Recommend a free Ad-ware and/or Spyware remover program to me

[krunchyfrogg]

www.avast.com has an awesome one.

 

[Agamon]

I've used each one of these at some point cleaning up user's machines.

SpyBot
Ad-Aware
MS Windows Anti-Spyware (Beta)

And for those tricky ones:

Hijack This

Yes. And don't just use one of them, use all of them (well, save Hijack This for big problems). There is no anti-spyware program that will find everything, but SpyBot, Ad-Aware and MS will together find almost everything.

 

[Soel]

Unless they changed it, Spybot is only for IE, and it stopped having updates long ago...

 

[IronWolf]

Unless they changed it, Spybot is only for IE, and it stopped having updates long ago...

Spybot does a full system scan for spyware and is not just for IE, though you may be referring to its immunization features. I just checked and their last definitions update is dated 11-25-2005. So they are still quite active.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

Unless they changed it, Spybot is only for IE, and it stopped having updates long ago...

Nope, it's for the entire system. The original coder no longer works on it, but there is a staff of others who have taken it over for him. I think that happened about 2 years ago.

 

[jaerdaph]

And with Spybot, you need to change the default download location (See-Cure #1) to something else in the list. The default download web site hasn't worked in quite awhile. I use Safer Networking.

 

[krunchyfrogg]

Some more advice (the multiple programs one is a great piece of advice!!!):

Boot up your computer every once in a while in SAFE MODE. This stops any non-essential programs from running. Run your anti-spyware/virus programs in safe mode, and you just might catch some things you would have otherwise missed.

My understanding is that most of these anti-spyware/virus programs will NOT pick up programs that are running currently, and the Safe Mode prevents some of these that might be on your computer from starting up, allowing them to get caught.

 

[mojo1701]

I might be wrong, but you boot a computer in safe mode by holding down 'shift' or 'ctrl' or something? I can't remember; I'm sure I've heard it somewhere before.

 

[IronWolf]

I might be wrong, but you boot a computer in safe mode by holding down 'shift' or 'ctrl' or something? I can't remember; I'm sure I've heard it somewhere before.

Tap F8 as the computer is very first starting up - even before the first Windows XP splash screen starts. That will get you a menu that will allow you to choose Safe Mode.

 

[Falkus]

I recomend using Firefox as your browser. Ever since I switched to Firefox from IE, I have literally not had any problems with spyware.