Free Spyware Program

[SkyHighT100]

Alright, I dont know about you guys, but I am about fed up with programs automatically installing themselves onto my computer when I visit websites. Between the constant pop-ups, messing with IE, etc... this is getting REALLY annoying. What is the best free spyware detection software that will get rid of this stuff?

I have Symantex Antivirus, but it is just for that... viruses. Help me out!

[Gamer]

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

This is a pretty good program and offers free updates.

Also Microsoft has a free Anti-Spyware program that you can download on there site.  I use both because they can both detect diffrent things.

[NPRVinson]

I use ad-a-ware and spybot. Both are free. There are others also. Go to downloads.com and check it out, lots of free stuff

[TRX350_On_The_Rack]

Here's what you do. Got to www.spywareinfo.com/xscan.php and choose Run and click "Remove It" to every dangerous program found. If a screen doesn't popup for you to run than you will see a line saying to click here and choose open or run from current location.

Second you need to go to Microsoft download and install Anti-Spyware. Let it run with the computer

Also download the latest updates from Microsoft. One of the updates has Malicious Virus removal tool.

[SkyHighT100]

Thank you for the help! I used the one at spywareinfo.com and it worked great! I couldnt believe how many things it found!!! I am still getting a couple pop-ups, but not nearly as many as before. Unfortunately, it is my work computer that is messed up (oops), so downloading stuff is out of the question. spywareinfo.com worked GREAT thank you for the link!!

[TRX350_On_The_Rack]

Your Welcome. If you are still getting popups it could be a virus (usually a trojan). If you have Win 95,98,Me or XP you can check in msconfig for a startup program that is the culprit. If you don't know how to get to msconfig just go to Start-->Run and type in msconfig, then click on the Startup Tab on top, uncheck what you don't want to start up with the computer. Of course you have to have admin rights in XP to do this.You can also disable the third party browser extensions. In Internet Explorer go to Tools-->Internet Options-->Advance Tab and uncheck the third party extensions. Click OK and reboot the computer. This will disable the BHO's (Browser Helper Objects) or as we call it (Browser Hijacker Objects)

[Moose]

Road Runner tech. personel told me to go here for Microsoft anti spyware;

microsoft.com/spyware

Hope this helps.

[Ida_Mann]

spybot, adaware, spysweeper, those are the current best,,,,,,if they stay the best who knows, but those are it for now.

Id@

ps: spybot works well, but you have to configure it to find everything,,,it doesn't automatically remove everything.

[2Raptors]

I've found that Adaware finds things that Spybot misses, but not the other way around.  I still run both to be safe.