Free Spyware Removers?

[2E]

Im using Adaware SE yet my computer still seems slow...

hmmmmmm i have a feeling it isnt picking up all its supposed to..

i also have SPYWARE BLASTER installed, which stops spyware installing.

Still, anyone know any others?

[the captain]

right get your mits on this lot...ts all free and works a treat!!

AVG free edition
SPYBOT SEARCH AND DESTROY
SPYWARE BLASTER you already got!

Another thing if you can find it is ZONE ALARM...i got a cracked version i can possibly bung on a disk!

I had the slow running, always crashing problem till i got this lot and it cleared it all up a treat!!

[Ducky]

I'm using Ad-Aware SE Pro with Ad-Watch, no problems. If you want a copy let me know - 6.4Mb, I can MSN or mail it to you.

:)

[Dan]

Being a Linux techie, MS stuff is not my bag but this is good:

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/default.mspx

Dan.

[Lateshift]

use sygate personal firewall instead of Zone Alarm ;)

less obtrusive to start with ;)

most people get lured into using Zone Alarm, its not bad but its designed by a bloke who ranted on about Microsoft for that long that he lost credibility in the security circles, so much so that he then designed a neat little application that you download to test the security of the PC using other firewall's the only problem was that it reports Zone Alarm as being the mutts nutts and all the others as insecure, its hardly likely to pass anyone else's considering its actually a hacking tool that is specifically designed by him after taking a look at the other firewalls and then you go and download it to use it ;)

its like inviting a vampire in :D


Anyway, back to the subject of the PC slowing down, there is a lot of hype these days about PC's being clogged up with spyware and some of it is unnecessary when in truth all you need to do is make sure that the PC is maintained using the system tools ;)

if you are using spyware blaster then trust it, it stops spyware being installed and downloaded.

Adaware will remove any it finds, and AVG is more than up to the job of keeping the PC virus free (in fact it will find stuff that Norton cant).

But make sure you do the obvious stuff like using disk cleanup, defrags etc.

Lastly if you are getting worried about the PC slowing down, then take a look into the task manager to see what the memory useage is like and also the CPU useage, you can learn a lot from that ;)

if you suspect that internet activity is causing it then use a command prompt to check for what is connecting to your PC

easy way to do that is close all your browsers and open a command prompt, and type netstat -20 (this will monitor all connections to the PC's ports for 20 seconds at a time) alternately if you know your way around the ports then use netstat -a (which will do a full list of whats being used).

You might want to use hijack this and also CC (crap cleaner) you would be surprised at just what is lurking on the PC :D

[2E]

I'm using Ad-Aware SE Pro with Ad-Watch, no problems. If you want a copy let me know - 6.4Mb, I can MSN or mail it to you.

:)

If you could send us adwatch mate i would like that ;) cheers PM me for my addy.

Ok on the virus part im sorted there... ive got MCAFEE which seems to be doing its job..

also i have installed the Spyware beta thing from microsoft. seems quite good.

[2E]

i just used ares and always get spyware through it with every use, however. the beta windows thing seems to have protected my comp...i am impressed, just running adaware to double check but wow..

oh no...5 objects... microsoft wrong again lol

Oh if anyone has the spyware bit for mcafee can they send me that as well?

thanks!

[Lateshift]

first off you need to really turn off system restore to do a proper clean up ;)

then make sure spyware blaster is up to date, do a full scan with Adaware (making sure in the options that it checks everything).

delete what it finds.

do a virus scan with AVG again making sure its a full one.

restart the PC

recheck it all to make sure its clean and turn system restore on ;)

spyware/malware etc is sneaky as f00k, some of it can come back with system restore active ;)

and even Microsoft likes to advertise so they are hardly going to block everything ;)