Please help, this spyware is driving me crazy

[Goofball]

So, about every ten minutes while I am using my PC, I get a pop-up box that tells me either my "computer is being hacked," "somebody is trying to steal my personal info," or some such other nonsense. If I click on the pop-up, it takes me to this site:

http://antispywarebox.com/

that is trying to sell me anti spy-ware protection called Titan Shield. They make the following sales pitch:

IF YOU ANSWERED YES TO ANY OF THESE QUESTIONS, THERE IS 95% CHANCE
THAT YOUR COMPUTER IS ALREADY INFECTED WITH SPYWARE!

Q: Do you receive a large quantity of SPAM (unsolicited advertisements)?
Q: Your PC is running extremely slow?
Q: You are pestered by those horrible popup ads?
Q: Your homepage keeps changing?
Q: New icons and shortcuts appear on your desktop?
Q: Do you get toolbars in your browser that you don't want?
Q: Do you download any music files from the Internet?
Q: Do you download and install free software from the Internet? Q: Do you use any P2P file exchange systems - for example, Kazaa, eDonkey?

Ironic, that, because those are all things they have done to me in order to get me to by their crappy product.

I have tried to rid my system of these guys, and nothing works. I have the latest McAfee "Security Suite" operating, and it doesn't pick this stuff up like it does other spyware.

Anybody have any experience with these idiots and know how to help me?

Thanks in advance.

PS: Every time I access the Internet, my home page is reset to this:

about:blank

I'm seriously going out of my frickin' mind. Those of you who know me from the Backroom know I am very anti-gun, but I would happily pump these morons full of lead if the opportunity presented itself...

[Sir Robin]

http://safer-networking.org/

Its the best general spyware and adware killer I have found.

[hoom]

There is a chance you may have a smitfraud variant.
Best way to get rid of them is Smitrem.
The list of things currently dealt with by smitrem doesn't seem to list that particular one though.

[Geezer57]

The previously-mentioned http://safer-networking.org/ is excellent. I also like to use Ad-Aware SE Personal ( http://www.lavasoftusa.com/ or http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/ ), as it finds a few items Spybot - Search & Destroy occasionally doesn't. If after installing, updating, and scanning with those two, you still have a problem, then navigate here http://www.merijn.org/index.html and read up on using Hijack This! and other advanced utilities. But be careful with them - it's easy to screw your computer up if you don't know what's what.

[_Martyr_]

As previously stated, it sounds to me like a smitfraud variant.
smitfraudfix is a good tool to remove it...
http://siri.geekstogo.com/SmitfraudFix.php

Run HijackThis and post the log, and we can probably help you out.

[Vladimir]

Bump to top. I just got hooked up at home again and have gotten too used to someone else doing my security. Thanks for the suggestions.

[hoom]

The first & foremost security step anybody should take is to turn off "install on demand" in IE.
It still will let you install stuff, just it pops up a dialogue instead of going ahead & doing it.