# General PC health, anti-ad, anti-spyware etc.. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 20, 2004, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-pc-health-anti-ad-anti-spyware-etc/246206 "2004-05-20T16:37:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![clayton\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@clayton\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clayton_e)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-pc-health-anti-ad-anti-spyware-etc/246206/1 "2004-05-20T16:37:50Z")
I’ve been asked by a friend of mine to look at his computer. From what he tells me (unable to change startup page, excessive pop-ups etc…) it soulds like spyware. Just asking what are the programs and settings I should use, in case I’m missing any. I’m probably going to download adaware first and look into anything else suggested after that. Thanks for any info. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2004, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-pc-health-anti-ad-anti-spyware-etc/246206/2 "2004-05-20T17:32:11Z")
Ad-Aware is a must, and you can also use Spybot Search and Destroy, either separately or in conjunction (A new version of Spybot has just been released). You may also need to bring along CWShredder; CoolWebSearch is very common and isn’t cleaned by Ad-Aware or Spybot. Hijackthis is useful for stubborn problems, but you need someone to be able to analyze the log. A good place for this are the forums at [http://www.spywareinfo.com](http://www.spywareinfo.com). Don’t fix anything without instructions. When your friend is clean, install Spyware Blaster to prevent future problems.