Spybot and DSO (Data Source Object) Exploit question

[Blarg]

Searching for a little help here from someone familiar with Spybot or just with whatever software is relevant, please.

I just installed Spybot on my new computer, and it came up with five items it grouped under DSO, or Data Source Object Exploit.

I'm wondering if there's anything particularly dangerous about letting Spybot remove them. Does anyone have any idea on that?

These DSO's are shown in Spybot as pointing to HKEY_USERS, and then to different subfolders. One goes to HKEY_USERS\DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\InternetSettings\Zones\0\and a number, and the other four entries all have a different numbered second directory down. Here's an illustration of how the other ones look -- this is kinda hard to explain:

HKEY_USERS\some letters and numbers\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ InternetSettings\Zones\0\and a number

I don't know if my specifying helps make the question much clearer or not, but either way -- any ideas whether letting Spybot remove this stuff is dangerous or could cause instability? If it matters, my computer is a new Compaq and I've installed only some Party skins, Pokertracker, Ad-Aware, and Spybot, but back at the factory, Compaq installed a boatload of things like Works and Adobe etc ad infinitum.

Any help or insight would be appreciated.

[SlantNGo]

Yep I've removed those before... no problems with it, just some "holes" in Internet Explorer zones... there's no harm in keeping them there either... it's like the Windows Media Player Client ID that Spybot will also pick up.

[rusellmj]

If your trying to get rid of pop-ups and adware get Mozilla. Forget IE, it's a little faster but I haven't seen a pop-up since switching to Mozilla about four weeks ago. I have no idea why MS doesn't fix this crap. They certainly have the resources. Maybe when everyone is using Mozilla they'll get a clue.
GL
Russ

[theredwave]

No harm in removing them. You should also pick up Ad-Aware and run that with Spybot every week after updating them. Always helps to keep the computer working smoothly.

[jakethebake]

I don't know if it's true, but out resident IS geek at work told me that the DSO Exploit thing is actually something put in by Microsoft and isn't really regular spyware but still shows up. He says dont worry about it.

Use Spybot & Adaware in conjunction with one another. Between them they seem to get about everything. Spybot alone doesn't.

[BradleyT]

Service Pack 2 for windows XP automatically turns on popup blocking in IE and does a great job of it.

[Blarg]

Yeah, I've got Ad Aware too. I really like both programs.

[Blarg]

Thanks for the answers, guys.

Now I just have to figure out how to get all the Norton crap slowly out of my new computer. Norton Firewall and Security Center and Anti-Virus came with the puter, and so far I've mananged to make some of it not pop up at me whenever I start up and at odd occasions tell me I need to run it even MORE often, but so far haven't been able to get Norton Security Center out of my taskbar. Used to be the good programs had an easy to find way to turn themselves off and get themselves out of your task bar. Now even Norton is making it difficult.

Running msconfig on this new computer sucks too. On the old one, I got a big expandable window that let me see more clearly what it was that loaded at start-up. Now I get a hard to read unexpandable window.