I seem to have picked up some sort of nasty malware. Adaware can’t detect it, so it looks like I’m going to have to pay for a program to remove it. Any suggestions?
Spybot, for one. Have you followed all the suggestions in this thread?
I like Sunbelt’s CounterSpy. Also use Ad-Aware, Spybot (also free) and SpySweeper.
That may seem like overkill, but the reccomendations seem to be to use at least three. I’ve found that often one will pick up something that the rest have missed.
I run 'em at least weekly.
Thanks, I have Spybot too, it can’t detect it either.
Then how do you know you are infected?
My computer is doing all kinds of crazy stuff. Crazy pop-ups that launch all the time. When I close a browser window, my pop up blocker goes crazy with a rattling noise and locks up my computer for 2-3 seconds. I get constantly redirected to a site that announces I’ve won some sort of prize. My computer constantly locks up and the task bar becomes unavailable (hourglass when I try to select options on the task bar). I ran Pandascan and Symantec online free scans. Symantec found 4 viruses, Pandscan found a virus and 142 types of malware.
Something is not right with my machine and the free scans/removers aren’t fixing it. So, I’m ready to pay money to fix this, just looking for some recommendations for a good product.
Sadly, if nothing works, you may be in for a reformat. I had one of those a couple weeks ago, and neither CounterSpy, AVG, or AdAware would remove it, though CounterSpy could detect it. Rather than go through a lot of contortions that may still not have removed it, I just reformatted. I keep my primary partition separate, though, so after copying bookmarks and my desktop off to another partition, the only thing I lost were emails (because I stupidly forgot about them.)
No one scanner will remove all spyware; there simply isn’t a silver bullet cure. That being said, I like Ewido from Grisoft. You get a 30 day free trial of the full version, then it reverts a free-ware version with limited features, but as far as I can tell, this doesn’t affect the range of spyware it removes or the frequency of updates (which is almost daily).
For the best results, run several scanners. I use AdAware, Spybot Search & Destroy, Ewido and Windows Defender. If your infection remains, you will need serious help to dig it out. Go to the malware forum at SpywareInfo.com; they can guide on the removal of specific infections.
Wow! It sure is! Sorry I doubted you.
You may be beyond easy repair. If you can restore your system, that might be your next and best option.
My experience is people often are not aware of creeping attacks until it is too late, which may be your case. I suspect your infection started long ago, and each baddie that was installed invited all its friends to the party and now they are ganging up on you. A good virus & adware detector might be the first thing you install after restoring your system.
Or if your computer is old, bite the bullet and get a new one.
I used to use all of them but once I got the original Windows Beta a few years back my problems ceased. I don’t bother with the others any more as I have never been reinfected.