scumware removal

[SlowMove]

I have a lot of unwanted popups, nonexistent links, etc. What's the best software to get rid of the parasites? I heard there were some problems with Adaware. Is any of the free software good?

[Mardi_Gras]

I just used AdAware very successfully on a client's machine that was loaded with whenu junk and others.

[thehittmann]

i use hijackthis, its a free program. but is only really good if you can spot the problem softwares.

[Dreamquick]

AdAware is good for a lot of problems and is easy to use but it sometimes misses things. I'd say the next level up is Spybot Search & Destroy, it's less user-friendly but tends to be more thorough.

- Tony

[Mohamed_E]

If you use Ad-aware be sure to check for updates, they seem to update their definition files pretty often. Current one is dated Jan 10, the previous one I used was Dec 26 (I may have missed an update, since switching from IE to Netscape I seem to gather much less scumware).

[SlowMove]

>If you use Ad-aware be sure to check for updates

I ran it with the updates. It seems to be working.

[jomaxx]

I just ran Ad-Aware on my kids' computer and found they had unknowingly installed Gator, Comet Cursor, some time synchronization spyware, Lycos Sidesearch, you name it.

Now maybe this is old news to most people, but I uninstalled all this stuff and I could no longer connect to the Internet. Holy crap! A (brief) search of Ad-Aware's support site via my other computer didn't show any indication that anything could go wrong, but it did.

What I found on some other site was a recommendation to run Lsp-fix in the event that removing scumware causes Winsock problems. I tried it and it worked beautifully. Very bare-bones, but I help my breath and ran it and it solved the problem.

[Mohamed_E]

Very interesting, first time I heard of the problem (and a Google site search reveals nothing about lsp-fix on this site).

How often does the problem it solves occur? I have downloaded it, just in case I need it and have no way of getting on the net.

[thehittmann]

ahhh yes, i have had to use a similar program before. But this program I have is simply called winsockfix by Option^Explicit Software Solutions. Worked great when i needed it.

[Hunter]

Good for finding them and giving instructions for manual removal: doxdesk.com/parasite/