OK, this is a topic of some relevance. I've just spent all night round my mate's house (2 weeks after doing a full format of his PC) trying to remove spyware lovingly put on there by his wife.... "I had to turn Norton off because it wouldn't let me on the internet". Bless!
The thing is (and this really does irritate me) I downloaded SpyDoctor and Xmspy (or something sounding like that). Both clearly advertised "free spyware removal utility" and all looked very posh and not at all dodgy.
They both found multiple infections and both prompted to 'register now to remove these infections'. I really could have broken something at the end of this process.
Even Norton (2004) was rubbish. "I have detected the above 3 problems" (SpyDoctor detected 27) "I was unable to remove them, please click on the name of the infection for information on how to remove"..... so.... you click on the name and it takes you to a Symantec website... removal instructions are.... wait for it.... "update your virus definitions via LiveUpdate". Great, we've kind of done that already. thanks anyway.
His PC is now sat running a full scan with AVG Free edition which I fully expect to not remove everything. He is going to bring his PC round to mine tomorrow so I can attach his hard drive and run my paid-for Panda to sort it out.
The thing is (and this really does irritate me) I downloaded SpyDoctor and Xmspy (or something sounding like that). Both clearly advertised "free spyware removal utility" and all looked very posh and not at all dodgy.
They both found multiple infections and both prompted to 'register now to remove these infections'. I really could have broken something at the end of this process.
Even Norton (2004) was rubbish. "I have detected the above 3 problems" (SpyDoctor detected 27) "I was unable to remove them, please click on the name of the infection for information on how to remove"..... so.... you click on the name and it takes you to a Symantec website... removal instructions are.... wait for it.... "update your virus definitions via LiveUpdate". Great, we've kind of done that already. thanks anyway.
His PC is now sat running a full scan with AVG Free edition which I fully expect to not remove everything. He is going to bring his PC round to mine tomorrow so I can attach his hard drive and run my paid-for Panda to sort it out.