Spyware Killer

I have Adaware and Spybot but it's the free version. If I buy the pay version will it detect and delete spyware as it happens or do I still need to do the scans?

Spybot is essentially a manual scanner/removal tool. AdAware Free is the same. The pay-for upgrade I have little experience with, but it would appear to add a level of real-time scanning and protection. S&D does have an Immunise feature which does this already, and is still free.

Best would be to head to http://javacoolsoftware.com and get Spyware Blaster and possibly Spyware Guard too. Those two are active scanners that prevent it getting on your system in the first place, if kept up to date. One of them (SG) deals only with malicious ActiveX controls and stops MSIE hijackings etc, while the other (SB) is more comprehensive and prevents tracking cookies, pr0n diallers etc, and will also work with Mozilla if you have it. If your computer is pretty ancient like mine, with a broadband connection, then you might notice a slight slowdown. Anything made within the last few years shouldn`t be affected mush if at all.

Thanks Chris

Anybody else?

Yes: http://beam.to/spybotsd

Spybot Search and Destroy (don't know if that's the one you were talking about in your post above when you mention "spybot") - free and was able to remove a spyware proggie that was extrememly resistant on a co-worker's computer. I use it as well and it works perfectly. Very high grades from the user community.

Quickbeam, I have spybot and it works better than Adaware. But it doesn't remove the popup problem I was having.

I'm looking for something that removes it as they try to attatch to my cookies instead of having to run scans manually.

The new version of Spybot ( 1.3 ) is out now, very nice, faster scan, resident protection.

It's too bad Spybot doesn't count the new version as a downloadable update from within the program.

Illy, it's no big deal. Just uninstall the existing version thru the built-in menu and install the new one.

Or you can forget about uninstalling, and just install the new one. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

But then you're left with the registry settings from the old version.

Thanks was_jlh! I ran 1.2 and clk'd for available updates. It said none available. I tried to uninstall 1.2 via control panel, but no luck. Downloaded/installed 1.3 and ran it. It found 5 new "problems" that 1.2 didn't! I made a donation.

Larry

I have Adaware and was going to add Spybot but had heard a few disturbing reports of it freezing and otherwise bollixing up people's computers. Even though these reports were few and far between it made me cautious about installing it.

Any opinions on this?

Brightnorm

I've run Spybot on 4 different machines - had a small freeze (required a reboot) on one, but no other problems. And it really did remove a lot of junk off of those machines.

Chris, I've been running spywareblaster shortly after you posted and I've had NO spyware since! My popup problem has been almost eliminated. Don't know if it was popupstopper adjusting to my "popup not blocked" notices or the spywareB.

Great Larry, glad it worked. In the 1.2 ver there was a menu option for uninstall, it removed the reg entries and then you would just remove the spybot subdir.

Brightnorm, I run it on the two win boxes in my home, and it is running on 6 family members pc's, I haven't seen any of the problems you mentioned on any of these boxes.

My recommendation is to make sure that you run the spyware/ad-aware scans one at a time. I ran several scans at once, and, I think, I hosed my registry file and had to reinstall XP from scratch. Otherwise, they all seem to work fine (Ad-Aware, Spybot Search and Destroy, Spyware Blaster, Norton, Google Tool Bar).

-Bill

[ QUOTE ]
BB said:
My recommendation is to make sure that you run the spyware/ad-aware scans one at a time. I ran several scans at once, and, I think, I hosed my registry file and had to reinstall XP from scratch. Otherwise, they all seem to work fine (Ad-Aware, Spybot Search and Destroy, Spyware Blaster, Norton, Google Tool Bar).

-Bill

[/ QUOTE ]
Bill--when you install Spybot, it warns you about having Adaware on your computer (they don't play well together) and indicates there may be problems running them simultaneously.

Brightnorm--I've been running Spybot on a couple of computers at home and at work and none seem to have any problems. At least none that I'm aware of. I'll have to check out that Spyware Blaster.

If adaware is set to scan archives it will find the backups spybot s&d makes.