Spybot

[Nymphette79]

I need to do a spyware check thing on my PC and have downloaded spybot.
Ive ran it and its come up with a HUGE list of stuff, is it safe to delete it all?
Sorry for the nibness
TIA

[William Antrim]

Yes it will all be spyware, run Adaware too. Just to be on the safe side.

[Nymphette79]

Thanks babe, just thought i'd check, didn't want to delete anything important.
And I cant email u, think it must be my stoopid firewall. Am such a noob to all this stuff.
Btw, I got spybot from google will i get Adaware there too?

[Kierz]

Btw, I got spybot from google will i get Adaware there too?one way to find out ;]

hint: try googling it

[William Antrim]

yes you will. pm me your email address and i will send you an email to reply to. saves clogging up forum space.

[Nymphette79]

Thx babe, hope it works, gonna leave it running while I cook the tea, roast chicken

[Doc Holliday]

Thx babe, hope it works, gonna leave it running while I cook the tea, roast chicken

spammer. u should just ask on msn :)

[Flame Bait]

Most all those anti-spyware programs are crap go to the Panda link below and use something that actually works. Adaware is a joke they are going to force people buy updates all of a sudden. Only a moron is going to pay for software that scans for things a good anti-virus that can be had for free will prevent from harming you to begin with. Spybot never detected half the things Adaware would find but who really cares Avast! kicks ass.

http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/activescan/ascan_2.asp

After you do a good hard scan with Panda you can grab this for free to keep you clean.

http://www.avast.com

I just suggest a prescan before you install a permanent solution to be on the safe side.

[tarasm]

you dont cook tea!!

[William Antrim]

you would if it was your dinner.

[zii]

There is an excellent anti-virus cum malware programme called NOD32.
It is, by far, the best on the market. Its fast, has a low footprint (takes little memory), but is harder than most to configure.

http://www.eset.com/products/index.php

[Flame Bait]

There is an excellent anti-virus cum malware programme called NOD32.
It is, by far, the best on the market. Its fast, has a low footprint (takes little memory), but is harder than most to configure.

http://www.eset.com/products/index.php


BitDefender and Kasperskey are rated higher and both scan faster then NOD32 which has a higher price. I think the choice on this should be pretty clear. If you want Free a AV with Active scanning including email Avast has never failed me.

[Conduit]

BitDefender and Kasperskey are rated higher and both scan faster then NOD32 which has a higher price. I think the choice on this should be pretty clear. If you want Free a AV with Active scanning including email Avast has never failed me.

They're rated higher? Where? Not here (http://www.av-comparatives.org/), or here (http://www.virusbtn.com/index) :p
As someone who has used all 3 over the last few years, I can say that BitDefender and Kasperskey are both competent AVs thats true, and they may even scan a little faster than NOD32 (I'd like to see the test data for that though, because NOD32 is pretty fast) What's important for me is detecting all the bad stuff before it can actually infect your PC. NOD32 is the best AV out there at detecting zero-day threats, and the virus definition on my PC is often updated 2 or even 3 times a day.
Also, like Zii said it uses very little CPU and takes up a tiny amount of memory (19 MB on my machine right now), so you shouldn't notice any performance hit on your machine.

Edit: Avira (http://www.avira.com/en/pages/index.php) gets some good reviews and has the highest detection rates, but i haven't had a chance to try it, so I don't know if it's a resource hog or not.

[Dribble Joy]

Permanently running AVs = bleh.

[Nullvoid]

Permanently running AVs = bleh.

It used to be bleh but on a modern system you hardly even notice they are there.

[Flame Bait]

They're rated higher? Where? Not here (http://www.av-comparatives.org/), or here (http://www.virusbtn.com/index) :p

Edit: Avira (http://www.avira.com/en/pages/index.php) gets some good reviews and has the highest detection rates, but i haven't had a chance to try it, so I don't know if it's a resource hog or not.

You can read all these for a general census.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130869/article.html
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6600_7-6768133-1.html?tag=feat.1
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/shopper/labs/230/anti-virus-software/products.html

Overall av-comparatives.org rates NOD a tad lower then Kaspersky.
Kaspersky 98,46%
NOD32 97,60%
BitDefender 97,51%

As for Avira a buddy of mine says its really good and it does have good ratings. The downside is the interface really sucks which does not make it all that consumer friendly. I use Avast because im a cheap ass and prefer not to run warez on my machine. So far nothing has ever been able to harm my system aside from what i allow inside. I also work in a side of the internet that requires me to visit sites that try to infect me pretty frequently.

Doing what i do puts me at greater risk then your average surfer and so far Avast has done its job. If NOD was cheaper i would give it a shot but $39 a year is a waste of money that could be better spent on other things. I would rather just pop open regedit or roll back my machine a day or two.

[William Antrim]

Sorry to bump an old thread but Avast is shite. I tried it spat on it and removed it.

Anyone got any good (free) spyware removal programs coz i am still getting some form of browser pop up thing that is annoying me. I have used avast and adaware and spybot search and destroy and none of them can get rid of it. I have also reinstalled firefox and the bloody thing is still here somewhere.

Anyone got any ideas?

thanks guys and girls.

[DrRisk]

Odd....Tried talking to a professional?

[William Antrim]

Only my carer and he said if I do it one more time I cant have my toys back.

[Nullvoid]

Sorry to bump an old thread but Avast is shite. I tried it spat on it and removed it.

Anyone got any good (free) spyware removal programs coz i am still getting some form of browser pop up thing that is annoying me. I have used avast and adaware and spybot search and destroy and none of them can get rid of it. I have also reinstalled firefox and the bloody thing is still here somewhere.

Anyone got any ideas?

thanks guys and girls.

Try using the noscript extension (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722) for Firefox, only giving full permissions to sites that you trust.

[Zheo]

Most all those anti-spyware programs are crap go to the Panda link below and use something that actually works. Adaware is a joke they are going to force people buy updates all of a sudden. Only a moron is going to pay for software that scans for things a good anti-virus that can be had for free will prevent from harming you to begin with. Spybot never detected half the things Adaware would find but who really cares Avast! kicks ass.

http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/activescan/ascan_2.asp

After you do a good hard scan with Panda you can grab this for free to keep you clean.

http://www.avast.com

I just suggest a prescan before you install a permanent solution to be on the safe side.

Why don't you tell her to just throw a bucket of water over her computer while she's at it?

nod32 ftw :) it costs money but it's the best-est (yes that is a word because I say it is).

Also for the love of crahn tell me you haven't been doing internet banking?

[SizZLeR]

Afaik the so called "free" antivirus/antispyware usually aint thet free, it comes on the cost of not being adequate for its actual purpose.

http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/bitdefender-review.html

Kaspersky, BitDefender and Nod32 seem to be in general the top rated solutions.

However theres also a price issue, BitDefender is $25 for 2pc 2yrs, Kaspersky is $64 for 1 pc 2 yrs and Nod32 is $82 1pc 2yrs. - (I tried to locetae prices on the most basic AV solution for all brands, also prices may be different in some countries)

So BitDefender comes out way cheapest and yet according to different tests, competative to both Kaspersky and Nod32.

If we shall compare the price, it has to be based on 2 pc for 2 yrs, so then Kaspersky would be $128, Nod32 $164 and BitDefender (as mentioned) $25.


I always tell my customers not to spare the expense on AV solutions, its fairly small amounts per yr for adding safety to your data.

But so far ive been using BitDefender for 1 yr, I have around 50 customers using it too, and none of them including myself, have had problems with weird processes, spyware, adware nor virus ever since.

Some of the so called free solutions, like avast, avg etc., ppl claim to have had no problems, but when u get to use their computer, ull find all sort of weird stuff they didnt know was there, and when u clean it up theyre like: "Wow! its much faster now!".

Ofcourse, if youre a power-user and know how to keep your cpu clean of junk and/or u dont have anything on it u fear to lose and you want to spend the time on frequently cleaning it up, then go with the "free" solutions.


Im not saying BD is THE av solution, but its among the best and it cost $1 a month, if u cant afford that or it causes noticeable impact on your economy, u really need to consider if u even can afford to live. :lol:

For $1 a month, i cant do much manuel virus cleaning so ill stick with the solution thats keeps what seems to be at least 95% sure i dont have to do rollbacks etc, as I use the computer for my businesses too. ;)

[William Antrim]

Thank you sizzler, this is the sort of answer I was hoping to get from someone.

[Darkana]

Security always comes down to "trust". Do you trust the webpage you want to have a look at? Do you trust the sender to not send you any malicious/infected stuff (why would you even want to open possible active content?). Do you trust the sources you got your newest whatever from with your P2P software? And so on ...

I had a Windows machine running for years without AV and firewall, and never had a single problem. Mind you, I use a router, which is IMO a must nowadays; connecting your machine directly to the internet, especially if it runs Windows, is a bad idea. Secondly, shut down huge gaping holes like the IE by configuring them to a "tight" setting by default. Don't use IE for your everyday browsing, it's bad enough it's the only choice for Windows Update and gets used in other applications like NC launcher. The next thing to block is active content of all sorts; the NoScript extension for Firefox Nullvoid mentioned is a real treat in that regard. Enable scripts (that includes JavaScript, ActiveX, Flash and so on) only for sites you trust (which brings us back to what I mentioned above already). This list goes on, but I guess you get the idea.

To sum it up: AVs and firewalls are only so good; they are the last line of defense (and have themselfs been target of attacks already, go figure). It is YOU who is the biggest security risk; thinking that you can do everything with AV and firewall installed is a sure way into trouble.

On a related note, which internet banking site is actually working without JavaScript?

And a final thing to think about: How many million lines of code do you trust by lets say having a browser running your internet banking site? What do you think how many possible (and exploitable) bugs are there for lets say every 1000 lines of code? Trust ...

[Matanius]

I know this sounds stupidly simple, but have you gone to Tools > Add-ons > Remove whatever that thing is? I'm assuming you have but you never know.... :D