I've been assigned the wonderful task of working on my brother "inlaws'" puter. He's got so much adware on it that I can't seem to remove it. I'm on the verge of reformatting.

I've downloaded Ad Aware se, but there's always 52 objects it just doesn't seem to get rid of.

Any better "free" ones out there?

I've been assigned the wonderful task of working on my brother "inlaws'" puter. He's got so much adware on it that I can't seem to remove it. I'm on the verge of reformatting.

I've downloaded Ad Aware se, but there's always 52 objects it just doesn't seem to get rid of.

Any better "free" ones out there?

spybot search and destroy works well. I use both adaware and spybot on all my computer.
Ad Aware also detects non-critical items in a MRU list that aren't spyware just info that windows keeps track of so after you delete them and then rerun adaware there all back. dont be concerned by anything in the MRU list.

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Tony
I've also used Spybot its similar but 'sometimes' gets rid of a few more pests.

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Microsoft AntispyWare is a pretty good one its a BETA product and is free does a very good job

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I've been assigned the wonderful task of working on my brother "inlaws'" puter. He's got so much adware on it that I can't seem to remove it. I'm on the verge of reformatting.

I've downloaded Ad Aware se, but there's always 52 objects it just doesn't seem to get rid of.

Any better "free" ones out there?

I find SpyBot better than Ad Adware.

I've downloaded Ad Aware se, but there's always 52 objects it just doesn't seem to get rid of.

Last summer I had an XP machine that started out with 750+ objects found by AdAware.
Took a loooong time for it to run the first time, but all 750 in the list were able to be marked and removed. I ran AdAware a second time and it found 30 some odd more 'bad' objects, and again deleted them. Repeat the last sentence a couple more times. A virus scan found 2 viri, can't recall which ones they were, but they were causing instantaneous recreation of several files that AdAware found. After getting rid of the viri, AdAware deleted the objects and they stayed deleted.

running spybot as we speak. It's found 479 "infections" so far. still scanning, thanks

I use XoftSpy by ParetoLogic, but it's not free. Very thorough, though! Must be run under each user if there are separate user accounts even though it scans all each time.

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I've been assigned the wonderful task of working on my brother "inlaws'" puter. He's got so much adware on it that I can't seem to remove it. I'm on the verge of reformatting.

I've downloaded Ad Aware se, but there's always 52 objects it just doesn't seem to get rid of.

Any better "free" ones out there?

Tony, take a day off..........you're burning the candle at both ends and trying to light the middle!

OH damn, I had downloaded one that was a "free download", I ran it, then it required a "paid" registration. so I asked here

I searched for Spybot and saw the link "spybot search and destroy". I downloaded that, and that one ran also, and required a "paid" registration. I misread the file.

Now I think I've found the right one.

LOL

I find SpyBot better than Ad Adware.

They each target different types of malware so each will detect and remove stuff the other won't. Hence they are best used in combination.

Ned

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...He's got so much adware on it that I can't seem to remove it. I'm on the verge of reformatting.

Once you've cleaned it up, a good initial defense is to use anything other than IE and so avoid all the ActiveX nightmare!

My favourite is Mozilla-Firefox. No ActiveX to exploit, and its more up to date than IE in the first place.

The best solution of course is Linux... ;-)

Good luck,
Martin

(And the old bag is keeping quiet. Must be too cold... :-) )

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Also use CCleaner to get rid of all the other crap you can't get rid of. It's helped me getting rid of a very unwanted lob.com search bar. ;)

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thanks, I seem tohave gotten rid of most except "coolWWWsearch". I'll try that.

tony

Just set it to really clean everything. Mind, you will lose all logins to websites and cookies etc. as well.

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not my puter, my brother inlaw will have to deal with it. Whatever happens it's got to be better than what he brought me. LOL

thanks, I seem tohave gotten rid of most except "coolWWWsearch". I'll try that.

That's a nasty one to try and purge. It hides in several places and restarts itself. To clean it off a couple of computers (belonging to friends or clients), I had to do a google search and find a multi-step process to get all the pieces. (Unfortunately, I didn't keep the directions, or I'd pass them to you.) It can be done, but it's a royal pain!

MJ

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I'm finding that out. I keep rebooting, running one/all three programs (ad aware, spybot, and CCleaner), but it just comes right back. I asked wife to get the config builder/restore CD's when she was out that way today.

I don't see personal files or anything on here that would kill him to lose. I hope a format and recover will work. as long as nothing in hiding the MBR I hope it'll be OK

You could try my old cleaning solution. Can't be sure if all the links still work.

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