PCFormat Forum Archive

Hi Everyone,

I just got hit with some spyware. Had no software installed to protect my pc from it, and now have windows defender running. Hopefully it will stop it from happening again!

Anyways....had a nasty one, kept on resetting my home page to a file called secure32.html, had some blue screen with a warning message. No matter how many times I deleted the file from my c: drive, it just re-appeared. After some hectic searching, I found a way to remove it....finally!

So my question is, can anyone recommend a spyware/trojan scanner? I came across a lot of them, some were terrible, others needed a code to remove spyware...and others just didnt work so well.

Im looking for a tool that can scan and find all spyware, trojans etc, and remove them all. Anyone got some ideas

Thanks!

Thrall on Practising Safe HEX

to date, no package catches all of the evil pixies... i find that spybot/avg anti-spyware work well together.. but you would still need to worry about issues introduced by rootkits, ( scan with blacklight/hijack this/rootkit revealer), ala sony et al...

AVG comes at a modest price and offers the full package... (i still wouldn't let go of spybot though - mainly because it offers functionality you won't find in the others.. )

Thanks rusty...gonna give spybot a try...

be aware, spybot doesn't catch all of them... i've had many instances where spybot issued a "cangrats you're clean" while avg unearthed some trackers... once even a trojan, (acquired after installing some pcf 3dnot - that'll teach me to go old-school...)

avg runs at full functionality until the trial ends, at which point you have to revert to manual scans, (the active portion is silently removed at boot), or purchase.... spybot catches a fair amount, while allowing you to manage startups, lmhost file, etc, etc, ...

the fact is, the scanners available are all reactive... they can only catch what they're looking for.. if they don't know about it, they're not going to tag it... hence the dual-scan system...

adaware has yet to catch anything spybot didn't, so it's more or less even between the two... although adaware has a BHO plugin which is handy for catching those rotters as well...

So far spybot seems good, and is fairly simple to use. I have heard about avg...so will look into that too. Means I will have windows defender, spybot and avg running. Should be fine then....I hope! Thanks again!

try "security task manager" - it works for a 15 days with full functionality - then continues working if you pay for it

was very highly rated in cnet and a few other mags in the states

I still havent find one which I feel comfortable with.

So far iv found Counter Spy and ZoneAlarm 7's anti spyware rather good.

I found Adware SE and Xoftspy the worst iv used so far.

But thats just me.

a-squared free rocks.