Michael1

I remove spyware for customers pretty much weekly.

A firewall, while a good investment, will not prevent spyware. It prevent hackers from gaining access to your computer. I recommend a hardware firewall, rather than a software firewall for best protection and convenience. SMC makes some great units at good prices for a home user. I would use a Sonicwall or equivalent for a business.

If the computer is really heavily infected, you may actually have to reformat the drive, and reinstall Windows.

None of the spyware removal tools will clean them all out. You can download and install Ad-aware, Spy Bot Search and Destroy, and Spy Sweeper for free. Download and install all three programs. Update the Spyware definitions for all three.

Reboot your computer in SAFE Mode (press the F8 key while booting after once every second BEFORE Windows starts). Run all three programs until all of the spyware has been removed. Login as each user on the computer, and rerun all three.

Delete all files in the Window\Temp directory, and the Temp directory for each user. You may have to adjust your settings in Windows Explorer to do this to show Hidden files (Tools, Folder Options, View tab, Show all files).

Delete all files in the Temporary Internet Files directory for each user.

Reboot in Normal mode, and run all three again. Login as each user, and rerun all three. Repeat until clean.

I'm personally not crazy about the Yahoo Toolbar idea, unless you really like their toolbar.

Even with all three spyware scanning programs, I would say they get only 90% of the spyware combined on average.

If that still doesn't fix it, you have to get into the Windows Registry. This gets a bit dangerous unless you know what you are deleting (computer can stop running).

Good luck!

Michael

Panic Button

Yahoo tool bar will put more cookies on your PC than the standard Google tool bar. The Yahoo bar will also send any info out if you happen to have a Yahoo email address. Run the new Ad-Aware SE and download search and destroy, run them atleast weekly, more if you visit the "adult sites".

And yes I do this for a living, I'm the Director of IT for 4 casinos in Vegas and manage over 850 PC's and over 150 Win2K/2003 servers.

TopSpin80

you should run adaware.... like everyone else said, and you should also run AVG

www.grisoft.com/

get their free addition, update it all the time, and USE it.... most people don't use the software once they get it... AVG scans the stuff as it enters your computer... Email...ect.

Ernie

Wardey

CWShredder !!! It was the only program that found my hyjacker program and deleated it.

You can get it for free here : http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=3019

There is some good stuff on the site : http://www.majorgeeks.com/

Hope this helps, Dave

Roger 1

I have tried the new Ad aware SE and it will shut down my computer. I have tried re installing and running it in safe mode and the same thing happens. Any suggestions?

US1 Fountain

iTrader: (1)

I have to disable my Norton Anti virus when running Ad Aware, otherwise mine locks up and shuts down also.

Roger 1

I have tried disabling both my panda anti virus and my black ice firewal. Same results.

rouxsterre

On another similar thread I included links to Spybot, AdAware, ZoneAlarm, and AVG.

Do a search on this site, download them, update them, and run them regularly.

TIP: DON'T EVER REGISTER FOR ANYTHING ( unless you're sure of the source ). If unsure, use an alias email such as [email protected] ( I would hate to see Joe Blow's AOL Inbox ) . . .

Michael1

Does it just reboot itself, or is there an error message?

Michael