emsley Posted September 6, 2009 Posted September 6, 2009 It's been a while since I used a good spyware programme I remember i used to use two to get rid of all the junk - So what are the good FREE ones now?Or if there is a good one you pay for which is that Ill just get a hacked version. Halp!
Shibathedog Posted September 6, 2009 Posted September 6, 2009 Spybot search and destroy is the best, make sure you update it first. Then do the Immunize, and then scan. The Immunize will block a lot of stuff before you even get it (mostly adds spyware servers to hosts file for blocking). It's completely free too.
VT-Vincent Posted September 6, 2009 Posted September 6, 2009 As Shiba mentioned, Spybot is definitely the best free one. Ad-Aware used to be popular, but really doesn't catch much these days. In terms of commercial software, a lot of Antivirus suites now include very complete spyware definitions (Norton and Kaspersky come to mind), but I believe the two best commercial anti-spyware products are PC Tools' Spyware Doctor and Webroot Spy Sweeper. There's also a version of Spy Sweeper that includes antivirus protection based on Sophos, generally regarded to be one of the best in the industry. Spyware cleaning is pretty tedious though (and really isn't guaranteed to undo all of the damage). The cleaning process, as I remember it goes like this: - Disable System Restore and clear all temporary files.- Install and update the anti-spyware tools to be used.- Boot to Safe Mode and run scans using all tools on each account on the computer, repeat the scans to ensure they come up clean.- Boot normally, run the scans under each account again, if they come up clean, the computer is good. Unfortunately, PE discs aren't of much use for spyware-related issues as most of the better anti-spyware software is not designed to run from it and can't remotely scan a registry.
emsley Posted September 6, 2009 Author Posted September 6, 2009 Thanks all, I used to use spybot all the time along with ad-aware but i was pretty sure iwas visiting sites that were trusted - obviosuly i must have been going else place
Superman Posted September 6, 2009 Posted September 6, 2009 Another good free one http://www.malwarebytes.org/
Shibathedog Posted September 7, 2009 Posted September 7, 2009 Oh yeah I forgot about that, Malwarebytes is very good. I would give it second place. Easy to get the full version too. The only difference between the full version/free version is real time scanning if I remember right though so you don't really need it unless your trying to parents/gf/friend proof your pc.
The-Ice-Man Posted September 7, 2009 Posted September 7, 2009 I tried Spybot after reading this thread and it found a few nasties that my ZoneAlarm and AdAware was oblivious to.
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