Help Question On: Spyware & Parasite Blockers

11-25-2004 | FrankRepublican

[FrankRepublican]

Does anyone know a good tool to get rid of and block spyware,parasites,adware, viruses and other crap. I think Drudge has it on his web site. I surf but not a huge amount but the crap is getting too much.

These advertising parasites also come as worms, viruses, trohans etc.

I have tried free AdAware 6.0, free Spybot and the latest is the Giant AntiSpyware on a free trial. Giant seems the best but a lot of crap is still there.

I also run Norton (worthless on most of this stuff), Solo (great AV program) plus have used free Panada and AVG in the past.

The Internet is rapidly becoming a waste of time for me. I tried to stick to mainly newsweb sites and links off Drudge. I am thinking of switching to Mozilla's browser as MSFT IE appears to be crap.

Help. Any suggestion appreciated. Also let's give thanks to American trrops protecting us on this day.

[nw_arizona_granny]

Ping

[Lockbar]

Good information like this is the reason I come to Free Republic and don't go to Drudge any longer. I'm not the guy that originally posted the question, but I want to say thanks to all your folks that took the time to make suggestions for the rest of us. Two weeks ago I spent $120 to have my puter disinfected and have anti-spy ware added. I had over 320 hacks, bugs, and viruses on my puter. What a mess.

[CAWats]

I don't have any problems with Drudge Reports either.

[Muleteam1]

The last Norton software I purchased was around $80/$90 with most of that to be given back in rebates. I didn't get any of the rebates back and I am always very careful about following rebate instructions. However, without the rebates, I found that after I removed Norton AV from both of my PCs, I had a lot less problems with crashes and hangups.

Muleteam1

[SpaceBar]

Does anyone know a good tool to get rid of and block spyware,parasites,adware, viruses and other crap.

Yea, it's called Linux.

[Quix]

You were pretty clear. Maybe I wasn't.

Following your instructions will take some carefulness on my part. I've had a terminal or computer in my home since 1976. But sometimes the kind of task you outline takes some careful thoughtfulness and so forth.

Your first step seems to be to

Click on the file C:\Program Files\Ezula\UnWise.exe

Given my past experience trying to find such files, I was and am not yet confident I can find it to click on it without some considerable and possibly futile effort. Will go try now. Was going to wait until after Turkey. But I'll bravely go try now! LOL. Thanks for your hand-holding encouragement. That's what it seems to take with me on these sorts of things.

GREATLY APPRECIATED.

[Mannaggia l'America]

I volunteer as the network admin at my children's school (even though I am a software developer by trade).

These kids (and teachers) seem to manage to get everything under the sun on the PC's - viruses, spyware, malware, etc.

I have yet to not be able to clean off a PC using these tools, and they have had some pretty insidious stuff:

CWShredder - removes several well known spyware programs. Run first.

I've never seen it happen, but if CWShredder starts and closes immediately, you have SmartKiller spyware installed. Download and run this first.

HijackThis - download HijackThis and run it and see if it finds/removes anything.

LSPFix - download LSPFix and run it. LSP stands for Layered Service Provider. As data goes in and out of your computer through the Internet (TCP/IP), it passes through different layers of "providers" (pieces of software). Some spyware installs itself as a LSP, which allows it to intercept network traffic and act on it. LSP's are hard to remove because they are loaded in memory by the operating system - Adaware usually detects that there is a problem, but has to reboot to fix it, if it can even do that (usually not). LSPFix will usually clean things up - but it is a rather technical program. It has saved me a few times from having to re-install Windows.

There are some other downloads HERE that fix minor specific things and provide information that you may or may not understand. Specifically, one program is StartupList which will show you a list of everything that runs when your computer starts up. But it doesn't help if you don't know what you are looking at.

After doing the above things, I run Adaware SE (not 6.0 - Adaware SE is the latest version and it detects many more things than the older 6.0 version).

Usually at this point, things are pretty clean, but I will usually run Spybot Search & Destroy just to be sure. But the new Adaware is much better than previous versions and usually catches everything.

Another tip if your computer seems to be prone to getting spyware (I'll blame the computer - but it's not the computer's fault - it is usually the user clicking Yes to everything, downloading non-trusted "freeware", or visiting non-trustworthy web sites - not always, but usually).

Download all of the above programs (and unzip the ones that are zipped) and burn them to a CD and keep it handy. I've helped a few people who got themselves infected with spyware and their web connection got trashed and it was too late to download these things to try to fix it. Having them on a CD helps because you don't have to rely on having to download them, which may not be possible right when you need them.

[Read2Know]

I can vouch for Aluria Spyware Removal tool. This is the same system wide tool AOL uses. $39

[Quix]

THANKS TONS.

WILL TRY IT.

[Quix]

HMMMMM. SOUNDS GOOD. WILL SEARCH IT OUT AND GIVE A TRY.

MUCH APPRECIATED.

[Quix]

WELLLLLLL, Couldn't find the files.

Will give Norton a scan instruction when I start Turkey and maybe a couple hours or so later I'll find out if Norton still finds them.

But usually, no matter if Norton finds them or not, I can't any way or any where I look.

[BushCountry]

Given my past experience trying to find such files, I was and am not yet confident I can find it to click on it without some considerable and possibly futile effort.

Haa, haa. Since I do this stuff in my sleep, I keep forgetting that the apparently simple instructions might be complicated for mere mortals (Tongue Firmly Planted In Cheek).

[Capitalism2003]

and for everyone, after you get rid of the spyware/viruses, defragment your hard drive to speed things up.

Start, programs, accessories, system tools, defragmenter.

[houeto]

How would I know I need something better?

Go download the trial version of Trojan Horse and you will see what all you are missing.

[F16Fighter]

Bump

[EGPWS]

I also run Norton (worthless on most of this stuff),

???

I had issues with Norton 2003, however my system has been performing fabulously with NIS 2005 and concerns with ad ware ect, now are rapidly resolved!

I am very pleased with their system and would highly recommend it to the concerned!

[R. Scott]

I had a problem with a loaner I had to use for a few months. Spybot, Norton and Adaware did the job – after I used them to clean things up. Run all three while in safe mode. If you have an “administrator” setting make sure you use it while in that mode.

[balrog666]

But Spysweeper found at least four times the amount of spyware on my system then Spybot! I trusted Spybot and it wasn't even a close comparision.

Throw away version 1.2 - the newest version of Spybot (1.3) is a big step up.

[Trinity_Tx]

"firefox is far from bug-free or complete security. don't buy the hype, there's plenty of probs with firefox and they'll be more as more people use it and spyware makers hone in on it. the 'freesource myth' is one big crock of crap built up by script kiddies and 1337 puter nerds. plus the fact it doesn't read half the pages on the net correctly and many common features dont work because of its quirky code rendering (which they falsely claim is 'standards compliant')

firefox blows chunks"

I'm sorry, but that's just not true.

1. No one says it is totally bug free or "complete security." It is simply very low on bugs and if you find one (I have yet to after 4 months of use on 4 machines running 98SE, WinME, XP home and XP Pro) it's not going to crash your machine like IE will.

It is without doubt more secure than IE.

2. Having open source code and encouraging discussion is a good thing for obvious reasons and is not at all limited to geeks, much less is it the domain of script kiddies.

3. No, it isn't a false claim. The only pages that do not render "correctly" are indeed written not in accordance to standards, or they rely on active-x, a Microsoft program that is unnecessary and a major security hole in any machine. To develop pages strictly using IE proprietary code is foolish and as been condemned as lazy and unprofessional for years.

"Half the pages on the internet" - absurd. I've come across 3 pages only that required me to use IE - windows update, Yahoo games (active X), and a very poorly coded, low-hit site I can't even remember.

[Lancey Howard]

I now have Spy Sweeper and McAfee and they do a nice job.
Also, I have this pop-up killer called POW! that works pretty well (when I remember to activate it).