# Guess how many objects Ad-Aware found on my aunt's PC. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 18, 2005, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-how-many-objects-ad-aware-found-on-my-aunts-pc/299949 "2005-04-18T21:30:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![StarsApart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecc23a/32.png) [@StarsApart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarsApart)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-how-many-objects-ad-aware-found-on-my-aunts-pc/299949/1 "2005-04-18T21:30:58Z")
It was getting excessive, the pop-ups and the hijacks and the general nuisances, so my aunt called me over to try to fix it yesterday. The computer has been in daily use and online for two and a half years with no Ad-Aware, spybot, firewall, antivirus… So, I ran Ad-Aware, and watched as the number of objects started climbing. The final count: 2,056. Two thousand fifty six… And we couldn’t get rid of all of it. When I gave up, the computer was running better, but with intermittent bursts of popups every once in awhile. What’s the most spyware you’ve ever found on a PC? ---
**Author:** ![Flander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8c91f0/32.png) [@Flander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flander)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-how-many-objects-ad-aware-found-on-my-aunts-pc/299949/2 "2005-04-18T22:24:40Z")
I’ve had a thousand or so on my mom’s computer when I first ran Ad-Aware. I once ran a virus scan on my brother’s computer that picked up like 600 infections. Awesome. ---
**Author:** ![I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_can_t_believe_that_s_butter)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-how-many-objects-ad-aware-found-on-my-aunts-pc/299949/3 "2005-04-18T22:32:38Z")
Ooh. My. And you have to click them all separately with Ad-Aware, too, right? There’s no “Select All” that I recall. You’re going to run the other programs (Spybot S&D, Spyware Blaster, Microsoft’s program), too, right? Between those (and maybe some artful registry editing), you ought to take care of things as far as detection is concerned. ---
**Author:** ![I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_can_t_believe_that_s_butter)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-how-many-objects-ad-aware-found-on-my-aunts-pc/299949/4 "2005-04-18T22:33:44Z")
Posted too soon… Trend Micro’s website has a beta (last i looked) version of their free anti-virus (which you should run anyway) that also includes a spyware scan. ---
**Author:** ![JCorre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3da27b/32.png) [@JCorre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JCorre)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-how-many-objects-ad-aware-found-on-my-aunts-pc/299949/5 "2005-04-18T22:42:35Z")
If you right-click on any of the single boxes in adaware you can then click on ‘select all’. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-how-many-objects-ad-aware-found-on-my-aunts-pc/299949/6 "2005-04-18T23:14:33Z")
The last scan I ran had about 100. I keep a running tally. Any company that does pop-ups or spyware gets added to my don’t do business with them memo. Champion Mortgage and 1-800 Flowers are at top of my current shit list. ---
**Author:** ![Toddly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/22d042/32.png) [@Toddly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toddly)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-how-many-objects-ad-aware-found-on-my-aunts-pc/299949/7 "2005-04-19T00:49:30Z")
Yeah, 2056 is the most I have heard of. I ran one recently and hit about 1000. It is always best to run Ad-Aware in Safe Mode if you think there is a lot of spyware running. The last computer I debugged had 80 processes running on Start Up. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-how-many-objects-ad-aware-found-on-my-aunts-pc/299949/8 "2005-04-19T00:55:55Z")
When I first installed Ad-Aware on my mom’s PC the scan came up with several hundred objects. Then when I visited a few months later I asked how it had been going, and she said, “You mean I was supposed to run it again?” Um, yeah. Only a hundred or so that time. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-how-many-objects-ad-aware-found-on-my-aunts-pc/299949/9 "2005-04-19T01:16:04Z")
> [@](#): > > Guess how many objects Ad-Aware found on my aunt’s PC? 2,056. Mitch Hedberg joke: “A friend of mine asked me, “You know what I like? Mashed potatoes.” I said, dude, if you want me to guess, you have to put a pause in there somewhere.” ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-how-many-objects-ad-aware-found-on-my-aunts-pc/299949/10 "2005-04-19T02:44:04Z")
Hey, I guessed close to the right answer! I said to myself 2,000, and then I opened the thread. Personally, the most was a few hundred on my dad’s computer. As far as my own PC, a few dozen. The worst I’ve seen was a friend’s GF’s computer. She reformatted and installed win XP. Less than a weel later almost 1,000 pieces of spyware and adware, in a WEEK! We asked her how in the Hell she got that many, and she didn’t know. In fact, she thought she was getting rid of them…why? Because a system message told her she was infected so she clicked on it…and more system messages popped up so she clicked ‘ok’ on those too. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![groman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/73ab20/32.png) [@groman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groman)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-how-many-objects-ad-aware-found-on-my-aunts-pc/299949/11 "2005-04-19T03:04:09Z")
Working as a tech I once saw 56,000 or so. Of course it was one of those things that replicated itself all over the place. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-how-many-objects-ad-aware-found-on-my-aunts-pc/299949/12 "2005-04-19T11:34:12Z")
> [@Mr. Blue Sky](#): > > Mitch Hedberg joke: > > “A friend of mine asked me, “You know what I like? Mashed potatoes.” I said, dude, if you want me to guess, you have to put a pause in there somewhere.” People take for granted how fast the board is these days. Used to be, you could read that title, click on the link, and have several minutes to ponder. Not any more. You should try running another freeware scanner, like SpyBot. I find that different scanners find different things–there might be thousands more that AdAware can’t see. And, for those ones that it says it can’t delete, either it found the same one several times, deleted the “first” one, then tried to delete the rest of them and said, “Hey! I can’t find it! It’s hiding from me!”, or they’re currently running and Windows is helping you avoid crashing your system by not deleting files it’s currently running. Yay, Microsoft! Try re-running the scans in Safe Mode. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-how-many-objects-ad-aware-found-on-my-aunts-pc/299949/13 "2005-04-19T11:55:47Z")
> [@JCorre](#): > > If you right-click on any of the single boxes in adaware you can then click on ‘select all’. It was worth reading this thread just to learn this. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guess-how-many-objects-ad-aware-found-on-my-aunts-pc/299949/14 "2005-04-19T15:38:49Z")
> [@StarsApart](#): > > And we couldn’t get rid of all of it. When I gave up, the computer was running better, but with intermittent bursts of popups every once in awhile. Dare I say, I’ve actually found Microsoft’s AntiSpyware Beta to be better at catching and eliminating adware and spyware than both Ad Aware and SpyBot. I still run the battery of three programs from time to time, but I’ve had the most luck with the Microsoft product. Scary, I know. With Ad Aware and SpyBot, I’ve found that it can’t erase half the stuff it finds, and I have to go regedit and manually delete programs by hand. I found over 5,000 items on my bosses computer after it had been infected over the weekend. This is the most I’ve ever seen, especially after such a short period of time.