to make a long story short i tried to find a crack for an old school game that i wanted to sample for another 60 minutes or so more after the trial ran out and ended up getting some crap on my computer. it wasnt worth it.

symptoms:
- startup of Firefox/IE i get IE popups for a couple stupid companies and those annoying spyware removal tools (the hoax ones you know?)
- in safe mode when i run a virus scan or use the internet internet conks out, iget one use of firefox and after a while it dies anyway (like not just web pages, like everything, vnc, ssh, just outbound connections in general)
- scanners and forensics continue to come up with stuff, but im not sure when it's all said and done
- vstools toolbar in IE

what i did:
booted in safe mode
used adaware scanner (just the free no protection mode) and got a lot of crap off
used avast scanner and got nothing off
internet conked out halfway through avast scan and rebooted normally to see results
still had popups
rebooted in a tuneup backup
no popups this time but did notice vstools toolbar in IE (didnt install it), oops i lied, while writing this message i got one, nice (sarcasm)
used hijackthis and uninstalled
hijackthis had some interesting logs
went through Program files and deleted some some stuff in Common Files that was obvious junk

what im planning on doing :
cleaning up the rest of Program Files
getting feedback from you guys and cleaning up what ever u think i should
doing an online scan in safe mode if i have ninernet (housecall, pandascan, etc.)
never downloading game cracks again/allowing stuff through virus protection and noscript, most retarded thing ive done all year

questions:
would u look at this hijackthis log and tell me what u think (attached to bottom)
any other ideas or suggestions u guys might have?
how do i know when im clean?

another thing that might help, a lil while back i got a rootkit from someone through aim, people only generally talk to me if they are from school, but apparently someone on the internet (a forum like this one i presume, only place where i give my sn) got my sn and sent me a link. they had a female sn and asked if i would look at a picture and tell them if it was ok if they could put it on their blog, so of course i opened link, software installed and i immediately started crying knowing exactly what had happened, lol. rebooted using a partition wizard i had a few weeks later when stuff started breaking (media player, email, word, etc.) and deleted the new partition under my windows one, and while i was at it reformatted and reinstalled windows. anyway i could still have issues from this episode. i only bring it up cause it up cause it was only a month ago. sigh, no more looking for cracks ever again, and no tlaking to strange people