I have been using Webroot's Spy Sweeper. Seems to do the job.
I just had to pay $220 to have three trojans and a klez virus removed from my computer. I've given up on Drudge due to the crap he allows to be inflicted on us. Conventional advertising is one thing, but these smart-a$$ advertisers are intentionally attempting to infect our machines.
Both are free for personal use and easy to find.
Make sure you use the immunize features to prevent reinfection.
Free:
XoftSpy by ParetoLogic
http://www.paretologic.com/
Paid:
SpySweeper by Webroot
http://www.webroot.com/land/spysweeperb.php?rc=655
Two things. First is SpyBot search and destroy and the other is Ad Aware from LavaSoft. Both are free and very well developed. Please give to the developers of SpyBot since that is how they make their living. Just google them install and off you go.
The other thing is to switch to Linux. :-)
Seriesly (sic), how do you know it is still there. I've been trusting AdAware to get everything, am I wrong?
I use McAfee, Adware, SpyBot Search and Destroy and Trojan Hunter.
Together they keep my computer free of all bugs (so far).
I use PestPatrol http://www.pestpatrol.com and set it up to scan automatically when I start the system. It keeps things pretty clean but it isn't free.
SpywareBlaster keeps garbage from reaching your browser... it's preventive. Also, you don't mention what firewall you're using. If you don't have one, get the free Zone Alarm.
Try Ad-Adware SE. Its the best I've found so far. Finds 100x more crap hidden on your computer than XSOFT for which I paid for :-(.
Spy Sweeper works well for me.
Also, stay away from the Drudge site. Pop-up city, and all the spyware known to man.
I finally took Drudge off my bookmarks so I wouldn't accidently go there.
You can also use HijackThis for when your homepage is hijacked.
http://www.spychecker.com/program/hijackthis.html
Personally I use either Opera or Firefox when surfing beyond the FR realm.
You won't be disappointed with Firefox. I find that I get about 5% of the spyware with it that I used to get with IE. Keep IE around though because there are still a few sites that Firefox won't fully display, (not many though). With Firefox you don't even need a popup blocker. It does it for you. Only that @#!*& DrudgeReport manages to get popups through. It's faster too.
Make sure you UPDATE all of the programs before scanning.
We had a few problems around our town earlier this year. I run webroot spy sweeper, f-prot anti-virus, zone alarm firewall, mozilla firefox and win-patrol. This is the combination that I've come up with to combat it. I tested it by going on every creepy website I could think of to test it out and every attack was picked up by one or another of my defenses.
Many thanks for posting this thread. I'm in dire need of help too, so will read the whole thing.
I run the Windows Task Manager [Ctl-Alt-Delete] for weird looking stuff. If you do it often, you'll become familiar with what should be there. Windows XP will not allow you to End-Process to a vital running program.
Good Luck.
Only thing I can add to the other posts is that STOPzilla has worked very well for me in blocking popup ads.
Good luck with your quest.