trojan remover

[3dfx]

Can anyone recommend a good one? ... I use anti vir as my virus scanner at the moment.

thanks
Andy

[Nowhere]

My personal bundle: AVG+Adaware+Spybot

[3dfx]

Hey thanks for your quick reply Nowhere ... checking out bot adaware and spybot right now.

[Dilitante1]

i use Nowhere's list then double check with www.trendmicro.com/housecall but i use ultimate boot CD for dos based scans so using multiple scans cant hurt unless pressed for time

[Gurm]

Actually, although people tout Spybot as the second coming, they do so largely because it's freeware.

Of the top four anti-spyware programs, I'd put Spybot in DEAD LAST in terms of finding and removing.

The top four in my book are:

4. Spybot - it was great once upon a time, but point in fact is that 1.3 is a year-old version now. It doesn't remove spyware that hooks to system DLL's. It doesn't even FIND most versions of the CWS worm. In addition, it can find a dozen or more types of spyware that it's incapable of removing. Its IE integration crashes or hangs IE on any of a dozen pages I could give you links to, and its "monitoring" component is more of a nuisance (YOU ADDED A FAVORITE! OH NOES!!!1one!!) than a help.

3. Ad-Aware SE - this program vascillates. THIS WEEK, you can, with the appropriate tweaking, get it to find just about everything, and remove most of it. However by default it misses a lot. It tends to focus heavily on tracking cookies, which are the LEAST of most people's worries. In recent revisions it CAN restart explorer to kill memory-hooked or DLL-hooked spyware. Ad-Watch is relatively useless.

2. Microsoft AntiSpyware - Yeah, it's from MS. And yeah it's ugly slow. But it finds just about EVERYTHING. And can remove most of it successfully. The interface needs a bit of work, it has no real options to speak of, and it is overzealous - it's reporting some standard uninstallers as spyware. But it's getting better. We just don't like to encourage MS too terribly much. And you have to watch out to make sure it isn't breaking your paid-for programs. MS's memory-resident program is the best at catching stuff when it tries to install itself, but it takes up fully 50% of your system resources to do it. Ick!

1. Spy Sweeper - Spy Sweeper won a place in my heart by being the first program of its kind to find and remove the particular version of CWS that was infecting my system. It remains the ONLY program that can find and remove ALL versions of CWS. Their upcoming 4.0 release (in beta now) puts it head and shoulders ahead of the rest. Their current release (3.5) is, however, still firmly in first place. I give this program the win because it does what the others don't - it finds, and removes, 99% of the spyware on a given system THE FIRST TIME, and the other 1% when you reboot in safe mode. It's resident "watcher" component isn't particularly useful - by the time it alerts you, you're probably already infected - but that's getting a much-needed upgrade in 4.0 as well.

There - hope that helps. As a general rule, I have all four of these programs installed, but only Spy Sweeper running at any given time.

[Wombat]

4. Spybot - it was great once upon a time, but point in fact is that 1.3 is a year-old version now. It doesn't remove spyware that hooks to system DLL's. It doesn't even FIND most versions of the CWS worm.

I think 1.4 is in beta now.

[Admiral]

1.4 RC2 actually, so it should't be long for the final

[Claymonkey]

Gurm you wouldn't happen to have a tweak guide link for Ad-aware would you?

[The PIT]

Pest Control doesn't seem bad.

Basically I use Ad-aware, Spybot, Cwshredder, MsAntispy,hijackthis and mwav. Normally clean up most machines. It's sad that you have to run everyone as they all seem to miss something.

[RichL]

AVG, Ad-Aware and/or Spybot, running behind ZoneAlarm Pro/Non-Pro, depending on the PC.

I figure if Adaware or Spybot doesnt find it, ZA won't let it out anyway.

*Lights Gurm's Software Firewall fuse and retires to safe distance*

[Kurt]

AVG, Ad-aware SE, Spybot, Spywareblaster, Hijackthis, Recovery Console and Regedit/Regedt32.

Mainly Spywareblaster and Spybot are there to block ActiveX controls from being installed. Spybot will also catch stuff Ad-Aware left behind. That's for the easy stuff. Usually I give Hijackthis a run too at this point, simply because I'm lazy and don't feel like browsing the registry.

If all is not fine, then I need to go to the registry editor, stop services, kill tasks, change policies and recently I needed the recovery console to get rid of a Cnsmin variant that just WOULDN'T GO AWAY.

I'm actually thinking of getting VMWare to browse the web in a REAL safe box. You can never be sure these tools find EVERYTHING.

[Brian R.]

Trojan remover? I thought this was in the Lounge as a joke related to women...