spyware cleaner

[Chilihost]

I just discovered spybot from http://www.spybot.info - its totally free (donation-ware) and runs like a charm! I loaded it up and scanned my system and found almost 60 problems, and this is despite the fact that I run lavasoft ad-aware and bazooka adware at least once a day.

Spybot also lets you 'immunize' your system. I set it to "ask for blocking confirmation", I was shocked when I went to hotmail and it blocked multiple spyware installations.

This is a great little tool, I highly recommend it to everyone. And, no, I am not associated with this in any way whatsoever! I am just sick and tired of all the auto-installed spyware and other crap us adult surfers have to deal with.


cheers,
Luke

[basschick]

i totally agree! spybot search and destroy is one of the two programs i use - the other being cws shredder, which gets out all the cws stuff that spybot can't keep up with.

between those two programs, a person can have a happier harddrive :-)

[BDBionic]

It's definitely a good idea to run spyware cleaners redundantly.
I usually suggest to most people not all too familiar with computers how how they work to go with Adaware, as spybot can be a little more "intense", so to speak. At the same time, it's more thorough than Adaware.

I run Adaware and Spybot regularly, then CWShredder now and then but not quite as often. Further, using Mozilla Firebird helps keep me free of a great deal of spyware in the first place.

And, truth be told, apart from the rare or occasionaly tracking cookie, I never find anything. In fact, the last 3 weeks on both my machine at home and the one at work my scans turn up nothing, the system being free of any detectable forms of spwyare :groovy: :groovy:

[basschick]

if you hate popups, spyware, and a zillion security holes, mozilla rox! but last week, someone i know sent me to a site i needed ie to see, which is rare, and it turned out he sent me a typo url that immediately installed a few things, including cws.

[BDBionic]

yeah I've installed Mozilla on every machine at the office and people are growing to love it. It definitely is a great browser, especially for its popup disabling features.

unfortunately we all have to subject ourselves to IE sometimes. Whether it's for testing cross browser compatibility or viewing a site only available through IE. and occasionally that does unleash crap on me.

a great reminder, on those few occasions we do have to use IE and find ourselves fighting off spyware, of just what we're missing the 99.9% of the time we're not using it! haha.

[Dzinerbear]

I've been using a program called Spy Sweeper that also seems pretty good. I have also used SpyBot.

And I just downloaded Mozilla Firefox on the weekend, and I love it. There's so much more browser space because the buttons at the top don't take up so much space.

Cheers,
Michael

[Gary-Alan]

Thanks for the tip Luke. I've been using Spy Sweeper, myself. It was the first ad cleaner I used that actually worked for me. But, now and again it will find something that it either can not delete or freezes my system.

I'm going to download spybot now!

Thanks,
GA

[dirtygeek]

I've been using spywear blaster for about a year now. I LOVE IT! It kills it all, and blocks it from coming back. not only does it find spywear, but keyloggers, trojans, dialers, hijackers, ect.

It even blocks teh shit MSN puts on your system when you use hotmail.

[Rainbo1956]

Wow, great...I'll have to check it out.
I like the fact it'll get rid of the shit MSN put on my puter.

Thanks for the info!

[dirtygeek]

I also use this program that works with spybot

http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/ Works very well on sites that use cookies to track you and sell the info.

[Rainbo1956]

Just downloaded it and ran it.

Nice software! Again, thanks for the tip.

(I can see I'll become addicted to this place now...)

[desslock]

Hey Chilihost:

Thanks for posting this. It inspired me to write a general public interest page on my site about Spyware. Since I do field questions about this a lot, it'll hopefully spread the message.

http://www.friskyfans.org/stopspyware.htm

Steve

[Lee]

OMG!

I just installed and ran this and it found 100 spyware items that my previous software didnt find :eek:

Thanks for sharing the link Luke

Regards,

Lee

[Chilihost]

I am glad everyone is liking that link. All this auto-install stuff just annoys the hell out of me.

Lee, I know what you mean, its a shocker the amount of crap that gets auto-installed on your system, especially for people like us whose business it is to deal with adult sites all the time. And we are knowledgeable about this stuff too, imagine your regular surfer who is not aware!

desslock, nice article, I had a scan through it and hopefully it will help more people battling spyware.

Now I gotta find that csw shredder proggie, basschick do you have a link handy?

cheers,
Luke