Re: Spyware Doctor

Hey Major spyware dudes .... accolades in the lounge are well deserved!!
Question .... have run ad-aware on friends 'puter ....60 items removed/quarantened ....am running spyware doctor and is finding another 60+ items .... have read a few posts recommending removal of spyware doctor ... opinions, please?

 

Spyware Doctor is a good program. In the threads where it is recommended to be removed it was probably because it was only a trial program which cannot fix any problems and/or because another program (either paid) or a free program like Windows Defender or MS AntiSpyware was already in use. I typically only recommend using one full blocking/scanning/removal tool to avoid excess drain on system resources and to avoid conflicts which do occur when more than one is used.

You often find that if you compare any number of spyware programs like this, that they will all find things the others do not find. Some programs also can make you needlessly worry about trivial issues by reporting them as problems. For instance many programs spend too much time reporting cookies and MRUs which are not really problems to be concered with and they are so easy to remove anyway. Spyware programs need to focus on fixing real problems, like the ones we have to fix manually everyday in this forum because none of the programs fix the problems. Things like Qoologic, PurityScan, Look2Me Vx2, Virtumonde, and a dozen or more items from the SmitFraud family (and so many other daily issues). SpySweeper has been pretty good at fixing Look2Me VX2 and Virtumonde.

 

Chaslang ....thanks for the response, I know how busy you can be ...after I ran it on friends 'puter, it was a trial ....found 97 items after having run ad-aware se ...deleted it. I just started running spyware guard ....and am watching to see how it does. Anyway, thanks, you guys are great!!

 

You're welcome!

What were the items that is was finding? Did you save a log?

 

No, I didn't keep a log ....most where popping when checking GUID's ...had run ad-aware and AVG from a saved install cd because the friend had no virus software on her computer and didn't want to get on my LAN before I ran them ...Virus was clean, ad-aware picked up 66 items ....then conected and updated both and re-ran .... virus still clean and ad-aware picked up another 17 items.
Downloaded CCleaner and Spyware Guard for her and gave it back with instructions.
She has my address if anything else happens, though I'm fairly confident that if she follows instructions, she will be ok.

 

Make sure she reads and understands the below:


How to Protect yourself from malware!

 

I'll print it out for her and give it to her tomorrow (but since she's not clear on the difference between the os windows xp and windows office ... she may need alittle baby-sitting on that account!!)

 

Printing it is okay but there are a load of links in there that need to be clicked on so give her the URL and make sure she book marks it and reads it.

 

And deprive you guys of the pleasure of her (future) pain?

 

LOL! But we all need some vacation time! I think we need a Just say no to malware week!

 

That would be evidenced by the fact that I haven't seen you post in this thread:
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=92847