Internet Security

[James D 2004]

This is my end game on this issue. One of the 'highly recommended' adware removal program has to put a warning on it's title bar. That's why I try to imply that some can be more dangerous than the adware themselves. That warning is not enough. Some adware cannot easily be removed as they don't come with uninstall instructions to restore to the original state, resulting in missing system components. Undo can be too late as you already crashed and will fail to boot.

The other 'highly recommended' removal program Ad-aware don't have an undo button, and don't come with warning on the title bar. Either it deal with only the adware it can deal with, or it's 100% effective and 100% safe.

At the end we come back to the 1st dilemma that I mentioned. To remove or not to. You know that they don't guarantee to remove everything. Ad-aware typically report less problems than Spybot. Either you still have adware after removal or you are going to destroy something that isn't adware. Virus and Trojan horse are different things. They have to be removed by ALL means and you have to take the consequences. At least as a public service you have to remove them. Another good reason is that your friends will not talk to you anymore.

It's the responsibility of these software to sell to the right users they intend. Average home computers and users, where the money is, should be scared away by the Spybot warnings. It's well known that MS uses windows to screw it's competitors at the OS level. Small developers hate to pay the sum to get the documentation or development system in order to integrate their application into Windows. If you don't deal with Windows OS for a living, only the rich-in-time class can afford to know what the registry means other than a keyword.

For any further questions I suggest to ask the Ad-aware people to hold a debate with the Spybot authors.

[Joe Zop]

Again I disagree with you -- the admonition to use the program at your own risk is a reflection of the power of the software and the warranty provided: "removing the threats targeted by Spybot-S&D sometimes involves cutting deep into the system sometimes, and I cannot guarantee that your system will be running the same as before. For example, spyware hosts may stop working. I can also give you no warranty that Spybot-S&D will remove every spy on your system, or that it will give you no false positives. For your own verification the location of the problem is shown with every entry, and if you have any questions remaining you can visit the support forum for more information."

In my opinion that's simply a realistic statement rarely found in software user agreement, as people who use ANY tool for removing software from their system can put themselves at risk. I've had to clean up after lots of people who've screwed up their system by using the standard Windows program uninstall options.

The error examples you give can also appear when you clear your system of viruses or trojan horses, or even disable them, regardless of the program involved. An understanding of the operating system and its ability to repair itself (such as XP's digital signature or system restore options) is critical if you're going to mess around with this stuff.

Undo options are available on most decent utilities that involve uninstalling things, such as Norton's Cleansweep, GoBack, etc. That's not a "trial and error approach," it's a sensible way of letting people undo possible mistakes they make when rummaging in a system, and is especially important when you're talking about powerful tools that let you modify system settings and features. I personally don't deal with utilities WITHOUT an undo option, and I don't want to deal with utilities too weak to let me have a fair amount of control over what I'm doing.

The bottom line with the program is that it gives you a huge amount of control over what you're doing -- from defining specific things you want to exclude (I exclude my Adobe and Macromedia products, for example) to providing you a lot of specific information about each "threat." To me, that's a responsible utility.

Yes, people can screw up their systems if they just start poking buttons without paying attention to what they're doing. But they can do the same thing by using your cleanup.bat file if they happen to have a typo in it.

[James D 2004]

This software is unmistakable - on the title bar it says "Use it at your own risk!" Need I say more?

It also has the recovery option for you to UNDO what you have destroyed. IMO this reflects try and error approach, and that undo gives you a false sense of security.

It's much more picky than Adware. I guess it's using simple name pattern matching to find known adwares in the registry rather than understanding adware at the functional level.

In the earlier versions, some reported errors are:

After removal, you get error message whenever you boot, ie, windows is trying to run something that is missing.

OS corrupted. Some adware turn themselves into system components. If you delete them without restoring to the old state, you have to repair the OS.

Undo doesn't work, doesn't recover.

Can't say these errors/features are unique to Spybot, but I would be very worry about software that just detect some keywords in the registry.

[Joe Zop]

TNH, would you be a bit more specific on your negative statement about Spybot's history? Most of the research I did on it gave it a strong positive recommendation, and many Spyware forums include it as a must-have utility. I've certainly had no problems with it.

[James D 2004]

Freeler, yes I'm talking about XP. I thought you know where the directories are in 98? Just replace my directories with whatever names you see in DOS or command prompt, or the full windows names. I think some could be under C:\windows.

JZ, out differences regarding THE is slight. I would think if I didn't define the specific reference, nobody can hold me accountable. If I'm guilty, that's the problem of English, or my English, which doesn't bother me a bit. Because my mind have to be more precise than that to get by.

Spybot hasn't got a good history. If it still claims loudly to 'use it at your own risk' nowadays, I'll think twice about it.

[Joe Zop]

Freeler, I've twice mentioned Ad-Aware as a program that doesn't fit TNH's assertion that removal programs cause problems. It's free for personal use, has numerous options, and is solid and safe. I've used it for several years with no problems. One of the nice things about it is that it will also clean out cookies left by ad-tracking sites you might come across during normal surfing.

I agree with HeadHunter2000s that Spybot - Search & Destroy is an excellent program, and it's also one that works nicely (and is aware of) Ad-Aware. It has a somewhat looser interpretation of spyware, also including various Microsoft issues, and also has one of the best language options I've seen on any program. I didn't mention is before because I've only been using it for a couple of months and I like to see results over a longer time before I recommend such products.

And if you notice, in addition to syntax discussion (which came up in the first place to clarify overly broad technical advice) I have been posting specific on-topic information regarding spyware in those previous posts.

Also, TNH's cleanup.bat won't work properly on Win98 because the file locations it references are different in XP, which is what it's built for. 98's not the true multi-user OS that XP is and it handles user accounts in a different manner.

[Headhunter2000]

Q: Which spyware remove program is the best?

A: It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is.

I use Ad-Aware and also Spybot - Search & Destroy. They are unequivocally (some of / all of / the very) best ones.

[Freeler]

TallnHandsome,

As I've said before, I have methods of cleaning up after me, but I gave your cleanup.bat a try. It is small and easy to take along.
But: No work for me on W98. I did remove the local settings bit.
Where do I go wrong?

Joe zop,

Instead of arguing over 'the' you could tell us 'which' spyware program is the best to remove that stuff. Not that you get any if you're careful, but still...

[Joe Zop]

Think of the syntax issue like this: if you say "the Democrats" or "the stars" it's a reference to them in general, not to some specific ones. The only way it's specific is if you've previously defined and are referring to a clear data subset.

And the point about spyware programs being able to download updated versions of themselves, including executable files, to have the ability to redirect your browser to wherever it wishes, and to willy-nilly run programs on your computer as desired, regardless of whether or not you give explicit permission for this to happen, is that you are NOT operating in a safe environment. Most folks would frankly be better off weedwhacking the things out and needing to reinstall or repair their OS than to have their precious personal data at the whims of such an insecure situation.

The fact that most spyware doesn't bother to take control of your computer in a malicious manner certainly doesn't mean that it's not possible, and security is all about limiting the negative possibilities.

[James D 2004]

"... THE spyware programs.." implies ALL spyware programs, is eye opening to me. I would think that THE implies specific spyware programs. And since I didn't even tell you what's those programs, I merely imply 'there exists some'.

I think in talking about spyware we all imply that we are mostly talking about adware, at least I'm. The fact that the program from lavasoft is called ad-aware supports this. Most of these softwares are safe in the sense that I explained before. Yes, some of the crude programs can cause crashes, which causes few damages. But if you try to remove those things with equally crude software, you may need to reinstall OS rather than reboot.

I have also mentioned the difference between adware and virus and imply something else. To gain control to your computer using adware is like using anal sex just to make a woman's pussy wet, and then make love via her pussy.

Even simple pop-up blockers will also dismiss invitation for downloading adwares.

[Joe Zop]

Sorry, TNH, but the specific way you used "the" does in fact imply all as opposed to being a neutral statement, as would otherwise be the case. Syntactically, by saying "the spy removal programs" you're using it as a statement of a class type, including all members of that class. Cool if you meant it to be neutral, but that's not the meaning as written.

I disagree with you that spyware programs are basically harmless. Outside of the privacy issues, (which is putting aside a lot in a thread about Internet Security) various of these programs have also been conclusively found to be directly responsible for Windows system and Internet browser crashes, and are able to secretly download and cause Windows to execute any arbitrary program into the unsuspecting user's computer. Those are significantly negative things, not even considering that we're talking about about something that basically uses your internet channel without your knowledge or permission -- basically stealing your bandwidth and affecting system responsiveness and performance. To me, that's not harmless stuff. I agree with you that problems can result from using bad removal tools, which is why I mentioned Ad-Aware, which does not have those issues.

I also very agree with you that pop-up blockers such as those from Yahoo or AltaVista are must-haves to help avoid accidently installing such stuff. Great care must also be taken when installing shareware programs, as far too many still have Spyware attached to them.

[James D 2004]

Joe, as I understand English, ALL is blanket, SOME is rather safe to use, and THE that I used originally is rather neutral to me.

Spyware is rather safe, otherwise it will be call a virus, at least a non-infectious virus. You lost your privacy but MOST of it are compiled into statistics for marketing purposes.

The most dangerous part is removal. If you don't remove it, nothing will happen. If you use a bad removal software and try it on a nasty spyware, the OS can be corrupted. My advice is don't download the first removal program that you can find and think that everyone is the same.

Many IE tool bars has pop-up blockers. The yahoo companion has one, the alvista translation has one. I use both so I don't need to install more software.

[Freeler]

All,

"if you enter www.*************.org you receive the automatic proposal of installing DashBar/Precison "

I use Myie as a shell over M$IE and when I enter www.*************.org in the address bar and click enter I hear a 'pop', meaning that a pop-up was killed.
MYie is G-R-E-A-T.
It's free!
Try it!
It can also be set to clean History, Cookies and Temporary internetfiles. Leaves only the index.dat files to be removed by hand.

Be safe out there....

[Joe Zop]

TNH, I've got no utterly issue or problem with people giving their opinions, which is most of what WSG is all about, but that's a very different thing than an absolute pronouncement giving technical advice. I've spent far too many hours cleaning up messes on various people's computers created by such statements. It's like a prescription -- the dosage and frequency simply does make a difference. Some things are either correct or incorrect and the specifics matter, regardless of your storied indifference toward usage of language and grammar.

[James D 2004]

"Just a warning, SOME spy removal programs are even more dangerous than the spywares."

If you are picky, use the corrected version. It can't be wrong, can it? Joe, I advice you to do a search for 'best' or 'all' in WSG and you will have a busy time arguing.