A Can of Whoopass for Spyware and Other Assorted Yukkies

[soup]

My grandson's PC was full of nasties - the final straw was a critter that would pop up and shut the system down - rendering it totally useless.

They brought the computer over so I could check it out (like I know anything about computers ha ha ha ha). What a mess - worms, a trojan, a browser highjacker, porn pop-ups (just what every 9 year old needs, ugh) - you name it, there it was.

2 days later and I'm pretty sure his yuck-free computer is ready to go home. (doing the 'go gramma' victory dance)

It's now armed with a Zone Alarm firewall, Spybot S&D, Pop-up Stopper, automatic updater (spent almost 3 hours downloading and installing critical updates), and his task manager is set up for disk clean-up and defrag on a schedule.

I left a notepad of notes on the desktop for his parents to help them keep it clean - (they also need to renew the Norton updater).

Have I forgotten anything? Time (and/or helpful DUers) will tell.

Thought I'd share some of the sites and goodies I found helpful.

If you have others to add, please do.

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Spybot S&D - how sweet is this?

Spybot Search and Destroy! Home Page (free - please donate if you can)
http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?page=home

Spybot (Net-Integration) Forums
http://forums.net-integration.net/
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Lavasoft - AdAware Home Page (has free version
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/



ZoneLabs Zone Alarm Firewall Home Page (has free version
http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/home.jsp



Pop-Up Stopper (free - oh, how I love that word)
http://www.panicware.com/


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PC Hell: Computer Hints and Tips to bring you back from the edge
http://www.pchell.com/


PC Hell Spyware Removal Help
http://www.pchell.com/support/spyware.shtml

PestPatrol Online Spyware Scanner
http://www.pchell.com/pestscan/#

PC Hell links to other good references

Port Forward - setting up router or firewall help
soup note: I haven't got a Clue what they're talkin about. I need an interpreter for this stuff.
http://www.portforward.com/

PC Help
soup note: Appears to be written in English (IOW- hey, I can understand this!
http://pchelp4free.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
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Trend Micro (HouseCall) Free Online Virus Scan
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

Trend Micro Virus Encyclopedia
http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/
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Sygate Online Services - Online scans
http://scan.sygate.com/


Computer Virus Info
http://anti-virus.com/

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AVG Anti-Virus (has free version
http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php

free version download page
http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php
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Norton
http://www.symantec.com/index.htm

Norton (Symantec) Online Security Check
http://security.symantec.com/sscv6/home.asp?j=1&langid=ie&venid=sym&close_parent=true&plfid=23&pkj=WORYZMRMKBWGZKMRYLL
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RAV Anti-virus (has Online Scanner
http://www.ravantivirus.com/pages/



Tweak3D Article on How to Eliminate Spyware, Adware, Random Popups
http://www.tweak3d.net/articles/spyware/index.shtml



TweakXP News Tweaks and Tips for WindowsXP users
http://www.tweakxp.com/


Tech Support Guy Forums
"There's no such thing as a stupid question, but they're easier to answer" LOL
http://forums.techguy.org/

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Yep, a few:

jv16 Power Tools or RegSupreme.

PageDefrag

A good startup manager to turn off msmsg.exe

AnalogX Script Defender.

SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard

SafeXP

There are others that I cannot remember.


All on http://www.snapfiles.com

[soup]

2. Woohoo!

Thanks, I'll check it out.

soup - who can use all the help she can get and then some

[soup]

3. SafeXP

Oh, dear.

Since the critical updates were so far behind on his computer, after I got them up to date, I set it for automatic, thinking it would make it easier for them.

Checking out SafeXP's features, I see this:

"Disable Windows Update service
Changes Windows automatic updates to manual mode."

So, automatic update is Not the way to go?

I really really really hate computers.

[Ratty]

4. That hiding known extensions nonsense

The Windows default to never display the .exe, .com, .pif, .jpg has got to be one of the worst ideas Microsoft has ever come up with. That's the first thing I turn off when I get a new computer and I tell my family and friends to always turn it off too.

So as before they might get a clickable email attachment that says simply "family pics," with an icon that looks like a perfectly reasonable family portrait, turning that monstrous feature off reveals it to be in reality "family pics.exe"

I gave my sister a list of safe, clickable extensions, including .jpg, .gif, .html, .txt, .pdf, etc.

[Gothmog]

5. Spybot is good

I like this program.

[Ratty]

6. Oh yeah, and dump Outlook

Since you've gone and bought all those virus programs, might as well spring for Eudora while you're at it. $49.95.

For the life of me I cannot understand how something as perpetually bug-ridden and unsafe as Outlook has managed to capture such a huge percentage of users.

[Bossy Monkey]

7. Ad-Aware from Lavasoft, and use Spybot's immunization feature

Ad-Aware updates definitions much more frequently than Spybot S&D does. (Of course you have to check for the updates, but still) The hyphen is important; there's also one called Adaware which might for all I know be perfectly good but the fact that they chose a name so similar to a popular and successful program is more than a little suspicious.

To immunize with Spybot, just open the program, hit the Immunize icon (middle one on the left), and all spyware/scumware programs known to the developers will be automatically blocked. This means in practice that your computer will refuse a lot of cookies; performance isn't affected at all. Also you won't need to run Spybot again, since anything they know about is already blocked. You also need to check Spybot for updates, but not as frequently as Ad-Aware. (Once a month or so for the latter, say once every two months for the former).

HijackThis is also excellent. However, it just returns a list of programs that might be hijacking your browser, and you have to check out each individually. The best way to do this is to put all or part of the name of each into Google along with the phrase "HijackThis log" and check out the many Help desks among the results for whether this particular program is a problem. Hope this helps. If not, respond with many question marks and I'll try to rewrite it more clearly. (Or download HijackThis, run it, and try the above advice; most likely all will be clear then.)