noparts,
Your summary is basically what I experienced. I'm posting this using FireFox because if I were to use IE to come here, I'd be right back at the start of all of the crap, and would have to spend the next day cleaning malware and trojans out.
I've gotta say, someone here needs to wake up and start looking through the ads, or the core of the forums, and the site. I tested this...after I figured out how to clean my system thoroughly (more than ever before, this was the most serious encounter I've ever had), I came back to this site specifically to post this warning and to see if it really was GCW. Guess what? Slammed again, completly, only this time I had AVG running and was able to catch some of it. And it wasn't just from GCW...it's from FileForums as well. Some got through again, since I was using IE, so I went back through the cleaning process again and got rid of everything.
I know how difficult it is to run a forum, and I have no idea how hard it must be to run a place like GCW. I've got nothing but respect for the hard work that's been put into it for the past couple years...but you guys HAVE TO FIX THIS. There's no way in hell I'll risk coming back here again because it's simply too much work to clean everything up again. And I'm a power user. What happens if someone that has absolutely no clue comes here? And I'm sure they do. They're doing it right now, and their computers are getting totally screwed because of it.
I'm really surprised there haven't been any additional posts about this. I guess I'm just glad noparts posted, too.
Anyways, for those of you that have been infected, I was so frustrated by this experience, I put together a guide that explains what tools I used to get rid of the infections I got from this site specifically. You can check it out here if you've got problems, which I'm sure a few of you do. And even if you don't, I'd still check your system out, because I bet you do!
Repairing WinXP/Vista - Guides, tools, & links to help get you back on your feet!
Please, whoever is in charge, take a look at what's going on. If it's the ads...then get rid of them and use a better ad provider that doesn't allow viruses. Or look in your core files for the forum. Much respect. Thanks.