I don't know if anyone else is having trouble with this or not but, most of the time when I IM somebody, something ends up cuasing my antivirus to freak out. I have even got a few virus while on the IM. It also usually cuases me to lose contact with the person I am speaking with and sometimes cuases windows to shutdown. I don't ever click on any of the ads either. Just thought you guys should be aware. Great site though, keep up the good work.

thats weird. for i have never found any problem with mine

I downloaded koobface about two weeks ago just for responding to an IM. Be careful with that crap. My work laptop is all screwed up still. Its working now but still loaded with trojans that koobface installed. No longer just for myspace and facebook.

I don't know what "koobface" is but it does seem that some of the ads have a way of opening them selves up. In fact earlier tonight my IM window just took me to some chinesse sex site or something. I didn't click on any ads either, but man does it freak out my antivirus!

You probably have koobface, it downloads trojans to your machine. Go to MSN.com and type koobface remove in the search engine. Microsoft puts out a monthly scanner that's free of charge, run it and it will kill off the majority of the problem, let me see if I can dig up a link.

http://www.microsoft.com/security/malwareremove/default.mspx

Don't accept chat from someone unless you know them.

You should run a full virus scan after the MSRT runs too just to cleanup the rest of the crap that it downloads. I use spywaredoctor. It costs 40 bucks but worth every penny.

I use webroot and I run a full sweep everytime something wierd happens. I just got done with a sweep and it said it found nothing. Do you still think that I might have a problem?

I would run microsofts maleware checker. It doesn't take very long and if there's a "popular" virus of some kind on your computer it will find it and kill it. Then run your antivirus to cleanup afterwords. MSRT is made to kill viruses when they are already running, virus scans just try to prevent them from running.

Like the truck by the way, and the jeep, both yours?

Truck, yes. Jeep, no(my brother's)

Thanks for the heads-up, Tracker_Ar. We've checked the ads on a few occasions (including right now, as you might guess) and have not been able to duplicate this behavior. We'll continue to scan those ads to look for anything suspicious.

When I try to use Messenger, the window opens and then it goes to some WEIRD Website. Then IE locks up and it won't let me out. Had to do a control alt delete to get out even though I never clicked on the website that poppped up.

OK, finally got messenger to work and while chatting, got warning to close as Malware was trying to install.

You're not getting viruses from IM. It may trigger your antivirus but you don't get viruses from IM.

Every time I use the IM feature it will work for a bit, then the Ads overtake it and the only way to get rid of the ads is to close it down and start all over. Have to do this sometimes 6 or 7 times when talking to someone. Has been happening for months and months. I have Webroot too and just had malware run on my machine by Dell to clean it up, still had it happen. I give up!!!

Happened again tonight, was on it for maybe 2 minutes, then a screen for "Adobe" flashed up like it was trying to update, it took over the screen, locked it up. Had to do a reboot to get the computer to work again. This happens frequently when I use the IM, if not Adobe, then the ads running at the bottom of the AV messenger will suddenly fill up the messenger screen, no way to get rid of them other than close out the window and start over, sometimes will happen 7 or 8 times if you are talking for 20 or 30 minutes. Has been going on for months now.

I don't IM anymore because of it...something always happens when I do...

Sorry to hear about your guys' troubles with the IM. It's tough to really go after an issue that is affecting a small percentage of the population, but we will contact the company that provides the IM and see if they have any useful advice. In the meantime, I suggest that anybody experiencing this issue email me their system's specs.