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Removing Adware
and Spyware
By Gene
Emery
In addition
to monitoring your activity on the Internet, adware
and spyware can lock you into an unwanted home page
and swamp you with pop-up advertisements.
Removal can
be difficult because the designers of such programs often try to keep them out
of sight on your PC.
Most don't
show up on the "Add/Remove Programs" list in the Windows control
panel. They seldom offer an "Uninstall" option in the Windows
"Programs" list; in fact, they're seldom listed at all.
Even when
you identify them, some adware programs can't be
removed directly because they are tied to other unrelated utility programs you
may have wanted.
If you're a
do-it-yourselfer, there are ways to get rid of the programs. The first step: Go
to sites such as http://PestPatrol.com
or http://WebRoot.com and run a free scan of your
computer. They list any adware/spyware they see, but
they do not tell you how to remove it.
The site http://PCPitStop.com,
has been very aggressive in taking on adware and spyware. And, although it identifies fewer programs than PestPatrol and WebRoot, it does a
much better job of explaining how to clean your computer.
Another way
of removing adware is to find its Web site, a plan
that can be easy if your home page has been hijacked. Some of those sites offer
an "Uninstall" program for their software, though it may be a
challenge to find it. Look for an FAQ (frequently asked questions) link.
Unfortunately,
such uninstall programs don't always undo all the changes made to your PC. An adware program called i-lookup
had a downloadable program to uninstall its software, but the
i-lookup-sponsored Web pages listed in the
"Favorites" section of Internet Explorer remained. I had to click on
"Organize Favorites" and manually delete them.
A better
bet for scouring your hard disk clean may be independent programs. The ones I
found worked pretty well from all sorts of places (like the Windows registry).
The best
bargain was "Ad-aware," popular with many readers, as I learned from
the e-mail I got after last week's column.
"Ad-aware
6.0," available to home users for free from http://www.LavaSoftUSA.com, is easy to
use. It lets you sort programs and files by type or adware company, so you can
see the program it is proposing to delete. It eliminated annoyances such as a
toolbar cluttering up Internet Explorer that kept returning even after I told
Explorer not to display it.
"Ad-aware"
tracked down traces of adware I thought I had
removed, and eliminated two viruses that had gotten on the PC because the owner
had not kept his virus checker up to date.
However,
"Ad-aware" does not automatically watch for adware
unless you pay $27 for an upgrade. You must run it regularly and check for
updates.
Several
readers said they run "Spybot-Search &
Destroy," available for free, at http://safer-networking.org.
I have less
confidence in "Spy Sweeper" from http://WebRoot.com,
which you can try for free or buy for $30. It's easy to use and updates
automatically, but offers few details about the adware
it finds.
During the
cleaning process, "Spy Sweeper" told me I was running other programs
I needed to close, but didn't say which ones or how to go about it. It also
said I had Internet Explorer running when I didn't (at least as far as I could
tell). Such statements don't inspire confidence.
When I
asked "Pest Patrol" to clean up a PC whose owner had already manually
eliminated or disabled some of the unwanted programs, it found plenty of adware-associated remnants. But it got hung up in the
decontamination process. Fortunately, the program displayed the folder that
seemed to be causing problems. Because the folder was named Claria,
after the adware company, I quit out of "Pest
Patrol," opened Windows Explorer, and sent the whole Claria
folder to the Recycle Bin.
When I
reran "Pest Control," it cleaned everything else out smoothly. You
can try "Pest Patrol" for free. The full version, with a year of
updates, is $40. The license costs $20 a year.
If you're
bothered by adware, but you want to keep using the
"free" programs that come with it, "StopZilla,"
available from StopZilla.com, may be worth a look. It doesn't try to remove the
adware and spyware, but
claims to suppress it, by eliminating most of the pop-up windows while letting
the "free" programs run freely. It costs $20 per year.
Personally,
I'd rather just get rid of it all. Then I would use PanicWare.com's
free "Pop-Up Stopper" program, or something comparable, to block most
pop-up windows.
A final
word: Make it a habit to click "No" whenever a Web site tries to get
you to download a "free" program.
(Second of
2 parts)
(Gene Emery is a columnist who
covers science and technology. His Internet address is GEmery(at)Cox.net. Any
opinions in the column are his alone.)