and have never had a problem. I also just ran a complete system scan and all AVG reported was 88 tracking cookies (the benign type with zero threat..........which I got rid of by clearing my cookies).

I can't imagine what the OP is doing to get that many maleware threats by simply installing SL unless he may have somehow picked up an infected copy of the SL installation. If it were me, I'd delete that file and go to SL's download site for a fresh copy (with my firewall firmly in place). I would download the installation file to my hard drive and run my antivirus scanner over it before running it. If my scanner picked up any virus or threat, I'd be on the phone to LL immediately. If you antivirus did not find any threats then try another installation of SL.

If it happened again after doing that do as Suzanne said.........turn off your system restore and do all those scans (with your computer disconnected from the internet). Reboot your computer and then turn system restore back on. Make sure your antivirus is running, your firewall is working correctly and try again with yet another clean download.

And, for what it's worth. Windows Firewall for XP is very near to having no firewall at all. The firewall for Vista is pretty good though. There are many free firewalls that are excellent. I use COMODO PRO............100% free and very good. And if you are using AVG's latest free anti virus (AVG 8 Free) it has an anti maleware scanner that can run in realtime. Between AVG's anti maleware and Windows Defender I have yet to pick up any threatening maleware. And I do a lot of web surfing too.