Spy Ware.....

[Zak33]

Right guys..you demon interweb guru's

My mate from Rugby has just rung me. I built his PC. He has normal dial up, on a 56k, with AOL.

He has clearly got him an infection Cos AOL keeps dropping his connection and he's getting POP UPS in a big big way...enough to use all the AOL resources in less than 2 minutes by opening HUNDREDS of Adverts.

Now in theory that means POP UPS....but he has AOL's Pop up settings to stop them...and he has NEVER had them before.

In addition...the AOL icon and voice tell him the "He's not Alone" before dropping him

So...in essence I need to know WHAT is the best SPY WARE remover.....and pls guys....suggest one if you've used it yourself....not just on hearsay....dont wanna add a load more troubles to his already floundering PC>

PLUS....staying online is damn hard....so a small bit of software is best.

Tall order huh? You think YOU'VE got troubles.....he keeps ringing me poor sod...

cheers people

[Moby-Dick]

spybot search & destroy is a good start
make sure its up to date though

activate the xp firewall and stop the messengar service

check AV definitions are up to date - try an online av scan at http://housecall.trendmicro.com

[Skeps]

Adaware 6, And Spysweeper are both pretty good

[myth]

HERE THIS IS THE BEST I HAVE TRIED THEM ALL!!!!

[spazman]

Spyware is the spawn of satan. Only a good exorsist can hope to remove it all.

[Zak33]

OK GUYS..CHEERS.

He cant get online long enough for Housecall...it was my first suggestion Moby mate

how do we turn off Messenger service....
Ive seen TiG do it but dont remember..

[directhex]

unfortunately Spazman hit the nail on the head with his comment :/

killing the messenger service: right click on my computer, manage, services & applications, services, messenger, right click -> properties, set startup type to "disabled"

[Zak33]

thanks Hex man...you are the main man for clear and concise instructions

thank you all for your help

[wberg]

Give him any virusprotection-program too, like Norton or something. So he's protected in the future too. If you have an upgraded version (live-update) of Norton you can get protected against alot of **** like spyware/trojans/virus/email-**** and so on.

[Moonshade]

Norton, Spybot - Search & Destroy and Ad-aware. They're all good, and I would recommed that he download a couple of em'! I got infected once and I didn't have norton (which I think is the best, cos then your protected against the most ****e), so I had first only Ad-aware, but it couldn't remove it all, so I installed Spybot - Search & Destroy and it found other stuff that Ad-aware didn't find.

Good Luck to your mate!

[CrapshoT]

another vote for webroot spy sweeper here.

[Rabs]

ahh spyware what an interesting subject...

Ask yourself - how does spyware get there in the first place?

There's two major methods - IE vulnerabilities and attached to programs (Divx codec anyone?)

Make sure your patched with all the latest MS updates and ms java (if you have it).

Adaware gets rid of the vast majority of spyware, CWShredder gets rid of Coolwebsearch and its variants only.

Install iespayad, this changes some ie settings ie unsigned activex stuff and adds a huge ban list of sites (inc ad sites).

That should keep you covered, use a firewall if you dont have a router also.

My 10p's worth anyway

(All the above nicked from a previous thread I replied to)

[Tumble]

or you can use something secure, like Firefox.. I've been using it for 2 days now and it frankly rocks IE all over the place.. tabbed browsing (weird but essential once you're used to it) proper popup blocking - there's a plugin which LISTS all the things you can block off a website.... you can kill objects randomly.. if a flash ad is doing your head in somewhere.. you can kill it.. or stop it playing completely until you click on it with another plugin.. marvellous thing. And for the techy people, it's as tweakable as a very tweakable thing in a being adjusted lots competition.. oh yeah and it does CSS properly too... whatever that means....

[arsen]

i read "aol" and cried

once youve sorted it:

New Browser < opera (my fav)
An Internet Condom (f-secure) , you could use norton/avg/panda etc but from using them all i love f-secure
erm as for AOL.. where do i start,
BT Yahoo < even that is better than aol.
madasafish < nothing amazing, but what ive been on for 3+ years, must only have like 10 customers so cust support / problems are well, never.

[Angus]

Spyware is the spawn of satan. Only a good exorsist can hope to remove it all.

I can echo this..

I've been fine for the last year or so with just Norton Anti Virus.

Now I've ended up with something that keeps changing my home page in internet explorer, spybot keeps picking stuff up (registry edits), but as soon as I remove it it multiplies.

I also tried adaware but it didn't seem as good as spybot. (spybot picked up loads of stuff after supposedly cleaning everything with adaware.
Any ideas folks??

[directhex]

I can echo this..

I've been fine for the last year or so with just Norton Anti Virus.

Now I've ended up with something that keeps changing my home page in internet explorer, spybot keeps picking stuff up (registry edits), but as soon as I remove it it multiplies.

I also tried adaware but it didn't seem as good as spybot. (spybot picked up loads of stuff after supposedly cleaning everything with adaware.
Any ideas folks??

cwshredder.