Industrial Strength Spyware Remover

[weirdlookinguy]

Hey guys.

One of my clients has a new Vista laptop... and they're complaining about random advertising pop-ups coming up. Fuck. I thought Vista wasn't nearly as vulnerable to that shit as XP is.

Anyways, I've got to head over there later to check that out. Can anyone recommend a good anti-spyware that might actually have a chance of taking that crap out for me?

I know back in the day, Ad-Aware and Spybot SD were the shit, but I have no idea what's modern right now. Help?

[kikkoman]

Re: Industrial Strength Spyware Remover

so far the best experience i've had was with SUPERAntiSpyware.
it found things Malwarebytes and Spybot S&D didn't find.

[Toasty]

Re: Industrial Strength Spyware Remover

>>...it found things Malwarebytes and Spybot S&D didn't find.<<

That's a movable feast. They all vary at one time or another. Same thing I found with registry cleaners. One would find this, the other(s) would find that.

I run Spybot S&D on a once weekly schedule and I have its' SDHelper app running (system settings protector). Malwarebytes runs its auto-update daily and scans 2x a week. It also has a scanner app watching incoming and outgoing info and it has an IP protector too. XoftSpy runs daily and updates as necessary.

I also stay off the *$#%&^@ pron sites.


mostly

Toast

[370forlife]

Re: Industrial Strength Spyware Remover

I use the combo of Malwarebytes and Superantispyware. As kikkoman said, superantispyware always gets things malwarebytes dosen't.

[ratdude747]

Re: Industrial Strength Spyware Remover

what browser does the customer use? if ie, then tell him to use chrome, ff, or opera. ie is like a condom with the tip cut off as far as protection goes.

[momaka]

Re: Industrial Strength Spyware Remover

Spybot S&D and Malwarebytes are the two that I used most recently as well, along with Ad-aware Aniversary Edition (used all 3 one after another). After that, I did a check with HijackThis to make sure there wasn't something left that the scanners didn't see.
Finally, after the system is clean, use Spyware Blaster to protect it from further infections. I particularly like Spyware Blaster because it doesn't need to run to have your system protected (so no resources wasted).

what browser does the customer use? if ie, then tell him to use chrome, ff, or opera. ie is like a condom with the tip cut off as far as protection goes.

Not true. Every browser is vulnerable more or less to the same degree. It all comes down to the websites you visit.

[crocodile2009]

Re: Industrial Strength Spyware Remover

I do this stuff for a living.

You need to run this king hit solution:

1. Boot into Safe Mode with Networking(Tap F8 just before Windows boot screen)

2. Go into control panel and choose classic menu on side, select internet options, then advanced. Click RESET to reset internet explorer back to defaults.

3. Download and install CCleaner run disk cleanup - Clears out your temp files, cookies and other stuff and makes scanning heaps quicker

4. Download Malwarebytes Antimalware, install, update and scan, remove anything it finds

5. Download "Combofix", but don't run just yet

6. Clear out any unneeded start-up items using "Msconfig"

7. Reboot into normal windows

8. Run combofix and follow prompts

If this does not fix your problem I will give you my left kidney.

[momaka]

Re: Industrial Strength Spyware Remover

3. Download and install CCleaner run disk cleanup - Clears out your temp files, cookies and other stuff and makes scanning heaps quicker

Good point. I've tried this technique myself before and it does work well.
Generally I like running CCleaner even if I won't be scanning for spyware.

[stretch0069]

Re: Industrial Strength Spyware Remover

i installed that superantispyware....then installed AVG. this old P4 used to run fairly good....now...with those two its a frickin pig.

i'm thinking about uninstalling them and just letting SpybotS&D do its thing like before.

[crocodile2009]

Re: Industrial Strength Spyware Remover

Good point. I've tried this technique myself before and it does work well.
Generally I like running CCleaner even if I won't be scanning for spyware.

I do onsite repair so every minute saved is precious.

Doing a disk clean and removing temp files and cookies FIRST saves about 1 hour each job, no joke. Your computer is much quicker at deleting files than it is at scanning them for viruses and spyware, so if you do it first it means your scan programs don't have to go through a whole heap of junk each time, plus a lot of spyware/viruses sit in the temp files folders anyways so it's a good idea to clear them out.

[bgavin]

Re: Industrial Strength Spyware Remover

www.sandboxie.com

This is an internet condom. Like its latex cousin, it performs well, but it does have to be used to be effective.

I keep my online systems (Outlook, Sandboxie/FF) in a separate virtual machine. The McAfee A/V is also in this VM.
All of these are cycle and resource hogs. Big time. The VM isolates them.

I no longer run A/V in the primary host. Only in the online VM.
The trick is being sure to use the online system for web browsing.

[bgavin]

Re: Industrial Strength Spyware Remover

Doing a disk clean and removing temp files and cookies FIRST saves about 1 hour each job, no joke.

Yes, indeed. I am also an onsite/remote support tech.

The (only) problem I have with CCleaner is it only appears to clean out the logged-in user files. IE Content junk in other profiles is not cleaned out. Pity.

I have up on Spybot S&D when it became so invasive.
Along with invasive, it became slow.
It was screwing up the HOSTS file also, which S&D denied.
Bye, bye.

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: Industrial Strength Spyware Remover

Thanks for all the tricks guys. It actually turned out to be something really easy to remove, "Green AV 2009". Last time I had to deal with something like this, it was "Antivirus 2009" and I had to wipe the whole machine, but this time 5 minutes in Safe Mode and a little regedit action was all it needed.

I'll definitely refer to this next time I have to deal with anymore spyware-infested piece of shit again. I usually just wipe them, but sometimes wiping isn't the best solution.

what browser does the customer use? if ie, then tell him to use chrome, ff, or opera. ie is like a condom with the tip cut off as far as protection goes.

That doesn't help much when the machine is already infected.

[Toasty]

Re: Industrial Strength Spyware Remover

Had you looked for AV 2009 in here, you would have found all these answers, plus.

But then, you knew that...

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...21&postcount=5

Toast

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: Industrial Strength Spyware Remover

Well, I meant spyware in general. The customer just told me that they were having random pop-ups, and I didn't want to head over there without any utilities to run. (Woulda had to bring the machine back to my place in that case).

I didn't discover it was one of those fake AV things until I got there.

[NxB]

Re: Industrial Strength Spyware Remover

I still like Malwarebytes the best. Spybot takes up a lot of resources. Do I really need 2 real time scanners (SB + av)? SuperAntiSpyware seemed like a joke when I ran it. It kept nagging about buying it and the interface was very lacking. The interface actually looked like the spyware it was trying to remove so I ditched it.

I also like DR Web cure it. Its the only thing that removes Virut other than Eset. The down side is that it takes FOREVER to scan.