I need a good program for cleaning up my computer and keeping spyware from sucking away at my system's resources. Any good suggestions?

So far, the only one I've gotten is "Spysweeper" by Webroot, but it costs $30 or so. Aren't there any good, free, downloadable programs that work well? I don't really have a problem paying the $30, but I'm probably going to be upgrading soon from Win98 to Win XP (not by choice!), and if I buy it for Win98, it won't work on Win XP.

What'dya think?

Baron Max

Spysweeper is the 2nd best to pay for as it removes 74% or so of spyware. The best is Aluria Spyware Eliminator 4.0 as it removes 84%.

A good free one is Spybot Search and Destroy and then of course Ad-Aware. Those are the two most popular freebie ones.

Usually you want more than one spyware cleaner because as you can see, no one program is able to find all spyware and eliminate it.

- N

Spysweeper is the 2nd best to pay for as it removes 74% or so of spyware. The best is Aluria Spyware Eliminator 4.0 as it removes 84%.

A good free one is Spybot Search and Destroy and then of course Ad-Aware. Those are the two most popular freebie ones.

Usually you want more than one spyware cleaner because as you can see, no one program is able to find all spyware and eliminate it.

- N

That's very true and it's primarily because none of them are really rushing to get updates out. I use three myself along with a commercial (not free) virus scanner that intercepts all data streams before it leaves the IP buffer stack and I still run a complete nightly scan just in case.

The scanner has trapped several incoming attempts in the past four years and my machine has not had a single virus/trojan/etc. during that same period.

according to msn "zone alarm"
you can do what i do and reformat and reinstall
but you might not be able to do that for a number of reasons (running a server is one)

edit
what is forcing you to upgrade baron?

I use linux so spyware isn't really a problem :D

I use linux so spyware isn't really a problem :D
That's true. :)

But you know what? With Linux gaining in popularity, especially for commercial applications (and also the Firefox web browser), it seems to me that they both soon may become targets for malware. Firefox would be much easier, of course, but Linux could be hijacked as well if the hackers decide it's worth the effort.

I used to run a large network of Unix servers that had tons of modems attached to them and never had a security breach. But that was a while back and hackers weren't nearly as good as they are now. Unless everything from the outside is running in a rsh - which most things aren't - there's the possibility of getting into the system.

what is forcing you to upgrade baron?

Many, most, all new computers come with Win XP ..and they won't even run with Win98 ...which is what several dealers have told me. They said that many, most, all new hardware didn't have drivers for Win98. So...?

And please remember, I'm only computer literate barely enough to turn the machine ON/OFF, so don't be giving me too much info. My head will explode with info overload! :)

Baron Max

1. stop using explorer and switch to firefox or opera.
2. use as many free programs as you can to clean out your computer
3. Don't visit pron sites

I agree. Get away from using Microsoft Explorer - it's like a giant magnet for greeblies. Once I started using Firefox, the greeblies mostly stopped getting in, one or two occasionally. You can use SpyBot or AdAware - free online appys that clean out the greeblies.

I need a good program for cleaning up my computer and keeping spyware from sucking away at my system's resources. Any good suggestions?

So far, the only one I've gotten is "Spysweeper" by Webroot, but it costs $30 or so. Aren't there any good, free, downloadable programs that work well? I don't really have a problem paying the $30, but I'm probably going to be upgrading soon from Win98 to Win XP (not by choice!), and if I buy it for Win98, it won't work on Win XP.

What'dya think?

Baron Max

Baron,

I have used SpyBot for the last three years for my company, as well as all my home uses and freelance jobs. I have successfully cleaned many seriously infected computers with the program, both at work and at home. It also has a resident registry monitor and application killer to prevent a lot of problems with spyware, but you will have to turn that off when removing spyware....it is optional though for more protection of your system. If you are going to continue using IE, you need a pop-up stopper as well. SpyBot is available for free at Download.Com. Google has a great toolbar for stopping pop-ups, but when it asks if you want to share your info when you install for the advanced features, uncheck it.

With spybot and google toolbar together, I can guarantee that you will have the highest defense against spyware possible.

The advanced features of spybot are great if you are brave enough. It offers you a list of all programs that are executing at startup through all startup registry keys, as well as the startup folder, all in one place to view, delete, or disable.

Also, if you have broadband, a firewall is necessary...don't make the mistake with Win 98. I have seen some damaged comupters. One of them was lucky I kept their old harddrive when I installed a new one for them.

Baron, I have used SpyBot for the last three years for my company, as well as all my home uses and freelance jobs. I have successfully cleaned many seriously infected computers with the program,...

All of this came about when a guy came over with SpySweeper and found a gazillion "spy" entries in my computer ...even tho' I've been using SpyBot regularly and not finding anything/very little.

After SpySweeper cleaned up my system, it's running MUCH faster than ever before. (No, he wouldn't or couldn't give me the program!) But SpyBot never accomplished that in all the time I've used it.

Baron Max

All of this came about when a guy came over with SpySweeper and found a gazillion "spy" entries in my computer ...even tho' I've been using SpyBot regularly and not finding anything/very little.

After SpySweeper cleaned up my system, it's running MUCH faster than ever before. (No, he wouldn't or couldn't give me the program!) But SpyBot never accomplished that in all the time I've used it.

Baron Max

What version did you have, and was its definitions up-to-date? With SpyBot, you must manually update before checking your computer.

If you did have the up-to-date version and definitions, I am perplexed because it has removed threatening spyware and droppers very well for me. It hasn't failed me yet.... :confused:

What version did you have, and was its definitions up-to-date? With SpyBot, you must manually update before checking your computer.

Ahhhh?!?! Perhaps that's the reason! Hey, like I said, I just barely know how to turn this thing ON and OFF, so don't expect too much from me, okay?

As someone once said: I expect my computer to do what I WANT it to do, NOT what I tell it to do!

I'll try it next time I run it. But right now, my system is clean and wonderful.

Thanks for the advice and a bit of info that was lost on me. :)

Baron Max

You're computer will be dirty again within a week if you keep visiting pron sites with explorer.

This is wat i would do

get sygate firewall
get avast virus scanner
get mozilla thunderbird mail client
get mozilla firefox
get all necesary drivers

- burn it to a cd or copy to secondary drive space
- disconnect your pc(this might sound silly, but when your connected to a large LAN is a very good ide, and its still a good idea if you not)
- format and reinstall windows
- install the progs you download
- reconnect you pc
- install other crap you might need

sygate isn't free anymore.

This is wat i would do

get sygate firewall
get avast virus scanner
get mozilla thunderbird mail client
get mozilla firefox
get all necesary drivers

- burn it to a cd or copy to secondary drive space
- disconnect your pc(this might sound silly, but when your connected to a large LAN is a very good ide, and its still a good idea if you not)
- format and reinstall windows
- install the progs you download
- reconnect you pc
- install other crap you might need

Can you go thru all the steps necessary to do that?

I know how to turn my computer ON, and double-click on some of the icons. After that, ...well, if the icon doesn't change into some program I want, I shut the computer down and go read a book or something.

Thanks for the help, guys. Really, perhaps I'm just too damned stupid about computers to even own one! We oughta' have to pass a test just to buy one, and a permit to use the damned things. :)

Baron Max

Max, if you're systems currently clean, just go to www.download.com and get the following:

Spybot Search & Destroy 1.4
AVG7 Freeware
SpywareBlaster 3.5.1
Lavasoft Ad-aware SE

Install all, update the bladdy things and keep updating regularly. Once a week for all the spyware software, everyday for the anti-virus (AVG7).

Formatting and reinstalling windows is all well and good, but seriously if you're really as much a novice as y'say, learning how to do this sort of stuff is all well and good, but its like swatting flies with a sledgehammer in terms of the sort of problem you have.

Switching to FireFox for a web browser, good idea, but the best and most sanest thing y'can do is ditch that bladdy useless operating system and getting yourself something sportier that's still actually supported by Microsoft. ME minimum.

Rather as spurious says, you'll be bugged out within a week without installing something and keeping it up to date, unfortunately Win98 is about the crappiest operating system y'can get - at least consider upgrading to Win98SE.

Baron: if your only capable of starting apps, my solution is not for you. I suggest getting help from friend or familie.

Max, if you're systems currently clean, just go to www.download.com and get the following:

Spybot Search & Destroy 1.4
AVG7 Freeware
SpywareBlaster 3.5.1
Lavasoft Ad-aware SE

Install all, update the bladdy things and keep updating regularly. Once a week for all the spyware software, everyday for the anti-virus (AVG7).

Formatting and reinstalling windows is all well and good, but seriously if you're really as much a novice as y'say, learning how to do this sort of stuff is all well and good, but its like swatting flies with a sledgehammer in terms of the sort of problem you have.

Switching to FireFox for a web browser, good idea, but the best and most sanest thing y'can do is ditch that bladdy useless operating system and getting yourself something sportier that's still actually supported by Microsoft. ME minimum.

Rather as spurious says, you'll be bugged out within a week without installing something and keeping it up to date, unfortunately Win98 is about the crappiest operating system y'can get - at least consider upgrading to Win98SE.

There is no need to do all that switching of browsing programs
Spybot, with it's SDHelper for IE will do fine. Installing more than one anti-spyware program is a waste of system resources. I know you can't catch them all with one, but it is about minimizing the risks; and even with 20 anti-spyware programs installed, you are still going to catch as many as with one program over the long haul.

Any credible anti-spyware program will do the trick if you keep it up-to-date and check the system every so often. I have used Spybot for years on over 20 workstations at work, as well as my home network computers. I have the notifications turned on at home, so I know when Spybot is blocking a page's spyware. But, don't forget a popup stopper. You can get spyware through ActiveX popups.

ME? :eek: That is worse than 98SE!! The critics agree that ME shouldn't have been made. And from experience of ME's memory resource manager, I know you can't keep those on all the time. I'll take anything over ME.

Use Dos!

use a hammer

use a hammer

...LOL! I had the great, satisfying pleasure of doing just that once ....and I highly reccommend it to anyone! :)

Baron Max

:) anyone deing them self the pleasure of pointless destruction needs to have there head examined.

The last thing i destroyed was one of the office printers at work, it went out the first floor window, with the bosses permission ofcause, well he wanted pictures anyway so :)...

There is no need to do all that switching of browsing programs
Spybot, with it's SDHelper for IE will do fine. Installing more than one anti-spyware program is a waste of system resources. I know you can't catch them all with one, but it is about minimizing the risks; and even with 20 anti-spyware programs installed, you are still going to catch as many as with one program over the long haul.

Any credible anti-spyware program will do the trick if you keep it up-to-date and check the system every so often. I have used Spybot for years on over 20 workstations at work, as well as my home network computers. I have the notifications turned on at home, so I know when Spybot is blocking a page's spyware. But, don't forget a popup stopper. You can get spyware through ActiveX popups.

ME? :eek: That is worse than 98SE!! The critics agree that ME shouldn't have been made. And from experience of ME's memory resource manager, I know you can't keep those on all the time. I'll take anything over ME.

:) .... Y'know, I've heard that so many times about ME, so much so I turned m'nose up at it for years. Anyway, after having been a happy owner of a couple of Win98SE machines for a good couple of years and frankly sick to the back teeth of seeing a blue screen I thought I'd finally give it a go, just to see what it was like. I haven't had a single problem, with anything.

I mean, granted, literally all the Win9x series from 95 on are just basically an operating system with an increasing degree of bug fixes for Windows 95 on it, and the day they ditched the whole idea and scrapped the Windows OS for the NT kernel, best day any mainstream PC owner had for a long while, but out of the lot of 'em I'd take ME.

Never trust a Windows OS without a System Restore function.... ;)

(By the by, completely agree with the browser thing, I can't be arsed with FireFox either - it can accept just as many bad Active X components as IE and there's less fixes for it because everyone makes out as if it doesn't need them. But, if like Max keeping things updated gets to be hasslesome, FireFox makes an adequate, safer alternative.)

:) .... Y'know, I've heard that so many times about ME, so much so I turned m'nose up at it for years. Anyway, after having been a happy owner of a couple of Win98SE machines for a good couple of years and frankly sick to the back teeth of seeing a blue screen I thought I'd finally give it a go, just to see what it was like. I haven't had a single problem, with anything.

I mean, granted, literally all the Win9x series from 95 on are just basically an operating system with an increasing degree of bug fixes for Windows 95 on it, and the day they ditched the whole idea and scrapped the Windows OS for the NT kernel, best day any mainstream PC owner had for a long while, but out of the lot of 'em I'd take ME.

Never trust a Windows OS without a System Restore function.... ;)

(By the by, completely agree with the browser thing, I can't be arsed with FireFox either - it can accept just as many bad Active X components as IE and there's less fixes for it because everyone makes out as if it doesn't need them. But, if like Max keeping things updated gets to be hasslesome, FireFox makes an adequate, safer alternative.)

Oh, ME is fairly stable and has a restore. There are worse OS's than ME in that regard. I just couldn't take all the the system slowdowns. There is a problem that Microsoft knows about ME that it doesn't free up little chunks of RAM when an application closes. In short, you will either have to defrag your RAM or have a gradual slow down. Now, for home use, ME might not be bad because chances are you are shutting down your computer, but you put them in an office that leaves them on 24/7, and after a couple days you will begin to see a slowdown as the RAM gets fragmented. Put a RAM defrag program on the OS, and turn the monitor on so you can watch the RAM slip away. Of course, the office machines I had ME on had 128 MB so you can see we would notice a problem quicker than if we had ME on a 256MB+ machine.

Wait until you get Windows XP and then buy Panda anti virus---it spots and erases spyware and viri that haven't even been defined yet. In fact, you can download Panda for free on your W98 and it will enable you to run it once as a demonstration, which should clear out a lot of junk.

There is a problem that Microsoft knows about ME that it doesn't free up little chunks of RAM when an application closes. In short, you will either have to defrag your RAM or have a gradual slow down. Now, for home use, ME might not be bad because chances are you are shutting down your computer, but you put them in an office that leaves them on 24/7, and after a couple days you will begin to see a slowdown as the RAM gets fragmented. Put a RAM defrag program on the OS, and turn the monitor on so you can watch the RAM slip away. Of course, the office machines I had ME on had 128 MB so you can see we would notice a problem quicker than if we had ME on a 256MB+ machine.

:) ... Well, yes. I have noticed that one - this is why the ME system's consigned to just heavy processing work on a job by job basis, has the largest amount of RAM the board will take and is not left running in that sort of context - must have driven you bladdy mad running an office set up and and finding that to look forward too every day...

There's always something about about every-bladdy-thing these Microsoft people do isn't there - it's like they start an office pool or something come pre-development time and thrash out what can possibly make the most annoyingly, idiot foul up during development: starting with Win95 some bright spark comes up with the idea of, rather than building an independent browser for the web, we'll just build a shell for the actual system browser and that way anyone with half a mind can simply jack the browser whilst that computer's active on the net and browse their entire system with no trouble at all and more over, we'll make it an actual feature, like this is a good thing!

And the fun just never bladdy stops.... :rolleyes: