This guide will run down a few easy methods of removing, and preventing spyware. I see more and more commercials advertising companies (Stop-sign anti-adware and anti-virus) specializing in just this area on television, and it makes me sick. “Adware” and “spyware” have become the new fear keywords in the computer industry marketing lingo, replacing “viruses” and the somewhat-less-popular “trojans”. Don’t give your hard-earned money to these thieves, take matters in to your own hands:
Step 1: Get the software.
A quick rundown on the top applications or, at least, the applications I recommend.
Firefox: First and foremost, switch to Mozilla’s Firefox. Theres no sense ridding your system of spyware and continuing to use Internet Explorer. That’s like chasing the burglars out of your house and neglecting to shut the door. The next time you go to Myspace, or AOL.com, or just about any other major site, you’ll be reinfected all over again.
Spybot Search and Destroy: It’s not pretty, but in my humble opinion, it’s the single best spyware remover available today. It’s not pretty, but it works well and works quickly, not to mention its free.
Lavasoft Adaware: It’s good, chances are it’ll get anything Spybot misses. I wouldn’t buy the full version, though, just stick to the free one.
AVG Free Edition: For good measure, get AVG. It’s generally thought of as an antivirus, but it’ll pick up some malware/adware as well.
Step 2: Run the software.
I would recommend rebooting in to safe mode, and proceeding with the following steps while running in safe. Some nasty spyware writers have come up with interesting ways of preventing you from removing their little gremlins from your system. Generally speaking, running these applications in safe mode should remove most anything.
Spybot: Your best bet is to start with Spybot. After you’ve downloaded and installed it, run it from your quick-launch bar, Desktop, or Start Menu. Once it loads, click the “Search for Updates” button and give it a minute to check. If you are presented with available updates, select them and click “Download updates”.
Once completed, click “Search and Destroy” on the left followed by “Check for problems”. Sit back, and watch as creepy creatures lurking on your machine are suddenly thrust in to the light of day.
Once the scan is complete, select all the found problems, and click “Fix selected problems”. Congratulations, your system is a little bit cleaner! (Note: Free software is not free for the writers, consider making a donation towards this quality piece of software)
Lavasoft Adaware: Once your download is complete, and you’ve installed this application, the rest is pretty much straightforward. Load it as you did Spybot, click “Check for updates now” followed by “Connect”. Once updates are found (or not), download them, Adaware will restart once they are completed installing. After it reloads, or you reload it, click “Start” followed by “Perform full system scan” and “Next”. Give it a few minutes to tell you what Spybot missed.
Once presented with a completed scan screen, and a list of the items found, right click the list and click “Select all objects”. Click “Fix”, and congratulations once more, you are one step closer to living life spyware-free.
AVG: I included this one for good measure, it’s not necessary, but I highly recommend it as a quality piece of freeware. After downloading and installing, load it as you have both of the previous pieces of software. Once presented with the main screen, click “Check for updates” (are you seeing a theme here?) followed by “Internet”. Once you have either been told there are no new updates, or completed your updating process, click “Scan computer”.
After having run the previous cleaners, you should not be finding much by way of spyware with AVG. However, if you do, follow the onscreen directions to remove or quarantine it, it’s very self-explanatory.
Firefox: Finally, now that you have a nice, clean system…..GET RID OF INTERNET EXPLORER. You cannot “delete” or “uninstall” IE, but you can remove the icons from your quicklaunch, Desktop and Start Menu. I recommend you do. Inform everyone in the household that uses the computer that Internet Explorer is not to be used. Make something up if you have to, be creative.
You might also check out my other Firefox-related howto’s.
As well as www.antirootkit.com: “Antirootkit.com aims to help ordinary computer users gain an undertanding of Rootkits, what they can do and steps to remove them. This site aims to provide information on all aspects of Rootkit Information, Prevention, Detection, Indentification and Removal.”
Checkpageforshit.com is an incredibly useful tool meant to prevent visiting adware-filled websites to begin with. Suspicious of a URL? Check with checkpageforshit.
Just an FYI, since writing this post I have launched a new spinoff website for tech questions/answers, etc. The url is www.techquestions.info
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September 6, 2006 at 11:09 am
[...] Or, how to remove adware. Very useful article. [...]
September 6, 2006 at 4:03 pm
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