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Quote:

Originally Posted by pseudoswede

I format the hard drive and reinstall Windows and MS Office every year. It doesn't take too long, and you don't have to be in front of the computer for most of it. After that, I only install programs when needed. It's amazing how many programs you tend to install over 12 months, and how often they never get reinstalled.

agreed. I do it about every 4-6 month because i'm a freak :D and i don't even have much spyware problems. while it takes a few hours of your time, the end result is worth it. the clean slate of a PC i end up with feels like i got a new computer all over again, not to mention the speec improvement you get after a complete overhaul like this :-)

Quote:

Originally Posted by JadedTraveler

Only viruses -- and not always, with exceedingly limited protection against adware, malware, trojans, hijackers.

In my experience, Ad-Aware and Spy Sweeper and related are often better at detecting viruses than a paid antivirus suite. The one thing that AV gets you, that the others don't, is virus protection from the traditional sources of infection, such as transferring files from a floppy disk or a flash disk, downloading an email with an infection, etc.

My spy sweeper says, it also does Activex hijacks, memory hijacks and installation hijacks. Are those shields on your spysweeper too? You might have an older version. Once running, if you get an activex hijack for example, you'll get a pop from SS.

Spy Sweeper, while good (and probably the only anti-malware currently worth paying for) is only about 5% prevention (Hosts file, Favroites, and home page hijack), the rest is detection after the fact.

As for prevention, there are basically two main, recognized means: Use SpywareBlaster (nothing really comes close to doing what it does), and use MS IE only when necessary, primarily use FireFox or Mozilla as your main browser.

I do see all those things Spy Sweeper has listed, but in all honesty I don't know exactly what they do. However, I still believe this is not prevention, this is after-the-fact action, after the malware has had a chance to download/install and try to do something malicious.

In my experience, there is no match for prevention afforded by using these two items:
1. SpywareBlaster -- There's just nothing else out there that does what it does, which is to populate lists in MS IE (the restricted zone, among other things) and Mozilla/FireFox with known malicious URLs.

2. Mozilla's FireFox -- It does not support any form of ActiveX technologies whatsoever. This eliminates 80% - 90% of all malicious activities.

Finally! I've been spyware/adware free for about a week now. What finally did the trick for me was to boot in safe mode, run all of Spybot, AdAware, and Spy Sweeper, and then run Windows Washer (from Webroot - the Spy Sweeper people).

Before I did the safe mode cleaning, I noted that I had 47 processes running immediately after a normal boot sequence completed. After the safe mode cleaning, I had 38 - and I was able to look up all of the processes to confirm that they were valid.

Things like the Ezula, Wildmedia, Memorywatcher, and Web Offers infestations would always replicate themselves as fast as I deleted them using the above programs. But in safe mode I was able to get them once and for all.

in my travels, i stumble upon lots of computers that totally gummed up (almost all of which are used by children or young teens). i've found that avg + spybot is a great combination. then i get the leftovers by googling for specific removal instructions.

i've had bad results every time i've tried to use more programs than the two afforementioned because there are lots of conflicts; in particular, spybot and adaware don't get along very well. the one exception to this rule is bitdefender, which seems to be highly regarded as last resort weapon.

btw, i can't emphasize enough just how good avg is. the first time i learned about it, i was skeptical because it's free, but i've consistently found that it blows the doors off of its more commonly known competitors. that said, tmk at least version 6 didn't scan the boot sector, which is a trendy hiding place for modern viri. i'm not sure whether or not the newly released version addressed this shortcoming.