Can anyone recommend a free or cheap spyware/adware removal system?

Every time I go online I get between 1 and 20 extra windows popping up, usually starting with CiD:http//...

It's really beinning to p*** me off, and it's also affecting the keyboard and making me miss letters out on a regular basis. I end up having to virtually retype every fipping post!!!

Help would be very much appreciated!!!

Go to Free Software Downloads and Reviews - Download.com and get lavasoft ad-aware or spybot s&d, both very good, free and user friendly. If you are getting a lot of spyware i would suggest swapping to a more secure browser like mozilla if you haven't already. Also you could get the free version of avg anti-virus, and zonealarm firewall, these will block a lot of the problems at source. Hope this helps.

Spybot or Grisoft seemed to be pretty good.

and the stop visiting gentlemens entertainment sites

spy bot s&d gets my full recommendation and its free.

Prevention is better than a cure but there is some pretty nasty stuff out there and TBH all though the free ones are not bad as a consumer you will not really beat Webroot with Kaspersky coming a close second. You need to be clever sometimes as automated processed just won't clear it

Professionally, someone like Geek Squad will run between 3 to 8 separate checks and procedures with Kaspersky, Panda, Webroot, Ewido, SpyDoctor, Trend, and a few others. These will be mostly run in command line or in their own OS called MRI PE

Prevention is better than a cure but there is some pretty nasty stuff out there and TBH all though the free ones are not bad as a consumer you will not really beat Webroot with Kaspersky coming a close second. You need to be clever sometimes as automated processed just won't clear it

Professionally, someone like Geek Squad will run between 3 to 8 separate checks and procedures with Kaspersky, Panda, Webroot, Ewido, SpyDoctor, Trend, and a few others. These will be mostly run in command line or in their own OS called MRI PE

OMG! Could you say that again in English please?

I'll give spybot a go - trouble is, I'm not brilliant with computers so it'll have to be fairly straightforward and easy to use...

Thanks to everyone for the advice!

John

Spybot SSD.

OMG! Could you say that again in English please?

Ok.

Don't go to dodgy sites. If you can't figure out how to sort it then don't put yourself in tjhe postion to get the problem. Would you go to a really dodgy area in the middle of the night and expect not to get any trouble?

If your going to surf porn and other crap sites BUY something that will work when you get shafted as it will be far better than any free software. Either that or get some professional help and/or advice from someone who can dumb it down even more or fix it for you.

Decron. Love the way you have outright accused the OP of surfing for porn...

Jonny, make sure you don't enter any important passwords whilst your still infected, you never know what's being logged and sent back home.

Decron. Love the way you have outright accused the OP of surfing for porn...

Jonny, make sure you don't enter any important passwords whilst your still infected, you never know what's being logged and sent back home.

Have done no such thing!

No smoke without fire though....

I have a mate who regularly gets spyware, but it is always from gambling websites.

First thing is it could be a virus. So dont do any banking or buying stuff untill you've run clean spybot, ad-aware and antivirus scans (try a free online one like McAfee, Panda etc)

If the problem is severe then I would recommend a complete rebuild from scratch. You can never be 100% certain that you've eliminated everything, and spyware authors are all people of unknown parentage. It's amazing how many people ask for advice when the system is riddled with malware, but they have no backups and a multi-terabyte collection of bittorrents they desperately don't want to lose.

Once the machine is clean, whenever you go online, use something like Sandboxie (www.sandboxie.com) which keeps everything in RAM until you close the browser at which point it wipes everything. As it never goes anywhere near your HDD you can't get infected. You can choose to transfer from the sandbox, but only under your control.

Couple that with a decent cloaked IP address program like The Cloak (www.the-cloak.com) or Anonymizer (www.anonymizer.com) and you're pretty secure to browse anywhere that's legal.

And you don't have to be browsing porn to get Malware on your system. Lots of folks use bittorrent to download moves and suchlike and they tend to be pirate and as such are riddled with spyware to nick your credit card details or passwords. I even downloaded a copy of WinRAR from MajorGeeks and it came with the Intervalhehehe/Spyware removal con (It hijacks your browser and pretends to be Microsoft recommending that you log into a Russian spyware removal website to get the malware removed. When you do, you are asked for your CC details and it robs you blind. Nice.). Because I was running sandboxed I just shut the browser down and it went away and I got it from WinRAR's own (slow) website instead.

Be careful out there!

I'm hearing good things about this

Malwarebytes.org

Have done no such thing!

No smoke without fire though....

Hey! Don't judge everyone by your own standards you cheeky f***- the majority of the pop ups I get are for "shopping" websites and concentrate on kids toys - so I suspect it's kids games that my kids have played that have picked up the adware.

Thank you for not besmirching my character:mad:

I don't run freeware software to protect any of our pc's. All run Nod32 av, and SuperAntiSpyware all behind a Comodo firewall (ok thats free and good). I also use a good cache/temp file cleaner in Tracks Eraser Pro and MRU Buster (thats also free). We get very few infections/ crap on the pc's, which all use Firefox. You could aslo use a decent registry protection software, as well as other "bits and pieces"to stop crap screwing your system.

I would recommend a lookin at Wilders Security Forums - Powered by vBulletin for plenty of help.

Another thing to try is "combofix", if you google this and run it on your pc it will remove even the most virilent of spyware/virus from your machine. I have used it to good effect on a number of machines and its completely removed the spyware/virus.

How do you remove Spyware XP2009? My son managed to get one of my laptops infected and it seems

to have destroyed my antivirus and fire wall. Spybot gets wiped out by it and Ad-Aware reports nothing.

It also brings up a program called "Windows Security Centre", which is total b0llox. Nothing i have tried will

remove it. Looks like I may have to use the old manual method.....

How do you remove Spyware XP2009? My son managed to get one of my laptops infected and it seems

to have destroyed my antivirus and fire wall. Spybot gets wiped out by it and Ad-Aware reports nothing.

It also brings up a program called "Windows Security Centre", which is total b0llox. Nothing i have tried will

remove it. Looks like I may have to use the old manual method.....

The combofix application can remove that, I have used it to remove it before.

A guide and tutorial on using ComboFix

The combofix application can remove that, I have used it to remove it before.

A guide and tutorial on using ComboFix

Thanks Manny, will give it a go when I have time Bloody kids eh

Now book marked

I'm hearing good things about this

Malwarebytes.org

I have to agree that this seems to be the tool of the moment for getting rid of a big bunch of stuff. always used to use Spybot and Adaware et all but Malwarebytes is easy and pretty effective. dont know how much longer it will be OK as the virus/malware keeps evolving the ability to kill off any apps that are supposed to stop them..

one of my favourites for bad virus infection is to download the SAV32CLI from sophos (its free just search on their site) its command line for minimal boot to safe mode with command line, so any really bad infections can be got at.

but always easier to take out hdd and run scan off a clean PC (so no nasties running in the way)

I run my router firewall, nothing on the computers.

Avast antivirus

Spyware Blaster

Lavasoft Adaware

Firefox with Adblock-Plus, and NoScript

We only use online email (yahoo/hotmail) and Internet Explorer / Outlook are not used unless I really have to.

I don't download any programs unless I've checkout that they are ok. SWMBO is banned from downloading anything and we don't use P2P software.

We've not had a virus or a bit of spyware in 4 years. They only reason I've had to format the machine in that time was because feckin iTunes screwed it up royally.

All of the above especially NoScript can make the internet more of a PITA but we don't get nasties.

Bit of overkill!

You missed out a foil hat.

Bit of overkill!

You missed out a foil hat.

just because he's paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get him!