Spyware

[stevie_d_64]

I dunno...

I feel compelled to stay with the dark side of the force...

[insert heavy Darth Vader breathing sounds]

[robert_de_niro]

I am happy to be the first to post in the new section. :D

If anyone gets infected with Spyware I may be able to help. Last year I got hit hard with a spyware/adware virus that not even Norton or McAffee had even seen.
In fact they didn't even believe me when I told them what was going on.

Anyway, as a preventative measure, I highly recommend installing either Spy sweeper from webroot.com or Microsofts anti-spyware Beta1 from the windows update website or both.

I have both running and have not had ANY spyware, adware or popup problems in months.
There is no money in it for me, just sharing what I found out the hard way.

-Gary

Also try searching google for these:

cwshredder

fix it

avg free anti-virus

[westernamerican]

Stevie, dump that Norton crap. There are too many good products out there that are free and work without all of the hastles. Another plus to the free programs is that they are not resorce hogs like Norton.

How about recommending some of the free programs you speak of??????

[casingpoint]

When my Norton subscription recently expired, I dumped it and installed the free "avast" from avast.com at the recommendation of several people on the smith-wesson.com forum.

Good results so far and the computer is faster, as they indicated it would be. Apparently Norton was always present running in the background slowing everything down. After a week I can really tell the difference.

[Sarah81]

Norton Antivirus just plain stinks. I use AVG Free Edition instead. Even though it's (legally) free, you don't lose any of the little conveniences...like automatic updating. (Some free antiviruses require you to manually update...which can be a hassle if you're forgetful like I am.) And you can schedule routine scans, so you don't lose that convenience either.

I've never had a virus with AVG. It's been a little over two years since I bought this PC. I set up AVG first thing and dumped Norton right off the bat.


As for spyware: LavaSoft's Ad Aware is a wonderful, free tool. I also use Spybot Search & Destroy.

Using Mozilla Firefox instead of Internet Explorer also helps. Firefox's default installation is more secure. And if you want more security, you can download extensions from the developer's Web site.

[dws1117]

Here is a link (one of many) that compare many of the products, both free and pay, available today.

http://www.av-comparatives.org/

[rushman]

I highly recommend 3 FREE programs.

Avast! http://www.avast.com/ is an awesome free antivirus program.

Ditto for Avira http://www.avira.com/en/pages/index.php

Comodo http://www.comodo.com/ is an excellent free, fully customizable firewall.
They also have free virus, malware and spyware detectors but never tried them myself.

[WildBill]

My computer came with Norton. It has expired and I don't want to renew the subscription. How can I get it completely off my computer to load a new antivirus. Just using the uninstall still leaves some files so I can't load a new program. I am using Windows XP.

Thanks for any tips.

[KC5AV]

Go through the normal uninstall process. After a reboot, you should be able to delete the files/directories that are left behind.

[DMG]

Wild Bill:

That is why I will never use Norton again. The same thing happened to me, and I had to re-format the entire hard drive to get rid of it!

David G.

[WildBill]

Go through the normal uninstall process. After a reboot, you should be able to delete the files/directories that are left behind.

It still has stuff in the registry and some other places.

[Kalrog]

It's nice to be on Linux at home. Now if only I could get a good MS SQL Server manager on Linux I could dump MS at work as a desktop OS as well.

[atxgun]

I use AVG free for AV & Adaware for spyware. Of course I try to have good practice and don't often find something that needs removed :)

Kalrog, or you could ditch MSSQL and go w/ MySQL

[WildBill]

I've had excellent results with Ad-Aware. I used it couple months ago along with SmitfraudFix when a trojan hijacked my computer.

[KBCraig]

I run AdAware SE and Spybot S&D on my daughter's XP computer, especially since she likes to visit myspace (which is rife with malware). Both programs were going full time trying to kill processes; I finally had to completely disable Internet Explorer. (We use Firefox, but IE was still there, and the malware kept trying to launch IE.)

The BEST way to avoid infections is to be 100% Microsoft-free.