Looking for Internet Monitoring Software

[Kevin Mullins]

Does anyone know of or can suggest a small internet monitoring type program that can tell me where certain junk comes from?
For instance....when my kids surf the web and such, I always end up having all kinds of crap on my pc that has been added, aoutomatically starts, pop-up, etc. (you guys know the drill) It's not that they visit BAD sites, mostly music and video type stuff. But alot of those are full of advertising type junk that keeps popping up everywhere. I've narrowed down a few of the site they frequent, but I was curious if there was something that can monitor when something was added and WHERE it came from. I hate setting all the privacy levels so high to block most of this, because then it is almost unbearable for ME to surf the stuff that I use.

Any ideas?

Tempted to go try Firefox or something, but everyone else in the house is used to IE.

[shock_]

You can and should run Firefox - leave the family with IE if they choose (the two co-exist peacefully).

If you show them how many ads / popups you don't get, they might give it a go anyway!

[Loki]

I use Firefox with NoScript... no more weird scripts or popups.
It needs getting used to but it works great for me.

http://noscript.net/

[Kevin Mullins]

Can the IE favorites be transfered/imported over to Firefox?
Or can I copy the links from my favorites folder into a "favorites" in Firefox?

I haven't really looked intop specifics on Firefox yet, but it's looking more and more like I may give that a try for myself at least and see what I can and can't do with it as faras using some of the "goodies" the rest of the family is used to. (toolbars, etc)
I say this because if I like it then I will want to do away with IE completely because even if they are just using it it will still load crap onto the pc and slow it down. (background running stuff) Just tired of this routine I have to "clean" everything out all the time to keep things running smoothly.

Thanks for the advice and suggestions.

[Loki]

IIRC, right after the firefox install it will ask if you want to import bookmarks, history, passwords and other data from IE or some other browser.
Or you can find "import" under File in Firefox.

[Angry_Radish]

Agreed on the firefox thing, but there is more you could be doing to keep your kids from doing crap like that if you are running xp.
Set up one admin account, then set up user level accounts for everyone.
Only log in to the admin account when you need to install something.
That way the every day accounts won't have the rights to install as much of the crap that kids usually do..
Just a thought..
Cheers!

[Kevin Mullins]

That way the every day accounts won't have the rights to install as much of the crap that kids usually do..

So being logged in under an everyday account (kids account) won't allow some of those "hidden" installs?
 
Keep in mind most of the junk I'm talking about are NOT intentional installs by the kids.
They are the type that just "mysteriously" pop-up automatically and actually install stuff to the pc.
OUTERINFO is one that comes to mind immediately. It's all about advertising crap, but it actually installs something to keep it running automatically.
  

Thanks again guys...... probably going to take a shot at Firefox when I get a chance to play with it.

[Havok]

Just upgrade to Vista!

Give the kids a standard user account, and enable parental filters...

[Space Fractal]

You cant really disable javascript, since they are used by many webgames and sites. These sites which many kids use.

You could done 2 things to do much safer surf my IE:

- Turn on full window blocking from IE, so you need to use CTRL to open a new window. This may do sent prevent Flash based windows to been pop-ed up.

- Install a good hosts file: http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm. This file take the most nasty and annoying sites down.

And of course as some said: Use a guest account.

[Loki]

You cant really disable javascript, since they are used by many webgames and sites. These sites which many kids use.

Like I said, use noscript
This way you can disable java. When you visit a trusted site you can turn it on for that particular site... it will remember it for the next time you visit.
It's a bit of extra work (2 mouseclicks ) but it is a lot less work and annoyance then a ad/spyware infected PC.

[Space Fractal]

The only problem is the kids may not know what it really does, and just click randomizing on the request. A parental control is better here.

It better to secure it with a spyware/adblock software, something like http://www.superadblocker.com/

(wich I just saw a very good review from a danish antispyware site. I have not testet it myself yet).

Remember: Java and JavaScript is not the same thing (yes I know, what you say here).