GOOD antispyware program?
Apr 3, 2004 at 5:25 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 25

Gopher

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What do you guys use to kill spyware? I let a comupter illeterate friend use my computer for a day, came back and it is plagued with pop ups. All the free programs I've tried want to charge money to actually delete them and it's too big a pain in the ass to delete all the individual registry keys/programs.

What free programs do you use?
 
Apr 3, 2004 at 5:36 PM Post #2 of 25
Spybot and Ad-aware are my favorites. I use both, as to catch everything. Both are free and include free updates (although adaware has a pay version with even more features I guess). Spybot even has free "prevention" features that will protect your computer from getting spyware to begin with.

You can download Spybot here: http://www.safer-networking.org/

And Ad-Aware here: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/

These are a must have for any internet user in today's literally offensive ad market.

-dd3mon
 
Apr 3, 2004 at 5:50 PM Post #3 of 25
I find that a combo of Spybot Search & Destroy along with WebRoot's Spy Sweeper catch any and everything. Neither alone catch all the junk, but the two work quite well together. Spy Sweeper even caught a Trojan Horse on my computer that Norton missed. SpyWare Blaster is another great, free program that blocks stuff before it gets onto your computer. Automatically.

Spy Sweeper is free to download and install, but the updates are $30 for two years. To me, it was well worth it as it tracks any programs that try to load into memory, and anything that tries to change my homepage on my browser.

I use and run all three programs all the time. One cost money, two are free.
 
Apr 3, 2004 at 11:46 PM Post #5 of 25
Quote:

Originally posted by dd3mon
Spybot and Ad-aware are my favorites.


Those two do the trick for me, too!

The others mentioned here may be good too, but with these two I haven't felt the need to try anything else.
 
Apr 4, 2004 at 12:57 AM Post #6 of 25
Quote:

Originally posted by Earwax
Those two do the trick for me, too!

The others mentioned here may be good too, but with these two I haven't felt the need to try anything else.


Might want to try Spy Sweeper, anyways..,I run Spy Guard, Ada-Aware & Spybot on a very regular basis (3 times weekly). Well, I just tried Spy Sweeper and it found 3 bugs installed which a sweep with Ad-Aware & Spybot earlier today had not found....
wink.gif
 
Apr 4, 2004 at 12:59 AM Post #7 of 25
Lavasoft Adaware and a little registry editing on the side (Lavasoft's Reghance is good for this) takes care of all the problems on my PCs.

My Mac has no problems
smily_headphones1.gif


--Chris
 
Apr 4, 2004 at 1:35 AM Post #8 of 25
Quote:

Originally posted by ipodstudio
Might want to try Spy Sweeper, anyways..,I run Spy Guard, Ada-Aware & Spybot on a very regular basis (3 times weekly). Well, I just tried Spy Sweeper and it found 3 bugs installed which a sweep with Ad-Aware & Spybot earlier today had not found....
wink.gif


That's why I posted my above statement. I don't know why, but the combo that includes Spy Sweeper has always proven the most effective for me. I liked it so much I paid for the two-year update deal. Never regretted it either.
 
Apr 4, 2004 at 1:50 AM Post #9 of 25
I use Spybot - S&D and AdAware in conjunction with each other. I keep AdWatch (part of AdAware) running all the time, which blocks most spyware before it manages to install itself. Then I run Spybot and AdAware once a week or so. Of course, I'm also fanatical about computer security, and have educated my parents about it. First, you don't use Internet Exploder. Firefox is much faster, better, and has excellent pop-up blocking. Did I mention it's free? Second, don't visit dodgy sites that may try to install stuff. And, of course, don't open e-mail attachments.

(-:Stephonovich:)
 
Apr 7, 2004 at 5:23 PM Post #11 of 25
I personally use Ad-Aware (even better because I know a guy who works for them updating the reference files) and I use HijackThis.exe to get stuff that Ad-Aware doesn't catch.

HijackThis.exe can be found by doing a google search for it, and it works well, but know what you are doing with it.
 
Apr 7, 2004 at 5:42 PM Post #12 of 25
I have been using adaware, spybot, SpywareGuard, and SpyBlaster.

SpyBlaster stops active X controls from running on the comptuer while SpywareGuard does some download protection and prevents certain types of hi-jacking.

Recently, I have been disappointed with SpyBot search & destroy. I think AdAware right now has a much more aggressive scan (and has many more false positives too which can be determental to your system if you remove the wrong files) with more frequent updates. In my opinion, SpyBot seems to be too slow releasing updates. It use to be the other way around about two years ago- AdAware wouldn't get updates for months while SpyBot has a new update almost every week.
 
Apr 7, 2004 at 5:46 PM Post #13 of 25
SpyBot hasn't had an update in close to two weeks or so now. I keep checking for updates, but don't find any. Weird. I hope they release an update or two soon. I hate being behind in spyware detection and removal.
 
Apr 7, 2004 at 6:17 PM Post #14 of 25
Quote:

Originally posted by pedxing

Recently, I have been disappointed with SpyBot search & destroy. I think AdAware right now has a much more aggressive scan (and has many more false positives too which can be determental to your system if you remove the wrong files) with more frequent updates. In my opinion, SpyBot seems to be too slow releasing updates. It use to be the other way around about two years ago- AdAware wouldn't get updates for months while SpyBot has a new update almost every week.


Yes I noticed that too. Spybot used to find a lot more spywares than Adaware before, but now its the just opposite.
 

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