Also see our Spyware Payloads and Spyware Prevention sections for more info!

Spyware and Adware Removal Tips & Tools

This page is written as a primer to help any computer user better understand the threat posed by spyware and other malicious web-related software, and learn the basic steps of removing it.  If you need help removing spyware from your computer, and want a professional technician to handle the job, please click here for our contact information.  We are available for onsite service within 35 miles of Brentwood, CA.  If you live outside of that service area, or would prefer to fix your computer yourself, then the following paragraphs are for you.

We Recommend a package of 6 software programs to keep your computer spyware, adware, trojan, and virus free:

Ad-Aware - Well-known and free spyware detection and removal.  About 70% effective.  Be sure you download and use their free plug-ins to attack specific infections!

Spybot - Well known and free spyware detection and removal.  About 65% effective.  Also contains an excellent immunization (blocking) tool.

Spyware Blaster - Free website blocking program that prevents your computer from accepting data from known-bad sites.  It does block many 'cookie' sites, which may have a negative impact on your surfing experience, but it will also prevent a drive-by attack on your computer.  Give it a try, and yank it off, if it bugs you too much.  Between, Ad-Aware, Spybot, and Spy Sweeper (below), you're just as well protected, but in a different way.

Next, choose one of these two subscription spyware detectors / removers...these are your ACTIVE spyware defenders, and you should always have one of these type programs on your PC:

Spy Sweeper - This is our top recommendation for a spyware detection and removal product.  It's extremely effective, updated almost daily (!!!!), and it's relatively affordable (under $30).  Included in the price is FREE technical support to help remove anything Spy Sweeper can't clean automatically.  This is the paid solution we use on our own computers here at PillowPC.

Pest Patrol - Just a hair less effective than Spy Sweeper, Pest Patrol is made by computing giant Computer Associates (aka CA).  If you prefer a paid-solution from a larger well-known security organization, Pest Patrol is your answer.  These guys also have the distinction of having one the Net's best spyware informational websites (what program name is associated with what spyware program, etc), which they provide for free to the world.  Pest Patrol also costs just under $30.

Next, download and use Mozilla FireFox, for the majority of your web surfing, instead of Internet Explorer. 

 FireFox is an 'alternative web browser', and does not use ActiveX controls, which are a proven conduit for certain spyware and virus infections.  It is free to download, and very easy to install.  Web pages also tend to load much faster with FireFox (for a variety of reasons).  You'll need to still use IE for a few things (like Windows Updates, and web pages you trust with ActiveX content), but you'll enjoy surfing with FireFox much more, once you discover some of its amazing features (such as Tabbed Browsing).

Finally, you need an anti-virus program, ideally one that can also detect and delete spyware infections.  We've only found ONE that works exactly as advertised, and it works extremely well.

Panda Anti-Virus Software with TruPrevent Technology - We can't say enough good things about this product.  It's already been proven 98% effective at stopping unknown viruses, and it's just as effective at stopping spyware infections.  Sound unbelievable?  Read this. 

Panda's products comes in 3 flavors, one of which, TruPrevent Personal Edition, can 'plug-in' to your existing anti-virus software to provide some of Panda's revolutionary enhancements (although, we do recommend you dump whatever you use now in favor of a complete Panda anti-virus solution...it's just sooooooo much better!).

The remainder of this page is quite long, but spyware is not a simple subject.  My talking points are in bold in the sections below, to make scrolling through this easier.  If you want to jump straight to our Basic Spyware Removal Procedures, click here.

Every tool needed to remove known-spyware infections (and a few unknown infections) is included among the links on this page.

What exactly is Spyware and Adware?

Spyware and Adware are terms used to describe a variety of tiny software programs, which are often intentionally and deceptively hidden inside of larger more legitimate programs, or hidden inside the coding of unscrupulous websites. 

Spyware programs do just what the name implies:  Gather information about you, for some named or unnamed 3rd party. 

Adware programs are somewhat less insidious, and are used to help pay for all those free software files and services, which have become so prevalent on the Net today.  These programs force ads to appear on your computer, in the form of popups or un-closable tool bars.

The commercial purpose of these programs is two-fold:

1. Track your surfing preferences across Internet websites, which allows targeted advertising to be sent to you through email, or forced onto your computer browser (stray pop up windows, redirected search engine results, etc).  The more malicious of these programs may include 'key loggers' which track your keystrokes, and send back personal information to the authors.
2. Trick or Force you into using internet products (such as poor quality search engines or search tool bars), or to produce artificially high traffic volume to a website (or set of websites). These spyware programs often manifest themselves as either random popup windows, or browser-hijacks (the forced change of your 'home page' to something other than you desire).

I suppose there could be other reasons, but most of this junk boils down into one or both of those categories.

So why does Spyware and Adware even exist?

Why does spyware exist? Aside from a few dozen dorks who only wish to steal personal information from you, the simple answer is 'Money'.  In spite of the unpopular nature of these type of programs, they can (and do) generate five-to-six-figure revenues in a month for the authors, if only because many folks will use the spyware programs without realizing they are doing so.

Legal actions won't end the problem, although a few minor success have occurred in the United States.  The Internet is international, and laws of the USA have very little impact outside of our borders.  Spyware and Adware affect computer users world-wide. Indeed, the two leading free programs for combating spyware and adware (Spybot and Ad-Aware) were created in Germany.

There's also a huge spyware removal industry forming in the world out there, and with it have emerged dozens (even hundreds) of second-rate or bogus spyware removal programs.  The complete list of bogus spyware removal programs is maintained by the original 'spyware warrior' on his site here.

Things to know before you start removing spyware

Ok, I'll give you the basic procedure to remove spyware and adware programs in a second, but there are a few things you should know up front:

• No software program is 100% effective in removing spyware and adware.  The best you can hope for is that whatever infected your computer has a known, published solution, and is included in the definition files of a given spyware removal program.
• Spyware removal programs often must make changes to the Windows Registry.  While this is unavoidable and generally safe with these programs, error messages for 'file not found' or (rarely) problems booting Windows may follow spyware removal procedures.
• The more advanced spyware and adware programs now have the ability to morph and reinstall themselves immediately after they are deleted from the system.  We call these type of infections "polymorphic". You'll very likely need the help of a professional to remove these.
• Spyware Removal programs are not the same as Spyware Prevention programs.  Basic spyware removal is generally available for free.  Spyware prevention software normally costs a few bucks (usually less than $50), but it can stop this stuff from ever getting onto your computer.  Remember, these are not viruses, and your anti-virus software can't defend you from this kind of program (well, unless you use Panda Anti-virus, which does stop spyware infections).

Basic Spyware Removal Procedures

Alright, here we go!  We need to download some software.

First things first.  Run a Windows Update, assuming your computer isn't so infected that it can't access the update site.  Most newer Microsoft Operating Systems have patches released on a regular basis.  Many of these are security patches (critical updates) that serve to protect your PC from various nasties. 

If you run Windows XP, be sure you have installed Service Pack 2! While it may cause you some minor grief while you use the internet (Service Pack 2 blocks 'active' content automatically), SP2, as it's called in abbreviated form, has huge numbers of fixes and security tweaks.   It's a powerful spyware prevention tool, and it's free! 

After you run your Windows Update, If you don't have them installed already, download these two free anti-spyware programs:

Spybot

Ad-Aware

Note: Certain spyware programs specifically target those two anti-spyware programs, and prevent them from downloading and/or loading onto your computer (they are, after all, the most popular, and most likely to be used to attack a spyware problem).  If this is happens, you'll have to use a purchased anti-spyware product, or call a professional computer technician, in your area (and please be sure they know how to remove spyware...most don't, so grill them a little bit!). 

Also, if you have one or both of those programs already installed, and one or both don't seem to run properly anymore, there's a good chance your computer has at least one of those "hardened" spyware programs on it.

Once you have Spybot and Ad-Aware downloaded, go ahead and install Spybot first.  Just double-click the file you downloaded, and it'll go right in. Please complete the entire installation, update, and scan procedures before trying to load the 2nd program (i.e. don't try to run both Ad-Aware and Spybot at once, or install the 2nd without first updating and running the scan of the 1st).

Let Spybot run, once it's installed.  Run the spyware pattern update immediately (it's part of the setup process, the first time you run the program).  Install every single update!  Once that's done, run the Immunize routine (click the little green plus sign, even though it doesn't look clickable).  This will set 'blocks' on certain known-spyware websites, and give you a first line of defense against future attacks. 

Now run the Spybot scan on all your fixed-disks (the c: drive, and any hard drive partitions you may have created on your computer).

Don't be shocked if Spybot finds dozens or even hundreds of little spyware programs all over your computer.  I've seen as many as 800 found the first time a scan is run (update 9/5/05: I recently found over 2700 on one system! Yikes!).  Let Spybot fix everything it finds. If Spybot wants to reboot your computer to remove something, let it do that also.

Now close Spybot, and install Ad-Aware.  Follow the exact same procedure as you followed with Spybot (run after install, perform the update, and run the scan on all hard drives).  I know it seems redundant, but the spyware definition files are a little different in each product, and one may catch bad files not found by the other.  Let Ad-Aware delete all files it lists under 'critical objects'.  If Ad-Aware wants to reboot to remove a specific spyware infection, allow that to take place.

Note: All anti-spyware products will very likely find dozens or hundreds of perfectly innocent cookies on your computer.  These are left on your computer as you move from website to website, to make your web experience more personal (they remember your settings, automate your logins, and identify you as you to specific websites).  As a general rule, cookies are quite harmless, and do not need to be blocked or removed.  As fast as you take them off, new one's will appear.

Blocking cookies permanently will reduce your enjoyment of the Internet significantly. Functions of many popular websites rely on cookies, and your access to those fun-functions will be denied, if you do not allow the site to place a cookie. 

Run Spybot and Ad-Aware in Safe Mode

With those first two scans complete, you probably have about 70% of known-spyware removed from your computer.  Heck, it might all be gone at this point.  To get at some of those last bits of spyware, we'll want to run those exact scans again from Windows Safe-Mode.

To get into Safe Mode, reboot your computer, and start tapping the F8 key, at the rate of about 1 tap-per-second.  Don't just hold the key down, or you'll get a 'keyboard stuck' error.  Just keep on tapping F8, until you see a boot menu come up (if for some reason your PC goes straight into Windows, reboot and repeat as above).

Locate the selection for Safe Mode (not command prompt safe mode, or safe mode w/ networking...just good ol' Safe Mode).  Select it, and let the computer boot up.  It'll take a while longer than normal, so just hang in there.

Ok, click past any 'You are in Safe Mode' warning messages (your screen will be ugly...just go with it), and run the Spybot scan.  Remove anything it finds.  Do the same with Ad-Aware.

Reboot your computer, without any intervention, and let it go back into Normal mode.

Test the Cleaned Computer

Ok, let's see how we did.  Open up a browser window and go to your favorite homepage (this may have been altered by the spyware cleaning, so set it to whatever you prefer again, then make sure it stays there, by closing and reopening the browser, after it's set).

Surf around a while.  Hit your favorite clean sites.  Do a few searches on Google, Yahoo, and MSN...the search results should all appear on Google, Yahoo, and MSN pages, respectively.  If they do, and you don't get popups, or other bizarre behavior, the problem is probably gone.  If the searches default back to something lame like CoolWebSearch, SearchBar, SearchToolbar, or the like, then the free spyware scanning tools aren't going to work for us.  We'll get a little more aggressive.

Kick it up a notch!

Here is the current list of Advanced Spyware Removal Tools we use to remove specific infections for onsite service calls.  These are all free tools.  Many of these tools clean very specific and difficult to remove spyware infections. 

Ad-Aware, while not capable of cleaning most of these infections, is an excellent detector and will often tell you which spyware infections are on your computer.  Ad-Aware is a great guide for choosing the proper advanced removal tool.

Warning: these are advanced tools for advanced users and computer technical support folks.  As with so many things in life, just having the proper tool does not ensure success.  You have to use the tool correctly to get the expected result.  Read and follow all instructions very carefully!

The most powerful tool found on that page is the HijackThis! program (also known by its initials HJT). HJT allows an experienced spyware fighter to compare the interaction of various browser settings and all running programs, and determine if the setting/running program is clean or links to some kind of spyware interface. 

You can get free help with spyware removal from any number of forums on the internet.  All will require you to download HJT, run it, and post the HJT log file to the forum.

While I tend to post mostly on issues related to hardware and software (because posting on spyware removal can be sooooo very tedious), the forum for spyware I use as my own resource is here:

http://forums.thatcomputerguy.us/index.php

Killing spyware via online forum is a lengthy process.  Be prepared for a couple of days of posting HJT logs back and forth, until the problem can be resolved.

The staff at ThatComputerGuy.us is pretty much unsurpassed in my experience, and they've been 'the first' to find solutions for more than one new spyware problem…very powerful group there! They will also help with specific computer problems, if my tips are not enough to help you help yourself.

Time to move beyond Free Anti-Spyware solutions

If you got this far, you're either very patient or very frustrated.  The spyware threat has penetrated the computer world more completely than any virus or worm threat, by several times over.  Roughly 16% of all computers have an active virus on them, while spyware resides on 87% of Internet-connected computers.

The free anti-spyware products are clearly failing to provide sufficient protection.  With over 200,000,000 downloads between Spybot and Ad-Aware on Download.com alone, 87% of computers STILL have spyware.  Obviously, you need better protection than these free programs can provide.

Presently, the most effective stand-alone anti-spyware product is Webroot Software's Spy Sweeper.  Spy Sweeper costs just under $30, and includes updates (almost daily!) for one year.  Your investment also buys you technical support with any spyware problem for that year.  Spy Sweeper software is dramatically more effective than either Ad-Aware or Spybot, and is currently the only anti-spyware solution we've tested capable of removing the extremely tenacious CoolWebSearch spyware variants.  Spy Sweeper includes an active component, which actually prevented several spyware downloads during our testing (both Ad-Aware and Spybot failed to block the downloads).  A free 30-day trial of Spy Sweeper is available for our visitors, through the link above.

To complete your spyware defenses, consider changing your anti-virus software package from whatever you are currently using to Panda Software's Titanium Edition or Platinum Edition security solutions.  The Titanium Edition provides industry-leading virus and spyware protection, while the Platinum Edition provides additional protection against 'phishing' and spam, and includes web-filtering options.

Panda's anti-virus product is the first I've ever seen that is also capable of attacking spyware effectively.  More importantly, Panda's unique Genetic Heuristic Engine can detect and stop trojan and spyware programs, which have no 'definition or published solution' (That's a huge big deal folks!).  This means Panda's Security Software can find and destroy spyware, trojan, virus and worm programs that have yet to be reported to security software vendors.  We've heard this rap before from the other software vendors, but Panda's solution actually works!

I've never felt this strongly about an anti-virus AND anti-spyware product suite (since up to now, they were only modestly effective against spyware).  Panda takes detection and elimination to new heights.  Buy it and be proud of your smart decision.

Every single tool you need to keep your computer clean and safe is included or linked on the above page. 

If you still have spyware problems after installing and using all of the above tools, then you must contact a computer tech experienced in tough spyware removals, in your area, as the spyware programs will have to be manually removed.  If you took my advice and purchased Spy Sweeper, then you are entitled to free technical support for all spyware issues (very hard to find anywhere!) from them. 

The service areas of PillowPC.com are listed below.
 

Contact Information

We'd love to hear from you!  To arrange a service appointment or consultation in the Brentwood CA Area, please call us at the number below. 

Our computer service area includes Brentwood, Antioch, Pittsburg, Oakley, Discovery Bay, Byron and other cities within 35 miles of Brentwood, CA.

Telephone

925-584-6951

 

Postal address

308 Pebble Beach Dr.  Brentwood, CA 94513

Electronic mail

General Information: smartguys@pillowpc.com

Webmaster: webmaster@pillowpc.com