Spyware Help!

[plumtreeblossom]

I need advice from anyone who knows stuff about spyware removal and virus clean-up. My home computer is so infested with both that it barely runs, and several applications (my beloved Notepad, for one) have some kind of leechy thing attached to it that disables the application and opens some ad instead.

Spence mentioned a program called (I think) Ad Aware, but I haven't been able to find it anywhere. If anyone has a link to that or other downloads that can clean up my computer, I will adore you (though chances are I already do). Free would be great, but I'm willing to pay at this point if necessary.

Thanks...

Comments

[guxx.livejournal.com]

I suggest downloading both Ad-Aware and Spybot. Each searches for different things.

Ad-Aware: Information at http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/ (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware) and downloadable at http://www.majorgeeks.com/download506.html (http://www.majorgeeks.com/download506.html)

Spybot: Information at http://www.spybot.info (http://www.spybot.info) and downloadable from http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=2471 (http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=2471)

If you prefer assistance doing it, we can work out a convenient time and go over the writing stuff simultaneously. Let me know.

[guxx.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah and both of those are the freeware versions.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Cool, thanks! Are they very hard to run? I might try it tomorrow morning first thing.

Per the writing, maybe tomorrow afternoon sometime? I have a coffee date (which will amount to nothing, I'm sure) in the early afternoon, but after that I could.

[guxx.livejournal.com]

Tomorrow's tricky. Next week is wide open, though.

[minkrose]

i have them both (sometimes one will catch things the other won't). I never found them that hard to run - you pretty much just install it, run it and scan your computer. it'll ask you what to do with the files, and I usually just delete them. You can also quarentine them but I don't much see the point in that.

not that i know that much about these things but they ARE pretty easy to run. and if you quarentine them, it should at least help your computer and you can always delete them later after you talk to someone about it.