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Heyho. Thought I'd ask you guys about a decent free Adware and Spyware application. Frag put me onto Irfranview which is brilliant so I thought I'd go with the experts.

Hi Ron,

I have use Adaware before. Quite happy with that

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

Heyho. Thought I'd ask you guys about a decent free Adware and Spyware application. Frag put me onto Irfranview which is brilliant so I thought I'd go with the experts.

I think there are just 3 choices worth looking for:

#1
Ad-Aware

#2
SpyBot (Search & Destroy)

#3
New Miccrosoft tool


Leo "Apollo11"


P.S.
I Use Ad-Aware for years now.

ORIGINAL: Speedy

Hi Ron,

I have use Adaware before. Quite happy with that

I use adaware as well and find it fine.

I also use spybot search and destory.

I run both programs once a week.

Lavasoft-adware 6.0 its not bad comes recommended and its free. My wife and i both use it. [:D] Easy to install and run.

CounterSpy is much better IMHO then either Adware or Spybot. But in fact, spyware experts recommend you use 2-3 checkers anyway to overlap their coverage. I use the above three myself. PC World has had some excellent articles on Spyware checkers recently which is where I found CounterSpy and it having the highest catch rate.

On this machine here at work I have both SpyBot Search and Destroy as well as SpywareBlaster. SpyBot S&D you run like anti-virus software whenever you want to scan for and blow away the bad stuff. SpywareBlaster is a kind of monitoring software, that acts a bit like a firewall does, intercepting the bad stuff and preventing it from installing to begin with. Since I installed SpywareBlaster, when I run SpyBot S&D it never finds any problems.

This is all great info guys. Once again the forum comes to the rescue of those encumbered by the great "field of ignorance".[8D][&o]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

This is all great info guys. Once again the forum comes to the rescue of those encumbered by the great "field of ignorance".[8D][&o]

At the risk of showing my extreme ignorance, can someone explain what Adware and Spyware do for you? I assume it has to do with someone else using your computer via the internet connection?

Thanks!

I work part-time at Best Buy as a member of the Geek Squad and we have to use multiple applications in order to clean an infected machine. Ad-aware, Spybot and Spysweeper are our baisc tools but we also make heavy use of Hijack-This and CWShreader for the browser hijackers and SpyDcotor and the Microsoft and CA tools for particulalry bad infections. We also recommned our customers stop using IE and use Firefox instead to prevent further infections.

How is it better? (curious)

I use Adware6 , older machine has both Spybot and Adaware. Even had Hijack THIS! on it too. More the merrier.

You can use them all without any conflict correct?

(Just forward planning for when I get Broadband connection at my flat)

ORIGINAL: Bradley7735
At the risk of showing my extreme ignorance, can someone explain what Adware and Spyware do for you? I assume it has to do with someone else using your computer via the internet connection?

Thanks!

Wikipedia article about spyware

SpywareBlaster Site

What Ron is looking for is software to combat spyware.

sure. I run em one at a time. Sometimes Adaware, for example, will find something that Spybot missed or vice-versa. Spyware is worse than viruses in their proliferation. its a constant race between the latest updates and the latest 'ware.

Cheers Nik. I may well download a couple of different one's then

Best anti-spyware, malware, and other cyber sh**: Linux or FreeBSD. Amen [:D] Microsoft is the virus/spyware itself. Live with it.

Linux... HAH! Maybe in 10 or 12 years...

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus

Best anti-spyware, malware, and other cyber sh**: Linux or FreeBSD. Amen [:D] Microsoft is the virus/spyware itself. Live with it.

Before I got WITP, I never worried about malware at all. I had a Windows partition on my box but rarely used it. Maybe once a month or so for an odd game that I had an urge to play. Now, I boot the Windows partition at least once a day. Since I started PBEM, I actually had to start getting onto the Internet with Microsoft in control. Scary thought!

Thanks again all![&o]

As someone mentioned before: the best way not to get in contact with adware and spyware is NOT TO USE THE INTERNET EXPLORER and inform yourself about secure browsing in general.