OT: Does anyone know a good free anti-spyware/adware program?

[Morindin]

I believe I've finally rid myself of the MySearch/My Way - the thing is I don't know how it actually worked. I first ran Spyware Doctor and when it finished scanning, Spy Sweeper. Both detected a number of cookies, but no spyware. I then decided to run Spybot-S&D and Ad-Aware 6.0 simultaneously. For awhile it looked like everything was going to freeze up, but in the end spybot stopped running followed by Adaware. The former didn't find anything significant, but the latter had 3 entries for "My Way". This was strange, because previously this program never found any spyware programs. Now when I go go tripod/lycos sites, I still get the occasional pop-up, but no Searchbar appears on the left of my screen. Could running a number of anti-spware/anti-adware programs as opposed to one at a time, be a better option?

From my experiance - no. Adaware provided it's updated usually finds everything spyware S&D finds + more.

Someone has already mentioned there is a newer version of Adaware available that you should download.

http://www.howtouniverse.com/CI/removehotbar.html

There is a link on that article on removing hotbar, mysearch, and other such nasties.

[EatYerGreens]

I also like the fact that Spybot now tells you when a particular site wants to download a cookie like DoubleClick or whatever. I just wish you could tell Spybot to always block these cookies by default as opposed to being asked at every download attempt which can get very time consuming!

Tomcat

You can do that. Go to the Spybot-resident icon, in the right hand end of your taskbar, right click on it, hover cursor over "Resident IE" until the pop-out menu appears. Make sure "Use resident in IE sessions" is checked and also click the line at the top to "block all bad pages silently". No more clicking on dialogue boxes.

Actually I still leave this feature switched on as I like to see exactly what is being blocked, as well as where and when they are being sent in my direction. With Pest Patrol, you get the 'plop' sound and, if curious as to what was blocked you can look at the Cookie Patrol log. As mentioned before, PP finds things which SS&D misses and vice versa. After finishing an online session, an AdAware scan sometimes find things both of them missed.


I've seen their blurb about AdAware SE but wasn't sure what the benefits of it were and haven't downloaded it yet. If I'm paid up on AA6.0, would I be suddenly back to demo-only functionality on SE?

Interesting to note McAfee claim spyware/adware functionality but these things are getting through their firewall (latest updates and all) and none of them show up on V-scans. Maybe because SS&D, PP and AA6 are getting there first!


Btw, I also have the DSO exploit thing showing up but checked those links and they basically say you're okay if you've been to Windows update. I've got everything short of switching to SP2 and am already wary of that given the mixed reports about compatability with TW games.

[Morindin]

You can do that. Go to the Spybot-resident icon, in the right hand end of your taskbar, right click on it, hover cursor over "Resident IE" until the pop-out menu appears. Make sure "Use resident in IE sessions" is checked and also click the line at the top to "block all bad pages silently". No more clicking on dialogue boxes.

Actually I still leave this feature switched on as I like to see exactly what is being blocked, as well as where and when they are being sent in my direction. With Pest Patrol, you get the 'plop' sound and, if curious as to what was blocked you can look at the Cookie Patrol log. As mentioned before, PP finds things which SS&D misses and vice versa. After finishing an online session, an AdAware scan sometimes find things both of them missed.


I've seen their blurb about AdAware SE but wasn't sure what the benefits of it were and haven't downloaded it yet. If I'm paid up on AA6.0, would I be suddenly back to demo-only functionality on SE?

Interesting to note McAfee claim spyware/adware functionality but these things are getting through their firewall (latest updates and all) and none of them show up on V-scans. Maybe because SS&D, PP and AA6 are getting there first!


Btw, I also have the DSO exploit thing showing up but checked those links and they basically say you're okay if you've been to Windows update. I've got everything short of switching to SP2 and am already wary of that given the mixed reports about compatability with TW games.

SP2 is fine with TW - at least some people have had success installing it (ill be able to find out tonight! :). I personally feel it's probably safedisk or some such thing that causes problems with certian CD drives.

SP2 is worth it, honestly.

Oh, and I also find the Windows XP firewall works fine. You shouldn't need to pay for a firewall because it doesn't matter how much money you spend on one, software firewalls will always have their limits.
Besides, spyware works differently and firewalls probably wont stop them. :)

[Ludens]

Thanks, Tomcat. That link explains it.

[Tomcat]

EYG, Ad-Aware SE is free for Personal Use - currently at version 1.05.

It certainly found a few more little nasties when I upgraded to the new product. I am running it on 3 PCs and had no problem ugrading although it does uninstall older versions before installing itself.

Thanks for the tip about "block all pages silently", though I tend to agree with you, it is often a good idea to know where the wretched spyware stuff is coming from.

Tomcat