What’s the best program available that detects and removes adware and spyware from a computer? I prefer something free. I read the reviews of Ad-Aware and Spybot on download.com, but many of the reviews seem contrived, so I thought I’d put the question to the SDMB. I’m especially wary since some of the reviewers claim that one or both of these programs contain spyware themselves. What’s the Dope on this?
By the way, I am aware that these programs have been already discussed on these boards. However, I haven’t seen a thread devoted to this specific topic.
If they’re free, why not just get all of them? That’s what I do. It’s not like they conflict, and having all of them decreases the chance that something will go undetected.
I’ve used both Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy. Neither of which contain spyware to the best of my knowledge.
The negative reviews are most probably from people who used these programs and inadvertently deleted some useful or critical files. Thing is, these are simple yet powerful programs. Configuring them incorrectly will lead to deletion of files that may be important to you.
Eitherways, both these programs have a simple roll-back feature, wherein you can undo any changes you made using the programs.
Additionally, set a System Restore point before you install these programs.
I have been very pleased with the performance of Ad-Aware and Spybot. Using them both is more effective than using either individually. Ad-Aware has a much cleaner interface. Both programs take a considerably long time to complete their operation and may appear to hang.
I’ve got both Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware and the Spybot Search and Destroy. They tend to leapfrog each other with the quality of what they catch, so having both (and updating regularly) catches nearly everything. (For a while, Ad-Aware was much better at cookies and Spybot was much better at getting rid of executables, but, as I said, they change position as they upgrade.)
They are apparently too good. The spammers and their foul buddies have begun an active campaign to discredit them, which may be where most of the negative reviews come from. (There are a couple of invasive critters that will actually fire off a message that Spybot is trying to disrupt your system as it attempts to deinstall their cancers.)
I’ve used Ad-aware for a long time and never had any problems. I think (this is my personal theory) that people who do have problems with it run into trouble when they have a lot of programs (mostly freeware) that came with spyware and won’t run without it.
They run Ad-Aware, their game (or whatever) won’t run without the spyware installed, and then they blame Ad-Aware. it’s just doing the job it is supposed to do.
I use both AdAware and Spybot Search & Destroy and haven’t had any problems with either. I figure if either had spyware in it, the other would probably catch it(think what that would do for the reputations of the software involved;)). Even I’m not so paranoid that I actually think they do have scumware installed, but you never know.