I'm looking for a malware/spyware/privacy detection tool and last I looked in to it Lavasoft's Ad-Aware was the recommended route to take. Currently their install is over 120MB though, which is ridiculous imo and suggestive of a lot of bloatware.
Any recommendations from the techsupport community for something slim and reliable?
Posted Sep 9, 2010, 4:08 PM UTC
Spybot S&D - http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html
Microsoft Security Essentials - http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/
Malwarebytes - http://www.malwarebytes.org/
Those plus HijackThis: http://majorgeeks.com/download3155.html
I've been able to clean every system of malware with these alone.
HijackThis is good, but I would also recommend novices submit the logs to a tech support forum until they can recognize what they should remove.
Microsoft Security Essentials seems to be the weapon of choice nowadays.
Seconded on this combo & HijackThis, plus worst case scenario usage of Combofix. After that, I'd be just backing up and wiping the drive.
Another vote for Malwarebytes
malwarebytes x5
It is just ok for personal use... the ones mentioned are much better. It is very bloated and takes up way too many system resources.
I'll leave it on any computer on which I have already installed it. My new computers won't be using it however.
I used it also in an corporate setting - what a nightmare. It caused WAY more problems then it fixed. So many issues with upgrades and incompatibility it was insane.
Bottom line - if that was the ONLY choice then yes I'd use it. Otherwise find something less system intensive.
Ad-aware used to be part of my regular computer maintenance. One day, after installing a new version, a tooltip popped up explaining all the benefits of upgrading to the pro version.
Ad-aware is now adware.
I find that Viper and Malware Bytes are great at cleanup, with Viper picking up and cleaning trojans/keyloggers/system-level infections, and MBAM excelling at cleaning out adware infections in the current user profile.
You have to consider why you need prevention and cleanup at all. You might get infected in a drive-by in your browser, you might get infected by another app like a media player, or you might get suckered into installing an app that has a trojan as well.
For preventative medicine, I recommend OpenDNS, patching, and an antivirus product; the antivirus products have mostly grown to fill the space that adware removal products used to own. If I was going to skip the antivirus product or I wanted belt and suspenders, I'd go with WinPatrol to monitor installations and changes.
Secunia Personal Inspector is the only good product for recognizing application updates, and never mind stopping at good, it's very good.
Depending on your OS, Microsoft gives you a free Windows Defender or Security Essentials, and they place nice with other products.
Immunet is also designed to play nice with other products, and it's maturing nicely. I run it on one low-end machine but have nothing exciting to report.
I think Ad-aware has had it's day, malwarebytes first, or maybe Super, or A-squared
Agreed on all three Kylde mentioned, in that same order.
Seconded :) I stopped using ad-aware years ago, malwarebytes by itself seems to be enough in most cases.
Malware Bytes is very good for clean-up, making very few demands on the user for experience.
WinPatrol is very good at keeping the bad guys out in the first place.
I've stopped using and recommending S&D and AdAware.