While Counterspy is quite good and one of my favorites, ALL of them miss stuff. I have scanned really clotted-up PCs with CS, cleaned it, then immediately found stuff with a Spybot S&D scan. Removed it there and ran Adaware- it found yet more.
It depends how bad the infestation is. If it's really bad- a blended counterattack with several utilities is the best bet. And, like with pulling weeds, there still may be something left.
I agree that hitting it with multiple packages is the best solution.
Ad=Aware and Spybot are better than they once were. There used to be some virus programs that they could detect but not remove.
Perhaps that is why some of them won't catch some problems these days? Too proud to admit that they can't fix some problems.
And with the Microsoft exclusion of some genuine problems (because of partial ownership), the only way around it is to use competing programs.
Figure too that some programmers made have developed workarounds to being detected by Ad-Aware, Spybot, etc. I seem to have had periods where I had to reinstall to get them to find any real problems.
Count on there being something added to your computer anytime you enter a bad URL and wind up at some squatter's search engine. Some will be nice enough to ask you if you want them to become your homepage. Others don't care and do it anyway.
I don't know how you guys end up with all this spyware.
I've just never had any of it. Well... almost never, I got Gator 4 years or more ago, but I made the mistake of saying yes to install it.
I use Windows XP, Trend's PC-Cillan for virus protection and MS AntiSpyware. I know you think I probably have all kinds of it and just don't know. I don't. I actually think people who have a lot of adware and spyware get it because they install all kinds of freebie 'scareware' supposedly designed to get rid of it. :~D
Besides my Anti-Virus program and Firewall I have 9 anti-spyware programs installed but 'Counter-Spy' is still my favorite.
Problem I've found is people d/l programs but don't install, update or run them till it's too late.
We have 5 computers in the house and they're all as clean as a whistle.
Spyaxe is a "RAT", not adware so to speak and not a virus.
It will morph, it will regen, it protects itself from deletion. It will cause pain.
It's the first infection of any sort I've had in 6 years. It withstood every spyware removal program I threw at it, including symantics.
I back up weekly, so I didn't waste a lot of time with it. It's a doozy and hopefully causes someone some jail time.