My computer is pretty much constantly and heavily bogged down with spy- and adware. I have desktop icons, installed programs, new homepages, pop-ups, the lot. Spybot SD and Adaware don't help much at all - I can run them both several times as well as clear out all my cookies, caches, and internet files. This does help a little, but the bulk of it stays on my computer, and every time I think I've deleted it all, it's back again when I reboot.

My question is, where do I go from here? I can't seem to shift this rubbish by any means. If there is any program out there that will properly get rid of all this crap as well as block pop-ups (without disallowing me to open new browser windows) I'd be prepared to pay whatever's necessary. I've also considered just buying a new laptop hard drive so that I can start afresh, but this is costly.

Any ideas, anyone? I'm loathe to fork out $350 for a new hard drive, but I don't want to live with all this gunk on my notebook either. Thanks for any suggestions [img]smile.gif[/img]

Hmmm just a thought, perhaps go through the control panel, add/remove software and taking out anything that isn't a driver, program you actively use or update? Then again you may have already tried that, and/or perhaps found nothing there that may be the cause of your troubles.

That's the thing - I have a lot of programs on that list that I never put on there, and when I click 'remove' either nothing happens or I get some error, so I can't shift them. It's all pretty sucky :(

<span style="color: lightblue">Make sure Spyboth and Ad-Aware are both fully updated. Use the internal updaters in both of them. Make sure Ad-Aware is set to it's most optimal performance (Custom scan, click customize; under 'scanning' tick everything you can except for 'skip'; under Tweak, extend the 'Scanning Engine' tree and tick the top one (make sure the second one is *not* ticked)). Run Ad-Aware, once it finishes rightclick the list and select all, delete, and clear your quarantine list. Then run Spybot, and again select and Fix everything it comes up with.

umm.. isnt that bad to delete all, i mean what if you delete a impt registry file?

IMO, it's still worth it... only thing I can think of that it may mess up are some p2p filesharing proggies that freak out once they realize you've removed the ad-/spy-ware they installed.

Btw, I think the next Gator-popup after running Ad-Aware or Spybot will claim that "the force is strong in you" and ask you to join the dark side.

umm.. isnt that bad to delete all, i mean what if you delete a impt registry file? </font>[/QUOTE]Adaware is pretty safe, as is spybotSD. They only flag registry keys that are known to be associated with spyware, and although killing spyware can kill some programs, theres always a spyware-free alternative.

What is dangerous is another program called hijack this, kill everything that flags and your computer won't boot. But it lists anything that could possibly be a spyware or other malware, so with caution its fairly good at killing everything. Post its logfile here or use the FAQ to work out whats safe.

Care to say that again, more slowly Andrewas?
There's also the solution of killing the stuff with a coding editor...y'know, going in and deleting random lines of code in the offending stuff...seems like we were talking about that here about a month ago...

Is it just me, or has this stuff gotten more intrusive and annoying, lately? And, does it work? Does anyone buy anything advertised in a popup? I just killed one by something called System Soap, and I swear that I wopuld never, ever buy anything done by them.

Two words. Spy Sweeper (www.spysweeper.com). I am saved. Thank you god.

Regcleaner 4.3 also helped remove a lot of the excess registry. I'd definitely recommend these two programs to anyone who wants a fresh, clean system.

[ 03-30-2004, 03:36 PM: Message edited by: Arledrian ]

A lot of spyware and adware along with a few viruses can make a real mess of your PC. One of the problems you're going to see is that some of the files that load up will resist deletion by AV/Adware programs. Once you identify the files and the locations, boot from a floppy/CD or run safe mode from the command prompt, then delete the files manually. After you start again, you will get error messages from the registry keys leading to missing files. Delete these reg keys. This method is fairly effective, but requires a little know how.

<span style="color: lightblue">And so Ad-Aware and Spybot both offer to run at the next system startup, before processes are loaded, if they try to delete a file that is locked from them.