Last week I was running all around town and stopped by my brother’s house to use his computer and check my email. (He still lives with his folks, so it’s basically a “family” computer.) Immediately, I noticed how badly the computer LAGGED, especially how each window opened or each link clicked caused about a 30-45 second pause, and even though he’s on DSL, the download rates were horrible. (Plus he’s still using IE…and I’d totally forgotten how BAD the pop-up ad situation was before I got Netscape 7.0)
In fact, it felt like someone…or some THING…was monitoring every action on this computer. Hmm…
So I asked him: “When’s the last time you scanned for spyware?”
Brother: “What’s that?”
Me: :rolleyes:
So I downloaded & installed Adaware 6, and watch in morbid fascination as the “suspicious programs found” number went up and UP and UP…good LORD!! The final total = 556
That has GOT to be a record, dontcha think?? Or can anyone else beat that total?
BTW the computer ran significantly smoother afterwards. Frankly, I’m amazed it was able to function at all.
I probably don’t count though, as I admin around 100 machines that are staffed by email-forwarding, virus-getting, attachment-running, "yes-I-would-love-to-use-comet-cursor-a-free-10-second-download"ing monkeys.
I’ve got you all beat. My mom said my sister’s computer was running funny. So I pointed her to Spybot. A few minutes later, she’d told me Spybot had found 17,000 pieces of spyware.
I use AdAware, and I find that I have to check every single box to get it to delete each piece of spyware. Did you have to click 556 boxes, or am I overlooking a feature here?
There is an option to automatically check all boxes, but it is disabled in the free version. Pay the bux, and save the clix.
One solution: run AdAware more frequently, so it will find fewer items each time.
BTW, FYI: Adaware groups all “malware” baddies and calls them “objects.” An object can be a program (real bad), a registry entry (maybe not too bad) or a cookie (not so bad). I practice very clean computing, and never find malware programs running, but there are always some data-mining cookies that get installed, maybe 6 a week. Of course, 70,000 cookies, as harmless as they might be, would probably have a speed effect on any computer.
Right click on one of the boxes, there should be a Select All option under that dialog box. The new free version that is out now is way faster than the original AdAware 6. I use the free version by the way.
Bosda, I’ve been using Spybot Search & Destroy for some time and have never had any problems. Just make sure you set it up for “Advanced User” and spend a few minutes checking off what you want excluded. If you don’t, it’ll clear your recently viewed documents and your internet history. Make sure you read the licence - best I’ve ever seen.
I’ll suggest keeping the free AdAware and running it after Spybot; it occassionally finds something Spybot missed.
No. The anti-virus companies take a very narrow view of what constitutes a worm or virus, and that doesn’t include the malware that AdAware or SpyBot root out.
You can verify this by running a scan by Norton followed by AdAware. Anything AdAware finds has slipped thru Norton (or MacAfee).
I have a friend who I recently helped—he as well was clueless about spyware (as I was not too long ago). I found somewhere around 500-700 objects; I forget exactly how many.
Don’t forget SpywareBlaster—it blocks spyware from being installed.
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