AntiOnline Tutorial: Adware and Spyware Removal
By Enterprise IT Planet Staff
June 10, 2005
Viruses and worms are a pain, to be sure, but spyware and adware have quickly become the prevailing bane of administrators and end users in recent years.
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| Are your systems being put out to pasture before their time? Spyware may be partly to blame. |
Individually, they may only sip at available RAM, bandwidth and processor cycles, but most machines are infected by more than just one. It's these spyware-infested machines that eventually have to contend with conflicts, crashes, overworked hard drives and registries that become steadily trashed beyond recognition.
The resource-straining nature of this code is bad enough, but it's the loss of privacy and threat to confidential information that really rankles administrators and security-conscious end-users. Even if nothing more than Web surfing details are being sent off your network, the mere fact that your system is shooting off data to other parties, many of which no one can vouch for and aren't exactly registered with the Better Business Bureau, is reason enough for concern.
As we head into the latter half of the year, we resurrect a recently updated tutorial posted in the early days of 2005. Within are handy tips plus a great list of utilities that should be part of everyone's toolkit.
Not only will your systems run more reliably for much longer, you'll finally put to rest many of those bugs that keep your help desk workers grabbing for one too many cups of coffee during the day.
Note: Any opinions expressed below are solely those of the individual posters on the AntiOnline forums. This Week's Spotlight Thread:
Adware and Spyware Removal - Introduction
foxyloxley provides a list tools that slices and dices spyware. Some highlights...
How do I get rid of pop-ups / adware / spyware?There are a plethora of software tools out there, waiting for you to take them home, I will just stay with the ones that I have used myself, as I believe that if I can use it, then it really IS idiot proof. I have included tools that are freeware as well as those that require you to buy them to access all the options.
Google Toolbar:
http://toolbar.google.com/
The reason for this selection is that I think that this item should be on everyone's PC, and it has a pop-up blocker built in. Google themselves keep information from you for their own use, but you do have the option to disable this as you install. There are also a few extra items that the toolbar runs that are not strictly required; they can all be disabled in the options tab on the toolbar itself.
AdAware SE:
http://www.lavasoft.de/
This one is the one that everyone SHOULD know about.
SpyBot S+D:
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html
Get its immunization mode running in the background, stopping the bad stuff from even getting in...
Let's not forget one little program with a "crappy" name that's making big waves lately.
Crap Cleaner:
http://www.ccleaner.com/
I'm adding this, as there are a lot of temp files scattered all over the drive that can be cleared away safely, removing all of them in one hit. Just leave the default settings and run it.
And what list is complete without the diagnosis tool that commands its very own forum on some community tech sites?
HiJackThis:
http://www.merijn.org/downloads.html
This will give you a list of everything that has loaded up, and is running on your system. It will allow you to delete them, but be warned, this is a very dangerous tool if used without care. Check in AO tutorial index for instructions on its use.
Grab the full list here and discover the joys of being spyware-free today.
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