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What is the best FREE ad/spyware romover?

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lo escondido

Apartheid is, in fact, not institutional racism
MAZYORA said:
Yeah, but i dont know which one to pick. It came up with a bunch of results. I want hte official spybot. Please can u help me!?
If you search spybot the first link is the offical site
 

MAZYORA

Member
Macam said:
Just use www.versiontracker.com to find these programs directly then. And I'd recommend installing SpySweeper, though it's only free for 30-days...it's better than both Ad-Aware and Spybot.
Is there anything i need to do after its done scaning. Meaning will it effect my computer in any way. I dont want it deleting anything thats crucial to my computer working.
 

ChrisReid

Member
MAZYORA said:
Is there anything i need to do after its done scaning. Meaning will it effect my computer in any way. I dont want it deleting anything thats crucial to my computer working.

Don't forget to reinstall windows after you run spybot.
 

ghostface

Member
a) You suck at the Internet
b) No, you can usually delete everything Spybot S&D finds, unless you see something you are sure you want to keep. Also, when installing, S&D gives you the option of making a backup of your registry, in case you erase something crucial. You should make that backup.
c) You suck at the internet :)

For prevention's sake, you should use Firefox as your browser, get a good firewall (ZoneAlarm is the best free one, www.zonelabs.com ), and get Spyblaster and Microsoft AntiSpyware Beta, as it monitors you computer for any attemps at changes. You should be pretty safe after all this.
 

ghostface

Member
MAZYORA said:
I'm still getting these internet explorer popups! What do i do?
Try this:
AVG Anti-Virus

Just yesterday I was getting popups that none of my anti-spyware were finding, but AVG did the trick (it found a couple of trojans). Might help you too.

Edit: Did you try the other programs (Ad-Aware, Microsoft AntiSpyware) mentioned in this thread?
 

Ecrofirt

Member
this is a good time to ask this:

My girlfriend let her Norton subscription run out, and she's interested in getting AVG now. With Norton installed on her machine already, is thing going to cause big problems? I've advised her not to install AVG for the time being until I find out for sure.
 

Ecrofirt

Member
From everything I've read, Norton is a bastard to uninstall. Little bits of it always remain behind.

Will this fuck with AVG?
 

MAZYORA

Member
cloudwalking said:

I actually use Mozilla Firefox on my computer. I also use Opera sometimes too. I have Spyware-Adware remover by bullit proof software, but its not a free program(was for me, my uncle installed it). Anyhow, i was using my roomates computer for porn, and he uses SBC Yahoos browser, and i F'd it up, so i needed a free spyware remover. He has Adaware, but that didnt fix it. I'm tryin' the AVG-Antivirus right now. Hopefully it works. I'm not that great with the internet, but I know what browsers to use and such, i just didnt know what was the best free spyware remover to use since i have a pay one on my computer. I couldnt exactly copy that to a disk and use it on my roomies computer because i dont have a burner.
 

cloudwalking

300chf ain't shit to me
MAZYORA said:
I actually use Mozilla Firefox on my computer. I also use Opera sometimes too. I have Spyware-Adware remover by bullit proof software, but its not a free program(was for me, my uncle installed it). Anyhow, i was using my roomates computer for porn, and he uses SBC Yahoos browser, and i F'd it up, so i needed a free spyware remover. He has Adaware, but that didnt fix it. I'm tryin' the AVG-Antivirus right now. Hopefully it works. I'm not that great with the internet, but I know what browsers to use and such, i just didnt know what was the best free spyware remover to use since i have a pay one on my computer. I couldnt exactly copy that to a disk and use it on my roomies computer because i dont have a burner.

ah, in that case, i will suggest you try spy sweeper. my parents had a really nasty spyware problem on their computer a few months ago, and this took care of it wonderfully. it has a 30-day trial, but that should be more than enough time for you to remove everything.

if that still doesn't work, download hijackthis. then you can use the log analyzer here to check out your logs. there are also support forums where you can post your logs and have experts help you out with analyzing your results.
 

8bit

Knows the Score
Ecrofirt said:
From everything I've read, Norton is a bastard to uninstall. Little bits of it always remain behind.

Will this fuck with AVG?

My wife removed Norton and installed AVG about a month ago without issue.
 

MAZYORA

Member
cloudwalking said:
ah, in that case, i will suggest you try spy sweeper. my parents had a really nasty spyware problem on their computer a few months ago, and this took care of it wonderfully. it has a 30-day trial, but that should be more than enough time for you to remove everything.

if that still doesn't work, download hijackthis. then you can use the log analyzer here to check out your logs. there are also support forums where you can post your logs and have experts help you out with analyzing your results.

Oh, so Spysweeper doesn't usually work on the first try? I ran it and still was getting the same popups. If I run it a bunch of times will it work?
 

DarienA

The black man everyone at Activision can agree on
No adware remover is 100%, repeat this til Blue in the face. What this means is that spyware removers don't work like antivirus software.

Antivirus software has patterns that it uses to recognize existing virus' and their variations.... and some also can detect and remove based on intelligent evaluation.

Spyware removes can only remove based on the patterns of spyware they know, and spyware software isn't updated as quickly as antivirus software these days... not yet at least.

Now with the said, the best combination right now is the three mentioned, adaware, spybot, and running MS' real time antispware.

Spy Sweeper is also a good choice during it's trial period AND actually worth buying.

Finally if as a last resort you can use HiJackThis... but READ THE INSTRUCTIONS.
 

Hooker

Member
I don't think there are. It's a project of some bloke who likes to toy with computers. It's no company which makes these things.


But for the once a week scan I reckon you can cope with it...
 

DarienA

The black man everyone at Activision can agree on
Hooker said:
I don't think there are. It's a project of some bloke who likes to toy with computers. It's no company which makes these things.


But for the once a week scan I reckon you can cope with it...

Once a week? I have the MS scanner scanning my machine every night baby! ;)
 

DarienA

The black man everyone at Activision can agree on
Koshiro said:
You sure that's not the messenger popups? Uninstall messenger.

Wait, wait, wait... don't confuse the poster... disabled the Messenger SERVICE... don't uninstall MSN Messenger the IM program(if you use it).

Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services - find Messenger and set it to Disabled... though if you install the MS Antispyware program one of the first things it will do after installation is tell you if the Messenger service is enabled and offer to disable it... I think a few of the other ones do to.
 

Hooker

Member
You're paranoid! Or you have other people less knowledgable using your computer :p



But the Dutch is really REALLY basic in the program. The standard configuration is pretty good and start/stop is the same in Dutch as in English. Furthermore, it uses the language your windows uses, so I reckon it's English for you.

The status is in Dutch, but what it tell you is that so-and-so program started scanning and what it did in order to archieve the best scanning results (shutting off messenger, or changing the sercurity settings of IE, it puts them back when it's done so)
 

DarienA

The black man everyone at Activision can agree on
Hooker said:
You're paranoid! Or you have other people less knowledgable using your computer :p

Neither since we leave our PC on all the time anyway, I figure why not let the thing scan while I'm asleep.. it's certainly not hurting the machine.

I'll check out this program in the near future.
 

lexy

Member
Drensch said:
adaware+ spybot

Agreed. You also might want to tweak the options in Internet Explorer so it doesn't automatically install software from the websites you visit. It makes a big difference in the amount of spyware/adware you end up finding on your computer.
 
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