Fight Spam With Spam

We already knew you disabled your firewall.

The shame of it is, the FightSpamwithSpam folks were providing useful information. Now, it seems they're impossible to raise on the web. Any conspiracy theorists out there with time on their hands?

Here's what they posted:

How to prevent your computer from displaying Windows Messenger messages by doing it manually:

In Windows XP:
(1) Right click on the "My Computer" icon and select "Manage"
(2) Go to "Services and Applications"
(3) Choose "Services"
(4) Right-click on "Messenger"
(5) Select "Stop"
(6) Right click "Messenger" again
(7) Select "Properties"
(8) Change "Startup Type" to "Disabled" and click "OK"

In Windows 2000:
(1) Go to "Start" then "Settings" and choose "Control Panel"
(2) Choose "Administrative Tools"
(3) Choose "Services"
(4) Right-click "Messenger"
(5) Select "Properties"
(6) Click "Stop"
(7) Change "Startup Type" to "Disabled" and click "OK"

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. The annoying pop-up ads are now gone thanks to your instructions.

www.FightSpamWithSpam.com page isnt working anymore. but i went to it before they closed it down. they didn't want donations for themselfs. they wanted you to donate to the red cross and some other org. but it wasn't money for them. maybe one of these people are are posting ads that way may of paid them off to take that down.

"Donations" were via Paypal into their personal account. It was clearly a for-profit website.

This a great discovery. Pop up ads are quite annoying and they appear as soon as you are in the middle of creating a file or document. Thank you and Bless you for this discovery!

I recently had to wipe my pc and start over, reloading XP Pro. I had gotten rid of that bleeping Messenger before with a download from FightSpamWithSpam.com, but they were gone and I ended up on this site. I followed the instructions on this page to the letter but the pop-ups are back... Any ideas anyone?

Detailed information with screenshots is available here.

For the record, FightSpamWithSpam was not for profit. I started that site to turn a bad into some good. Philanthropy is hard to find these days so you have to make it where you can. Every penny that I got from the site was split and given to 3 different organizations to help the needy. I wanted to keep going but very few believed of the good intent and the companies selling the software to make it possible were causing me too much trouble.

That may be so, but sending Windows Messenger spam to inform people was a very poor decision on your part. It's like breaking into poorly-secured homes to leave pamphlets about home security systems; arguably useful, but not very ethical.

Sounds like some people have a problem with the FightSpamWithSpam people...well just one anyway, I think he doth protest too much, might this person be the one who is now charging for this service elsewhere? Clearly the FightSpamWithSpam made the choice to donate optional...Ted I thank you, I appreciated what you had done, you could've made it an outright charge for your service but you didn't. They may have asked for donations but they didn't demand money, you could have just said no, have seen many sites do the same. If they really wanted the money they would have asked for it before you got the information you needed and then not give you the information if you said no....Thanks again Ted!

Ted (and others)

Thanks very much for your help. After following up your advice, I have also donated some money to a charity.

(By the way, don't mind that Andy, he can't help himself.)

But now I get new pop-ups from internetwasher.com (while my messenger is disabled). Does anyone know how to get rid of this?

Thank you!

How does one remove the internetwasher pop up ads from Windows 98 2nd edition?