Adware, Spyware, Viruses.

[Star-Com]

Hi,
can you please give me some information on what kind of software i can use against Adware & Spyware? Are these two software applications related to Viruses definitions and therefore could be dealt with by Norton Antivirus?

If Norton Antivirus cannot handle Adware & Spyware, any idea whether Symantec produces any kind of software to do the job?

Thanks.

[hobey19]

ad-aware and spybot search and destroy are recommended a lot around here. i use them both, and would never uninstall either of them. don't think they relate too much to viruses, but i am not sure

craig

[Force Flow]

Well, adware & spyare and viruses are to seperate categories, but yes, both AV software and spyware detection software work in much the same way by identifying infections and quaratining them.

Symantec software does not remove adware/spyware. Yes, the perferred choices around here are adaware and spybot.

[Star-Com]

Originally posted by hobey19 ad-aware and spybot search and destroy are recommended a lot around here. i use them both, and would never uninstall either of them. don't think they relate too much to viruses, but i am not sure craig

Any opinions on any very good software products against Adware & Spyware?

[Force Flow]

Originally posted by Star-Com Any opinions on any very good software products against Adware & Spyware?

Adaware and Spybot are two seperate software packages that battle adware and spyware, as mentioned before.

Adaware
Spybot

[ghost2003]

spyware blaster stop spyware from comming in in the first place and spyware guard is a resident scanner.
you can get them at www.javacoolsoftware.com and lobos just told me about a nice little program called winpatrol www.winpatrol.com that tells you every time settings have been changed or programs have been installed and would stop spyware from installing.

[Lobos]

these two also


IE-SPYAD puts over 5000 sites in your restricted zone, so you'll be protected when you visit innocent-looking sites that aren't actually innocent at all.

The IE hosts file blocks ads, banners, cookies, web bugs, and even most hijackers. This is accomplished by blocking the Server that supplies these little gems.



Read here How did I get infected in the first place



Lobos

[Star-Com]

Read here How did I get infected in the first place



Lobos [/B][/QUOTE]

In the article found at the above url says at some point :

Watch what you download!
Many freeware programs, and P2P programs like Grokster, Imesh, Kazaa and others are amongst the most notorious, come with an enormous amount of bundled spyware that will eat system resources, slow down your system, clash with other installed software, or just plain crash your browser or even Windows itself.

My question is : What if you uninstall a freeware program from the ones mentioned above, say, Kazaa, do you get rid of the Spyware that was bundled to it?

[Lobos]

Some times they do

some times they like to make it so it is very difficult to get rid
the program is easy to get rid of but it is what it is what they leave behind

[Star-Com]

When you spot some Spyware or Adware, can you find its origin? I mean the software that the Spyware or Adware came with? From what web site?

[Star-Com]

What do you think are the most easy to use and efficient softwares against Adware & Spyware?

Spy Ferret looks very user friendly software, what opinion do you have about it?

[hobey19]

ad-aware and spybot search and destroy are favorites around here, and i would never leave home without them for fixing computers

craig

[Star-Com]

Originally posted by hobey19 ad-aware and spybot search and destroy are favorites around here, and i would never leave home without them for fixing computers craig

By using Ad-aware and Spybot, is it possible that useful files may be deleted by say, accident or ignorance to what should be deleted?

[ghost2003]

Never heard of that happen. They are very safe, spybot also has a recovery feature.

[hobey19]

as does ad-aware. you can restore quarantined files. i have been using both for awhile now and never deleted anythign important

craig

[Lobos]

adaware AdAware 6 181 and spybot S/D 1.3 are your safest and best cleaners

for protection a good firewall and ant-virus
a trojan cleaner
spywareguard

spyblaster IE-host file and IE-spyad are run one time progs

the add entries into your registry your host file and your restricted zone
especially those nasty coolwebsearch web sites

[CarlS]

Spybot will also add servers to the hosts file to block "bad" servers. It will also lock the hosts file so other programs can't modify it unknown to you.

Zone Alarm can also block the hosts file from outside modifying.

[Star-Com]

Originally posted by Force Flow Adaware and Spybot are two seperate software packages that battle adware and spyware, as mentioned before. Adaware Spybot

To fight against adware and spyware you need both Adaware and Spybot or either of the two would do the job?

[CarlS]

Use both; each finds things the other misses. And keep both updated just as you do your antivirus. Do you use a firewall?

[Star-Com]

I use Norton Antivirus but not Firewall.

How many adware & spyware definitions are estimated to be around on the Internet? Well, i mean any approximate calculation?

[glc]

Spybot has approximately 14000 detections.

[CarlS]

Star-com, if you are using a broadband internet connection and are online all the time or nearly all the time and not behhind a router, I recommend that you install one of the free firewalls. XP has a built in firewall that is good; but it only blocks incoming. The free firewalls will block outgoing and you have to give a permission for a program to connect to the internet. If you do have malware or an unwanted dialer program on your system, a firewall will block it from connecting to the internet - another layer of protection.

Carl S

[Star-Com]

Originally posted by glc Spybot has approximately 14000 detections.

I recently purchased the full version of a spyware/adware program called SpyFerret. On their advert says :

''SpyFerret will scan your computer for more than 400 of the most notorious spyware / adware programs that are available on the net today. It will expose all spyware & adware components on your PC and give you a brief description about each component.''

With the full version you can
quarantine or remove the spyware.

Among the more common spyware that SpyFerret detects & removes are:

2020Search Ezula (HotText, mmod.exe) NewtonKnows
Active-Max FastSeeker PowerScan
Alexa Flind4U PurityScan, etc.

Some 405 of them.

Are the spyware mentioned above some kind of generic terms, categories that include many other definitions that can be handled by SpyFerret? Because if there are thousands of definitions, the number 405 that can be tracked down by SpyFerret doesn't look very encouraging.

By the way you can have a look at SpyFerret at :

http://www.onlinepcfix.com/spyware/spyware.htm

I would like to get some opinion about it.

Thank you.

[Cricket]

I never heard of SpyFerret and don't know anything about it...but you have to watch what you buy because there are some so-called spyware scanners that are actually as bad as the spyware they're supposed to be detecting.

I use Ad-Aware, Spybot: Search & Destroy, SpywareBlaster, SpywareGuard and CookieWall and when I scan with the spyware scanners they hardly ever find anything on my hard drive anymore. The only time I run into problems is with the home page hijackers or the search hijackers. HijackThis! usually takes care of those problems.

Cricket

[CarlS]

Cricket is correct. Some supposedly spyware removers are spyware themselves. Many folks on this board use Adaware 6 and Spybot S&D. Both are free, both work, and neither has hidden spyware. I use both. In addition, I use SwatIt for a trojan remover; it is also free.

I have not heard of SpyFerret. That doesn't mean anything other than I have never heard of it nor used it.

[Star-Com]

Originally posted by CarlS Cricket is correct. Some supposedly spyware removers are spyware themselves. Many folks on this board use Adaware 6 and Spybot S&D. Both are free, both work, and neither has hidden spyware. I use both. In addition, I use SwatIt for a trojan remover; it is also free.

I used Spybot and it listed OnlinePcFix.SpyFerret as spyware, what could this mean?

Is that possible that innocent programs and files be labeled as spyware by Spybot or Ad-aware?

[Markoman01027]

You should only delete the files in scan results that are in red.

[Lobos]

spy ferret rip off of Spybot search and destroys database
and its on the list that i posted earlier

http://www.safer-networking.org/inde...ail=2003-07-01

and they charge you for it and other services while spybot search and destroy does it for free

[Star-Com]

Originally posted by Markoman01027 You should only delete the files in scan results that are in red.

Spybot lists OnlinePcFix.SpyFerret (10 entries) as spyware, it prints it in red, am i suppose to delete it permanently? (!!)

[Lobos]

spy ferret rip off of Spybot search and destroys database
also it is documented here
http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/