help with malware.

[flux_29]

anyone know any free anti-malware that work / are the best?

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Personally I use Spybot S&D, AdAware and AVG Free

 

[22 Stars]

Those three usually can do the trick. Spybot and AdAware just helped me clean a friend's computer of the Virtumonde Trojan, a nasty little bugger.

The key is patience, to let the scan run all the way through, turn off any screensavers or power save modes as well. Also, I reccomend running the scans in reg. and safe mode, and the experts say it's best to run them not just in the Admin user but in the user profile actually experiencing the issues, as the registry entries in the two might be different.

 

[cubbie]

Does anyone use winpatrol? It's freeware and supposed to be good from a review I read.

Edit: Ars technica article discussing 5 important security apps. I disagree about the vista firewall of choice, though.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Does anyone use winpatrol? It's freeware and supposed to be good from a review I read.

Never heard of it until you posted that link, I looked on wiki and it says:

Not all programs rely on updated definitions. Some programs rely partly (for instance many antispyware programs such as Windows Defender, Spybot's TeaTimer and Spysweeper) or fully (programs falling under the class of Hips such as BillP's WinPatrol) on historical observation. They watch certain configuration parameters (such as certain portions of the Windows registry or browser configuration) and report any change to the user, without judgment or recommendation. While they do not rely on updated definitions, which may allow them to spot newer spyware, they can offer no guidance. The user is left to determine "what did I just do, and is this configuration change appropriate?"

 

[cubbie]

Thanks, Bob. That's what annoys me, when there isn't any guidance. I had turned off UAC in vista, because I don't want to be asked all of the time if I want to do something.

 

[Paxil]

I highly recommend this one, which I had never heard of, but it just handily cleaned up a total mess of a friend's computer that nothing else could clean completely.