Which Spyware Remover?

Videos of Spyware and Adware In Action:

Below is a complete overview on what to look for in a spyware removal program as well as specific examples of spyware and adware in action.

Some of the infections have been recorded in real time so you can see these infections take over a PC as I explain and show what is happening in real time.

You will also find a fun spyware quiz to test your knowledge and see if you can tell the good web sites from the bad, as well as videos demonstrating why you can't always rely on free spyware protection, the importance of real time protection, and why anti virus software alone can't protect a PC from spyware and adware effectively.

SECTION 1: The Spyware Problem

There is a lot of hype and hysteria regarding spyware these days and it can lead you to question whether or not the threat is real or just perpetuated by the anti spyware companies themselves.

The answer is a little of both.

While there is without question some hype on the part of anti spyware vendors, much of the attention and concern over spyware is legitimate. All you need to do is ...Click For More Details

SECTION 2: Spyware Comes In Many "Flavors"

When people refer to spyware they are often lumping many different kinds of malware together. So let's take a second to define some of the different types of “bad stuff” floating around out there. These are just a few types and is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all the various kinds of malware found on the internet.

Keyloggers:
A Keylogger is a program that records all your keystrokes, emails sent, instant messaging conversations, web sites visited, and pretty much anything you do on your PC. This information is hidden... Click For More Details

on your PC for later retrieval, or sent automatically to the attacker or person that installed the software.

From these keystrokes, bad guys will try to find passwords or other information that could be used to steal your bank account information, usernames, passwords, and credit card numbers all without your without your knowledge.

Adware:
Often lumped together with spyware, adware generally speaking serves a different purpose. While spyware is designed to hide in your system and remain undetected while it collects information, adware is designed to serve up ads (usually through popups) or by redirecting your internet searches and sending you to sites where you will be shown more ads against your will.

Rogue Anti Spyware Programs:
These programs use very deceptive methods to trick you into thinking your computer is infected and then try to sell you a solution (how convenient) They usually work like this:

A popup message appears on your computer screen that looks like a real Windows alert warning you have serious infections on your PC. Clicking on the warning will take you to a site where you can download a spyware remover. Once downloaded, the program reports many “severe” threats that are usually completely false and non existent. This is all designed to pray on your fear of spyware and viruses infecting your computer.

Click the image below to see a rogue anti spyware program in action….

Ever get a message warning your system is a risk with infections and security risks and then
conveniently offer you a solution?...learn the truth about these things in this video

Click Here To Play Movie

TIP: If the links don't open when you click on them, try holding down the control (Ctrl) key as you click.

As you can see this is a very shameless way to get money from people. No legitimate anti spyware product will use these inexcusable tactics.

SECTION 3: Increasingly Difficult To Tell “Safe” Sites From “Suspsect” Ones

Despite consumer awareness that spyware exists and is a real threat, it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between safe websites and suspicious sites that deliver the infections to your PC.

This difficulty makes it easy for people to become infected and let spyware barge right onto your system and setup shop.

For fun try this little quiz called “Safe or Suspect”. All you need to do is see if you can pick out the "safe" sites from the ...Click For More Details

“suspect” sites based on looks alone. There are 7 questions and you can probably breeze through it in a few minutes. Each question has a picture of the site you can click on to get a better picture of the site.

WARNING: Pleas do not visit any of these sites directly or you run the risk of infecting your PC.

Can you tell the difference between safe web sites and ones that could load
unwanted spyware and adware on your PC by looks alone?

Click Here To Take The Quiz...

Well, how did you do? A little more difficult than you thought?

As you can see, it is pretty easy to be fooled and visit places online that can do harm to your PC. Here are a few indicators you can look out for that may mean your system is infected with some spyware or adware.

How Can You Tell if Your Computer Is Infected With Spyware?

Your PC is infested with pop-ups when you are offline

Despite having popup protection, you still have pop-up ads when browsing online.

PC performance is sluggish and unresponsive.

Strange toolbars and searchbars in your web browser you don't remember installing.

Your home page has changed and you can't change it back

Your search results are strange and full of ads.

strange icons appear on your desktop

sites you have never visited or heard of have been added to your favorites.

SECTION 4: Like Shooting Fish In A Barrel (a few real life examples)

Ok, so the title of this section is a little hokey but it is so true when it comes to how easy it is to become infection with spyware and adware these days.

To better illustrate this fact, below are two examples of spyware and adware infections in action.

Adware Infection:
In this example I show how easy it is to let a ton of unwanted software ...Click For More Details

onto your system as a result of searching for some free smileys. You know, those cute (or annoying) little animated smiley face characters people us in e-mail, instant messaging, and on forums?

You’ll be surprised how much “stuff” can be installed on your system. Watch the video below to follow through the entire infection process including before and after results of a spyware scan to show the damage done.

See how you can easily install loads of wanted programs and files on your system.

Click Here To Play Movie

TIP: If the links don't open when you click on them, try holding down the control (Ctrl) key as you click.

Keylogger Infection:
Personally, this is one of the scariest types of infections you can get on your system. Watch how easy it is for one of these things to track your every move online from web based email, online banking, and even sites where you pay your credit card balance. Everything from usernames and passwords to account numbers are recorded and sent out over the internet.

See first hand how certain kinds of spyware can record your every move and
capture important information like you bank account login..

Click Here To Play Movie

TIP: If the links don't open when you click on them, try holding down the control (Ctrl) key as you click.

Keyloggers are becoming more prevalent these days as a way to keep tabs on family members, kid's online activates and down right thievery. It's critically important that your spyware remover be able to detect and disable as many keyloggers as possible.

SECTION 5: Choosing A Spyware Prevention & Removal Solution

So far You’ve read about and seen the threats, but what can you do to help keep your PC protected and your personal information safe and secure?

In the remaining sections of this article, some of the most useful and effective features of a spyware removal program are highlighted as well as some common misconceptions and limitations about spyware protection and prevention.

Topics discussed: ...Click For More Details

SECTION 6: Real Time Protection: Your Computer’s Virtual Bouncer

Sometimes it is best to use an offline world example when trying to explain or learn about the online world.

Here is a feeble attempt.

For this example, let’s take the bouncer that you see outside a trendy bar or nightclub. These guys are there to not only regulate how many people can be inside the club at any given time for safety reasons but ...Click For More Details

SECTION 7: Virus and Spyware Protection Are Not The Same

A very common misconception is that viruses and spyware are the same thing or that a good anti virus program will protect you from spyware related infections.

While viruses and spyware do share some similarities, they are not the same thing and if you are relying solely on your anti virus software to protect you against spyware and adware threats you are asking for trouble. ...Click For More Details

Stand alone anti virus software will very likely not detect spyware infections.

The good news is that many companies that make anti virus software are also incorporating some spyware protection into there products or offering complete anti virus and spyware solutions through “suites” of bundled software packages. If you are using one of these packages you could be in great shape.

That said if you are using anti virus only software like many of the free anti virus programs out there, you are leaving yourself open to spyware infections.

Now, it’s one thing to make the above statements and another to see it in action, so a test was conducted which took four spyware samples and tested an anti virus program’s ability to detect these threats. This is by no means meant to be an exhaustive case study on this issue bur rather an attempt to illustrate the differences between anti virus and anti spyware software.

Also of note there are two versions of the video below. One is edited for time purposes as very few people want to sit around and watch an entire virus and spyware scan witch takes over 30 minutes. For the purest at heart there is also a link to an unedited version of the video if staring at a virus scan is your thing :-)

On to the video:

Anti virus protection is a must but can it alone protect you from spyware?

Click Here To Play Movie

TIP: If the links don't open when you click on them, try holding down the control (Ctrl) key as you click

Click Here To See Complete Unedited Video

A real eye opener if you are relying solely on virus protection. Interestingly, this video also demonstrates that you can run anti virus and anti spyware at the same time, which happens to be one of the most frequently asked questions received from my survey.

SECTION 8: The Good and Bad of Free Spyware Protection

Who doesn’t love free? There is after all the saying “Some of the best things in life are free” which is true but when it comes to free spyware protection I completely disagree.

I personally do not believe you can get the same level of protection and support from a free anti spyware program as you can from a paid one.

Many will very vocally, and emotionally disagree with this and I ...Click For More Details

respect that and its' not being said that free spyware removers are not good, useful and effective programs because for the most part they are….with some limitations.

I am of the opinion that the average computer user, who is a non “techie” and has no desire what so ever to become a "techie", wants to spend the least amount of time possible worrying about spyware infections.

They do not want to become an expert in digging through the settings of some of the free spyware removers to activate features that should be turned on by default, or even discover that some features they need are not even included in these programs.

Nor do they want to manage multiple free programs to build an effective layer of protection. They want simplicity, that delivers effective reliable results with as little time commitment as possible.

I could be wrong but that is my thought process on the matter.

So what you will find below is a spotlight on three well known free spyware removers. They are very good at detecting and removing spyware but two fall short as compared to paid spyware protection solutions in different ways in the following areas:

real time monitoring and protection to prevent infections

live real time updates to keep protection up to date

schedule scanning to check your system for infections at regular intervals

Again, this is not an analysis of there ability to remove spyware and adware but rather the lack of important features routinely found in paid spyware protection solutions or the difficulty of enabling these features which as a result can limit effectiveness.

Video 1: Adaware Se – Does Not Include Some Features Found in Paid Spyware Removers:

Click Here To Play Movie

TIP: If the links don't open when you click on them, try holding down the control (Ctrl) key as you click

Video 2: Spybot Search & Destroy – All the features are there but hard to locate and enable if you aren't sure what to be looking for.

Click Here To Play Movie

TIP: If the links don't open when you click on them, try holding down the control (Ctrl) key as you click

Video 3: Windows Defender – Surprise they have all of these features!

Click Here To Play Movie

TIP: If the links don't open when you click on them, try holding down the control (Ctrl) key as you click

SECTION 9: Time Money and Frustration Savers

This final bit of analysis focuses on some features that can really save you time money and frustration.

Let’s dive right in:

1. Real Time Protection:
This has been discussed in great detail above. Suffice it to say that if the program you are thinking about using doesn’t have this feature consider another solution....Click For More Details

2. Live Updating:
Only 33% of people’s anti virus protection has been updated in the past week, this according to an AOL/NCSA study referenced in the Pew Internet Spyware Report.

This statistic is significant because your spyware protection is only as good as the latest update. Real time protection can’t catch everything so it is critical that you update your software at the very minimum once a week if not several times a week.

As a result it is important new updates be downloaded automatically so you do not need to constantly remember to update your software.

3. Scheduled Computer Scans:
Another simple feature that can save you a lot of potential headaches. Being able to setup a scan that will check your system for infections on a regular basis is another critical feature to look for. Some will think it is ridiculous to make a big deal about such a simple feature. It’s ridiculous not to include this feature or use this feature!

4. Advanced Support Options:
Correcting and properly diagnosing spyware problems is very complex and time consuming. So when your PC is having problems that a automated scan doesn’t seem to fix, a little more is needed in the way of support than just shooting off an email.

To address this issue some companies offer advanced support features like the ability to send technicians a copy of your spyware scan results with just a couple button clicks. This is useful because now the support team has a picture of what us going on with your system and can personally diagnose and fix your problem reducing the need to send a bunch of emails back and forth trying to explain the problem.

See an example of how this works:

Spyware is becoming increasingly complex and difficult to remove
make sure you have additional help in case of an emergency.

Click Here To Play Movie

TIP: If the links don't open when you click on them, try holding down the control (Ctrl) key as you click

Another innovative support option is real time chat were you can go to the anti spyware company’s site and chat with support in real time which can be a lot faster than sending an email and waiting for a response

5. Backing Up Your Data:
It can be hard to trust a piece of software to safely detect and delete only the problem files and settings and leave the rest of your data alone. And sometimes you do need to be able to restore something that was deleted in case ia piece of adware may be linked to the functionality of another program you like to use (it does happen).

Make sure whatever program you use provides the ability to make a backup of your data or at the very least quarantine the infections before completely deleting them so you can make sure your system functions properly after removing something.

SECTION 10: Which Spyware Remover?

Whew! A lot to digest. I'm happy you made it this far (you didn’t just scroll down here did you :-) ?

Hopefully this information has been helpful to you and shed a little more light on the spyware problem and what to look for when protecting yourself form this threat.

There are a lot of very good programs out there that are up to taking on the spyware removal challenge but the software I rely upon to keep my computer and personal data protected from spyware and adware threats is Max Secure Software’s Spyware Detector below you will find an in depth review of this program...Click For More Details

Top Choice
1. Spyware Detector:

Spyware Detector not only has one of the largest spyware detection database (based on the numbers publicly provided in each of the programs tested.) but it is also very effective at removing spyware and easy to use.

Effective Spyware Removal:

Spyware Detector was tested using the computer lab mentioned at the top of this page and a series of spyware and adware infections to see how it performs against real infections.

Many of the spyware infections installed on these machines were removed using the automated scan engine in as little as 5 minutes although in some cases remnants of the files were left behind. Basically what this means is that while the more dangerous active files that make the infections function were detected and deleted there still lingered behind a few files although they were harmless.

To help clear up these "orphaned" files, Spyware Detector's built-in support features were use to get help from Max Secure's spyware technicians, more on this is discussed below.

I did take Spyware Detector out of the lab to home PC's of friends and family members, and it performed extremely well.

It even eliminated a long standing problem with a "Best Mexico Vacations" toolbar on my mother-in-law's computer scoring me a few brownie points I might add :-)

Ease of Use and Accuracy of Detection:

The spyware scanner is easy to use because only a simple click of a button is required to run the entire scan process.

The results of the scan are easy to understand because each infection is marked with a threat level so you can easily see the more problematic and harmful spyware infections.

Scans were accurate and did not report any ghost infections or false positives that I could pick out.

False positives are when a spyware remover reports a spyware infection that does not exist or reports a legitimate program as spyware. Because they are often used to push people into purchasing an application or even worse cause you to delete a legitimate software program or critical system files that make your PC run, false positives are a very serious problem

False positives were not a a problem I encountered with Spyware Detector.

They also have one of the largest spyware detection database which is updated 2-3 times each week (based on the raw numbers publicly provided in each of the programs tested).

Customer Support

As mentioned above, Spyware Detector removed "many" of the spyware problems I encountered but not every one.

This is to be expected because some Spyware problems are much too complex to be removed with an automated scan and some authors if you can call them that of Spyware constantly release updates to evade detection from anti spyware programs.

When such problems arise, you often must rely on the customer support provided by the vendor. In many cases, the support you do receive is inadequate and unfriendly.

Much to my surprise, when I contacted Spyware Detector support about the spyware problems not fixed with their scanner, the support team was extremely responsive and eager to help.

They asked to provide as many details as possible about the problem and worked until the problem was solved and even followed up to make sure I was satisfied with the solution provided.

Advanced Support Options:
Max Secure Spyware Detector offers advanced support features that allow you to automatically send their support staff the results of your spyware scan.

This way they personally analyze and diagnose your problem if any spyware remains on your PC after running a spyware scan.

To use this feature, simply run a "Full Scan" and after it has completed click on the "Export Worms" button.

This will allow you to send a report directly to support to analyze your infections and get back to you with the proper line of action.

In addition, they offer Live Customer Support useful because you can receive answers to your questions in minutes which is significantly faster than email based support.

These additions represent a step forward in the evolution of spyware detection solutions because they help combat the increasing complexity of removing spyware and adware.

Reducing Future Spyware Infections:

Spyware Detector comes equipped with numerous advanced features to help prevent spyware infections before they happen.

Real time Process Monitor constantly monitors all of the programs and processes running on your computer for strange behavior or unknown entries to help prevent future infections before they have a chance to infect your computer.

Home page hi-jack protection keep spyware and adware from changing your default home page

Automatic Live Updates alert you of new updates to ensure that your database is up to date even if you forget to check.

Schedule Automated Scans at set times to help keep your system spyware free.

Overall Spyware Detector is accurate, up to date, and packed full of features that will help you reduce your spyware frustrations.

(Click here to visit Spyware Detector)

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