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.

[balrog666]

I've been trusting AdAware to get everything, am I wrong?

Yes. All of these programs depend on how fast they can track down and counter the newest spyware and that you keep the databases updated (just like your antivirus). None are perfect but using 2 or 3 of the best can keep you very clean. I also use Ad-Aware but somebody else had already mentioned it.

Anyway, if you use more than one, you can see what the others may be missing!

And a Happy Thanksgiving to you all as well.

[Capitalism2003]

HOW TO KILL SPYWARE

[elmer fudd]

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.

[Capitalism2003]

Make sure you UPDATE all of the programs before scanning.

[bad company]

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.

[BushCountry]

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.

What I did was run Spybot and it found 20 items, did not remove any items. Ran Spysweeper immediately after and it found 84 items. I was a little surprised to say the least.

[truthkeeper]

Many thanks for posting this thread. I'm in dire need of help too, so will read the whole thing.

[Democrap]

Use safari it'd trouble free.

[realpatriot]

Go here

I use ie-spyad, adware SE, and spybot.

[FrankRepublican]

Thanks. I am ready to get off the Net. I will download Firefox tonight. Looks like Drudge is off my list.

[CAWats]

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.

[FrankRepublican]

What is Safari? Browser or spyware/adware/[arasite killer?

Thanks.

[Quix]

Spysweeper does not get:

ezstub.exe Adware.Ezula
mmod.exe Adware.Ezula
TTIL.exe Adware.Ezula

and neither does Norton, of course, sigh.

Neither does Lavasoft AdAware.

I emailed SpySweeper. They had me send them a couple of logs. Sent the logs. They came back--no evidence. Can't do anything. Contact Norton. Of course, contacting Norton is as useless as t*ts on a boar hog.

Have searched including hidden files. Still can't find and dislodge. Norton always notes they are there but refuses to delete them. GRRRRR.

What a hideous bunch of horse manure!!!!

Installed AVG again. Good for some things. Doesn't touch those three above, as best I can tell yet. Not certain. Frustrating.

Any suggestions anyone?

[Quix]

Firefox gives me ALMOST as many fits as Microsoft does.

It crashes on webshots.com downloads persistently.

More than a few windows open and there are problems. Sigh.

[DakotaGator]

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.

[Wooly]

1. Use Mozilla Suite or Firefox as a browser.
2. If you insist on using IE, download and install the Google Toolbar.
3. If you are using AOL, find something else since they send advertisments to you. Remember the one thing missing from AOL is the "H" between the A and the O.
4. Download both Spybot and AdAwareSE and install them. No single Spyware Cleaner will clean everything.
5. Download and install a free firewall like SygatePE, my favorite since you have more control over stuff than Zone Alarm free.
To get rid of anything you may already have, go first to Start>Run and type msconfig. Then clcik on the Startup Tab and look for any entries that may have Search in it and uncheck it.
Next go to the Add/Remove Programs section of the Control Panel or Download and install the trial version of ADD/Remove Plus and look for SeachBars or stuff like Bargin Buddy and uninstall them.
Finally get a copy of CoolWebSearch Shredder and run it. Then run your spyware cleaners to get rid of anything that is left.
As a final note, get use to closing any Pop-Ups you get by using the Alt-F4 method instead of clicking on the Pop-Up Ad's closer.

[Hotdog]

I've noticed Drudge giving a lot of unasked for material...lately when I try to bring up Drudge it takes forever to get to them and when I do I get some kind of error...I just quit going there...

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Bump and bookmark.

Use Mozilla Firefox as your browser instead of Internet Explorer.

http://www.mozilla.org

[BushCountry]

Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and remove manually. Like the example below:

Removing the Adware Program

This program includes its own uninstallation program. To remove the adware program, apply the following steps that executes its own uninstallation program:

Click on the file, C:\Program Files\Ezula\UnWise.exe.
Restart the machine.
Delete the folder C:\Program Files\Ezula
Also, delete the file %Windows%\EZInstall.exe
Then delete the file %System%\EZStub.exe
If the following folder still exists after uninstalling the Adware, please delete:
%Windows%\Start Menu\Programs\TopText iLookup
or
%USERPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\TopText iLookup


Note: These folders are created by the adware to enable it to be accessed from your Programs Start Menu by using shortcuts. %Windows% pertains to your Windows folder usually C:\Windows or C:\WinNT. %USERPROFILE% pertains to the local user’s folder. This is usually C:\Documents and Settings\.

[puppetz]

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