This website shows you various system utilities that you can use to make your PC perform “like new” again.
How to Remove Spyware
The difference between Adware, Spyware and Viruses
Many people get a bit confused when differentiating the concepts of adware, spyware and viruses. Understandable, since all three share a few common factors, such as breaching a user’s privacy, performing annoying and/or destructive actions and sometimes slowing down your computer.
While viruses are usually written by individuals simply to test their skills or with a destructive purpose, adware and spyware are usually created by marketing companies in order to promote a product or service. The difference between the two is quite subtle, yet very important.
While adware will infect your computer only to show you a pop-up ad when you open your browser, set your browser’s home page to the company’s site every time you start it or simply show an ad through some other means (such as a Windows service), spyware does more than that. Spyware collects personal information, information on what sites you’ve visited, what programs you used or any other similar stuff that shouldn’t be anyone’s business but yourself.
One of the biggest misconceptions when dealing with spyware is that a good, updated anti-virus can protect you from it. Unfortunately it’s not the case.
Almost 95% of the recorded spyware comes with a “Freeware” or “Shareware” program that many web surfers rush to download. Basically, you’re told you will download, say, a screen saver and you click on the executable file. The small program indeed installs the screen saver on your computer, but in the background it also releases the spyware. In this kind of situations, the anti-virus is powerless, since you chose to execute the program yourself.
Manually avoiding the Spyware backup trap
Manually removing spyware is oftentimes extremely difficult, since the designers of these programs go through a great deal of trouble to make them untraceable and to hide them deep inside your system.
Most spyware programs have a so-called “plan B file” that has the sole purpose of checking if the main spyware file is still on the system. If you or an anti-spyware program finds the main file and deletes it, the plan B file creates it back from scratch. It’s an endless and very annoying cycle that you’ll be put through in such cases.
There’s a way to go around this still, but you will need an anti-spyware program to do it and a bit of manual work on your side: first, fire up your anti-spyware program and let it remove all the stuff it finds. Reboot and start it again. If the same files are there, it’s quite obvious that you’re dealing with a plan B file.
Reboot your PC and at the BIOS screen, press “F8” on your keyboard and choose “Run Windows in Safe Mode”. Go through a full scan with your anti-spyware software again and delete the files. Being in safe mode, the plan B file (which is a residential program) won’t be allowed to “do its thing” and the spyware will be permanently removed.
When it comes to manually removing spyware however, there’s no general rule that you can apply, since each spyware program comes with a different file system, a different infection method, uses different processes and registry keys and there are a number of other variables that need to be taken into account.
Unless you’re in complete control over your operating system and you have excellent technical skills in managing it, it’s not advisable to try to manually remove spyware since you will be working in extremely sensitive areas of your op system and the chance of irreversibly messing it up are quite high if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Differentiating between “fake” and “real” anti-spyware software
Fortunately for us, a number of companies or individuals came out with some excellent anti-spyware products. Some of them are free to use, others need to be paid for, others ask for a small donation to support their work.
Please note that there are a HUGE number of so-called “anti-spyware” spoof programs out there that instead of removing the adware and spyware on your PC, install their own or try to stop real anti-spyware programs from working.
Some of the most “popular” fake anti-spyware programs include: SpyAxe, Antivirus Gold, Spy Trooper, Spy Wiper, Spy Sheriff, Spy Falcon, PSGuard, PAL Spyware Remover, Spy Ban, Win Fixer, World Anti Spy and several others.
Make sure you avoid the above program - and before downloading any anti-spyware program, do some research on it beforehand in order to make sure it’s not fake.
Some of the tested anti-spyware programs that work include:
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Spyware Doctor (free trial version)
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Lavasoft Ad-aware (paid)
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Spybot Search and Destroy (free)
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Microsoft Anti-Spyware (paid), or
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Norton Anti-Spyware (paid).
They’re generally easy to use and don’t require a high amount of technical knowledge and they have been proven to be some of the most efficient in their field. They’re not the only “real” anti-spyware programs out there of course and you may very well find one that does the same job as any of the above.
Just make sure it’s not a spoof and your computer doesn’t get clogged with spyware rather than be cleansed of it.