Spyware/adware

Basically I was just wondering if ad-aware was specific to just adware or did it do spyware as well. I looked through their site and didn't see anything. I was also wondering what people's opinions were on the best spyware, adware, and virus scanners to use. I've been trying different things and I think I've gotten pretty good at keeping my system clean but I wanted some feedback cuz I got lots of friends asking me what to do and I'm just trying to simplify everything for the "simple" folkhttp://majorgeeks.com/vb/images/smilies/tongue.gif.

Right now I'm just running AVG and ad-aware. I was using Norton 2004 before but I don't like all the stuff that's going on all the time and that stupid notification thing they added for 2004.

 

ad-aware and spy-bot are the only ones that you really need. I don't recommend Hijackthis unless you really know what you're doing. There may be times when there are new threats out that are hard to get rid of.. this has been happening recently, however, it only takes time for reference files to be updated to take care of them. In those isolated instances you may be forced to find a more "hands-on" solution and again, I recommend against it unless you know what you are doing.

 

Thanks Kodo, I'll start using spy-bot now.

If anybody else reads this thread I'd would still like their opinions on Virus protection, I just hadn't really looked into it before and always used Norton and I guess I just want some reassurance that AVG is pretty good at not letting things slip through or if there's a better alternative to AVG.

 

I like AVG, but I prefer AVAST.

 

I used Ad aware and spybot and they work great, another really good program to use I think it Pest Patrol, they have a download from there website. It works great on getting rid of stuff.

~LuMa

 

I would also recommend CWShredder, along with Adaware and Spybot. I found that if Spybot finds a CoolWebSearch file, CWShredder seems to find more strings off of it. It is also very quick and simple.

 

CWshredder is an ok program. It does the job but IMO is hackware...i.e. just slapped together. The scan only feature is not exactly "to the point" for most novices and as such, can be confusing. Heck, it even caught me off guard at first. It's one of those programs I recommend for the "isolated" incidents that I mentioned.. otherwise, I put it in the category with Hijackthis as "not for beginners".

 

Great. I do use trendmicro.com when things seem bad and either the AV isn't picking it up or, in the case of my moron friend, there is no AV, apparently he forgot to install norton after a formathttp://majorgeeks.com/vb/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif. And of course his computer is a complete mess. He's kinda at the point where I've told him it'd be much easier to just format and start over, obviously with AV this time. But I'll tell him to give spywareblaster a shot.

At this point I've become inclined to switch to Avast from AVG, it's sounding like a lot of people are happy with its results.

 

I wouldn't forget about SpywareGuard. It's a good partner for SpywareBlaster. find it here http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads31.html