Freepers! How to kill SPYWARE on your computer.

[Capitalism2003]

Hey Freepers, you gotta keep those computers healthy, so I thought I'd post these links together for those of you without good spyware protection on your computer. These programs will clean your system out and get rid of a bunch of nasty little programs that have installed themselves on your PC over the years without your knowledge. This is a great combination of products (100% FREE!) that can deal a knockout blow to spyware and bad computer viruses.

To eliminate spyware, use these.

Ad-Aware 6.0:

http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-SE-Personal-Edition/3000-8022_4-10319876.html?tag=lst-0-2

and

Spybot Search and Destroy:

http://www.download.com/Spybot-Search-Destroy/3000-8022_4-10289035.html?tag=lst-0-2

If you don't have a good Antivirus program installed, make sure to download this one!:

AVG Antivirus 7.0 (Free)

http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/1/

After installing these, I recommend you navigate through the menus and UPDATE them for the latest spyware/virus definitions, then run a complete scan with each program. This should kill a LOT of bad stuff hiding on your PC.

I also highly recommend using the Mozilla Firefox browser instead of Internet Explorer. Firefox has a built in pop-up blocker and automatically prevents spyware from being installed while you surf the web. (In my experience, it also loads web sites much faster!) You can import all of your settings and bookmarks from internet explorer, so you really have nothing to lose. Give it a shot!

Firefox 1.0 http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

[Baraonda]

Is AVG Free 7.0 (antivirus) still on beta testing or is it final?

Should we wait for the download until around Dec 31, when the other free AVG expires?

[Baraonda]

>>Adaware/Search and Destroy

I run both of them with no problems whatsoever.

I use the Ad-Aware Pro 6 though.

They're also free.

[Capitalism2003]

investigate, if the "DSO Exploit" is what is showing, you can ignore it. It shows up for me too. It isn't spyware, but the program picks it up every time for some strange reason. The makers should be fixing that glitch in a later version. Just make sure you update both programs before scanning, and use the "immunize" feature in Spybot to get the best protection.


To Baraonda, AVG 7.0 is the final product...not a beta version. I had AVG 6 and was able to upgrade to 7.0 without uninstalling the old version. I just downloaded 7.0 and ran the installation package. It automatically uninstalled 6.0 and gave me the upgrade. You will probably be ok with the older version, but the new one has some improvements and probably offers better protection.

[investigateworld]

Mucho thanks, that's what I was getting.

[Baraonda]

Thanks.

I'll d/l it tonight and install it tomorrow.

Keeping my fingers crossed that everything goes well.

[DeepInEnemyTerritory]

Bumped and Bookmarked. Thanks!
I have been deluged with this crap lately. I got one of those auto downloading toolbars from drudgereport. AARRGGG

[Capitalism2003]

double bump!

[this_ol_patriot]

Check this out.

http://www.benedelman.org/news/111804-1.html

[stockpixx]

Bump

[Capitalism2003]

one more BUMP to help newbies out.

[zip]

ping

[Capitalism2003]

bumping to the top

[goldstategop]

Don't forget Spyblaster to keep them off for good once you've cleaned up your PC. And firewall I.E off with either I.E Spy-Ad or an anti-intrusion program like Pivx's Qwik-Fix.

[FierceDraka]

Shee-it, I was working with some corporate guy today who ran AdAware on his laptop, and then afterwards would log into Windows, only to be logged off when everything loaded. Weirdest thing I've ever heard of.

Don't get me wrong, I swear by AdAware, Spybot S&D, and CWShredder. But that was just weird.

I mean, WTF kind of thing could make removing it cause Windows to log a user off when it's removed? I've been in this game for about 10 years, and have never heard of any sheeit like this.

I told the poor b@st@rd to use another PC to make a boot disk, run it, and run the System Restore from the command line. Any thoguhts?

[backhoe]

Help for viruses and malware:

 

 Ad-Aware ... Spybot ... Peper Uninstaller ... HijackThis... CWShredder ... Spyware Blaster ... IE Spyad ... Free online Virus scan ... AVG AntiVirus ... LSPfix ... How to Show Hidden Files ... How to boot into Safe Mode ... How did I get infected in the first place?

---

Things you need--(all FREE)
Anti-Virus
AVG Anti-Virus version 7 (free) release available...

 Avast
Firewall
Kerio(Direct Download) Zone Alarm

 If are using zone alarm it may slow your PC. Try Outpost Firewall http://www.agnitum.com/products/outpost or Sygate Firewall http://www.sygate.com/ both have FREE and Pro versions and are heads above ZA.
Misc.
IE Spyads SpywareBlaster Spyware Guard
Windows Update- you must keep updated, it is the start of a secure system-
get all CRITICAL Updates

Things you want(Still Free)
 

  I use Firefox PR1 and IMHO, beats the sox off MS Explorer. Life is good with tabs. Click the link and give it a try.

Ad-Aware
Spybot S&D

SpywareBlaster
MS MVP Hosts file

Mike Lin's Homepage and get the Startup Control Panel and Startup Monitor tools.

 

The best forum for malware removal:

 http://forums.spywareinfo.com/index.php?s=262d844129208feb8b0cf5b0186a32f6&act=SC&c=4
SWI Forums--

[Capitalism2003]

He probably had something seriously wrong with his computer before he cleaned it out. Tell him to reboot into safe mode (press f8 repeatedly during a restart). In save mode, go to start, run, and type msconfig. Go to the startup tab and disable everything listed there (except his mouse/keyboard, etc if listed). Then I would recommend he do a defragment. Start, programs, accessories, system tools, defrag. And finally, schedule the system to do a checkdisk at next reboot. He needs to open up explorer and find his C:\ drive. Right click it, choose properties, then tools, and checkdisk. Once he selects checkdisk, have him reboot and let it do its thing. It can take over an hour on a seriously damaged disk but it should fix the bad sectors on his hard drive. After that, tell him to boot into safe mode and run a full virus scan, then defrag one more time. See if that helps.

[FierceDraka]

Thanks.

The funny thing was, though, even in safe mode, it did the same thing as in a normal startup - log him off as soon as it finished loading.

In a case that this, I'd most likely yank the drive, slave it in another machine, recover any work files on the bum drive, format it, and do a clean install.

[Capitalism2003]

weekend bump

[2right]

bump

[Captain Beyond]

bump