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Good spyware removal

Santa666

Critical Thinker
S
Joined
Mar 11, 2005
Messages
353
Mrs. Clause has infected our computer with many different nasty pieces of spyware. With Christmas around the bend, Santa is strapped for cash. I need very good spyware program I can get for free, or if someone wants to send me one. Actually anything would be helpful right now. I have used adaware and spybot, search and destroy, but they are not able to remove some things or they are not finding everything. Help anyone????

Santa would be eternally grateful.
 
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Some of the crappy little bastiges need manual intervention...even with spyware removal used.
 
A couple of suggestions... We just put an old image back on the desk top (requires something like Acronis Image software... and an external hard drive --- back up, back up, back up). Some of these buggers require blasting and starting over.

A couple of things I found when fighting the nasty stuff:
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/trojan.vundo.html
and
http://forums.mcafeehelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=57049

Also, I have learned to update my Java to latest and greatest (removed from laptop, which makes my messages very weird). Remove earlier versions. AND... we are no longer allowing any kind of messenger service (no AIM, no MSN messenger, nothing).

Since the Vundo I had was pushing "Winfixer", I also posted a complaint with the FBI. It turns out the scumbag company responsible for it (Direct Revenue) is presently being sued, as is another company (180 Solutions). Check out the descriptions of many of these scum places, plus some FTC action: http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm
 
Edit: I see you didn't really need this first sentence, did you....[I'd start out with a double dose: Spybot Search and Destroy, and Lavasoft Ad-Aware. EAch will get some things the other doesn't.] If that doesn't do it, I've had good results with Pest Patrol on nasties that those first two don't get, but last I saw, PP was not free. You get the detector free and have to pay for the remover. That's probably a good deal if you need it and aren't comfortable with manual registry editing, etc. But you can also use the detector, and have it save a log. Print the log in plain text and do the deletions. It may take several boots to get them all, because some of those little buggers replicate themselves , and windoze won't delete them if they're in use. If you do it manually, save the log to disk then print it out as a file. The list will be very long, containing all the pertinent files, registry keys and cookies for the spyware detected. If you print out the results from within the program it will give you page upon page of colored HTML, very wasteful.
 
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I found that SSD and AA both didn't work too well with one very nasty infection called CoolWebSearch. To get rid of that, I had to use a special CoolWebSearch removal tool CWShredder.

Tell Mrs Claus to stop downloading all those cute little smilies and cursors.

Don't be surprised if after you remove everything, various parts of windows don't work properly anymore, and you have to reinstall it.
 
Thank you to everyone

Well, we did not have much luck with anything as the computer continued to lock itself up. OTOH, Mrs. Clause did redeem herself by finding the recovery disk for the computer so we could restore it. I have had a long discussion with her and she now knows to be VERY, VERY careful downloading elf and reindeer porn (umm, I mean cute little smileys and cursors).

Thanks everyone for your help. I will remember all of you during my rounds on Xmas eve.


:kiss: :xshocked :xsnowball :xfight

:xsmiley :xmrsclaus


Santa
 
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