About a week ago my home PC was infected with the "Microsoft Piracy Control" virus; I saw at least one post on this board about it, so I won't go into great detail. Ever since then, my machine has been extremely slow--internet takes forever to load, repeatedly bombarded by popups, windows randomly close. Also, when I search with Google, instead of results I get ads. Like, the description of the search item will be correct, but the link sends me to sites like ebay.com, thecanadianmeds.com and others.

So I downloaded SpyBot and it keeps detecting the Smitfraud virus. I delete it each time and, each time, it returns and changes everyone's background, etc, etc.

When it comes to computers, I'm completely inept. Please help. I'd really appreciate it.

Thank you!

Shut off system restore, clear temp files and cookies in Internet Explorer and empty the recycle Bin. Then run Spybot. Are you behind a firewall?

Yes, I'm behind a firewall.

...Is that bad?

No, that is good.

Download a squared http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software...

And Ad aware http://www.download.com/3000-2144-1...

Before posting try google. Backup. Use anti virus software.