When a computer is infected by spyware, will it always be infected, even if you've run antispy software?
440602
Some spyware programs don't remove all traces of spyware. You should try more than one.  I use SpyBot and AdAware together among other programs and I've never had a problem.  Try setting your browser's homepage to something else before running the scans, and make sure you update the anti-spyware programs' definitions.  Good luck.\n\n**EDIT**  I've never had to edit my registry, either.  Of course, I don't visit spyware ridden porn sites on a regular basis, either.
500463
You can prevent 99% of spyware by running your computer as a restricted user.\n\nUsually spywares spread by social engineering tricks.  Using an email or a website they trick you into installing the program onto your computer.\n\nIf you are running the computer as a restricted user, since you cannot install the program, you should be protected.
1068393
update and run the Anti-Spyware software that you have.
1044487
you pc is infected with virus/spywares
702570
Use these.\n\nAll of these are ones that I personally use and all are free.\n\nAVG Removes I-Worm/Stration · BackDoor.Generic3.GBB and .GBC · Worm/Generic.FX · Exploit.WMF\nhttp://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/lng/us/tpl/v5\n\nSpybot - Search & Destroy detects and removes spyware, a relatively new kind of threat not yet covered by common anti-virus applications. Spyware silently tracks your surfing behaviour to create a marketing profile for you that is transmitted without your knowledge to the compilers and sold to advertising companies. If you see new toolbars in your Internet Explorer that you haven't intentionally installed, if your browser crashes inexplicably, or if your home page has been "hijacked" (or changed without your knowledge), your computer is most probably infected with spyware. Even if you don't see the symptoms, your computer may be infected, because more and more spyware is emerging. Spybot-S&D is free, so there's no harm giving it a try to see if something has invaded your computer.\nhttp://www.safer-networking.org/\n\nhttp://superantispyware.com/\nSUPERAntiSpyware is the most thorough scanner on the market. Our Multi-Dimensional Scanning and Process Interrogation Technology will detect spyware that other products miss! SUPERAntiSpyware will remove ALL the Spyware, NOT just the easy ones!\nEasily remove over 100,000 pests such as SmitFraud, Vundo, WinFixer, SpyAxe, SpyFalcon, WinAntiVirus, AntiVermins and thousands more!\nMake sure after you download any of these, that you update them.\n\n Be sure to come back to Yahoo Q&A and vote for one of the answers as best answer!
227463
The general answer is to run both anti-virus and anti-spyware sfotware on your machine. But there are some issues with this simple advice. \n\nOne problem is that new malware turns up often, so your anti-virus software should be updated frequently (weekly is the usual recommendation). BUT, some anti-virus makers have decided that some kinds of unwanted software aren't really viruses, and so shouldn't be flagged as malware, removed, or  deleted. This is the reason the spyware detection programs came to be; the anti-virus programs weren't announcing their presence or removing them. Since spyware is so varied, none of the spyware programs seem to catch them all. So it makes good sense to run more than one. Fortunately, there are many different spyware programs, several of them free. \n\nRecent events have demonstrated that this business model has its troubles. A couple of years ago, Sony-BMG decided to protect some of its music CDs by putting some software on the CDs which infects Windows computers when the CD is played on a Windows computer. It did so silently and was supposed to thwart pirates attempting to copy the music tracks. But it also allowed anyone to take over the computer / operating system without significant effort. It was a rootkit, making the Sony music CDs themselves Trojan Horse malware, and possibly the most extensively installed one in history. Several of the anti-virus producers have explained that they noticed this DRM rootkit, but didn't add the Sony rootkit to their malware lists. So for a year or so their customers' computers (and all the data on them -- business, personal, confidential, ...) were left dangerously exposed to the malicious by something many anti-virus folks knew of and chose to stay silent about. F-secure, to its credit, immediately added the Sony rootkit to the list of malware it detected and reported the day after they learned of it. Most others treated it as a PR problem for some time after the Sony rootkit issue became public knowledge. \n\nSo doing the recommended thing may not actually remove all the surveillance software that might be on your machine. The programs you rely on to detect and remove such things may be knowingly ignoring some. The most certain solution is to reinstall the operating system and all application programs from media known to be free of malware. \n\nWhich, of course, raises the obvious question -- how can one know this or that media copy is free of viruses, Trojan Horses, surveillance software, etc? The answer: it's not possible. For instance, a few years ago, millions of copies of Microsoft Windows CDs for Korea were infected at the factory with a virus. What has been thought to be the very first virus was a Merry Christmas greeting hidden on many thousands of official product distribution floppies distributed by Apple many years ago.\n\nIt's not an easy to solve problem. It may be that changing your operating system is a reasonable approach. Take Linux, for instance. It has had far fewer problems with viruses and other malware throughout its 15 year history. Part of this is probably because there are fewer installed Linux systems. But part of it is that Linux is based closely on Unix (from Bell Labs) which was itself designed from the beginning as a multi-user and multi-tasking system and so to protect users (and their files) from all others. This is inherent in the operating system, the file system, process accounting, access control, etc. \n\nWindows was developed from the quite different 'one computer on every desktop" perspective; it was assumed that each computer would have only one operator, no sharing. Not very realistic in the actual world of real businesses and families. With the development of Windows NT (2000 is actually NT v 5), MS tried hard to make NT (which could be a fully multi-user operating system akin to Unix in principle) work as much as possible like preceeding single-user Windows versions. There ha
694399
All of these are ones that I personally use and all are free.\n\nAVG Removes I-Worm/Stration · BackDoor.Generic3.GBB and .GBC · Worm/Generic.FX · Exploit.WMF\nhttp://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/lng/us/tpl/v5\n\nSpybot - Search & Destroy detects and removes spyware, a relatively new kind of threat not yet covered by common anti-virus applications. Spyware silently tracks your surfing behaviour to create a marketing profile for you that is transmitted without your knowledge to the compilers and sold to advertising companies. If you see new toolbars in your Internet Explorer that you haven't intentionally installed, if your browser crashes inexplicably, or if your home page has been "hijacked" (or changed without your knowledge), your computer is most probably infected with spyware. Even if you don't see the symptoms, your computer may be infected, because more and more spyware is emerging. Spybot-S&D is free, so there's no harm giving it a try to see if something has invaded your computer.\nhttp://www.safer-networking.org/\n\nhttp://superantispyware.com/\nSUPERAntiSpyware is the most thorough scanner on the market. Our Multi-Dimensional Scanning and Process Interrogation Technology will detect spyware that other products miss! SUPERAntiSpyware will remove ALL the Spyware, NOT just the easy ones!\nEasily remove over 100,000 pests such as SmitFraud, Vundo, WinFixer, SpyAxe, SpyFalcon, WinAntiVirus, AntiVermins and thousands more!\nMake sure after you download any of these, that you update them.\n\n *Be sure to come back to Yahoo Q&A and vote for one of the answers as best answer!
281962
Spyware is a malicious little program that runs in the background of your computer so you can't see it. It keeps track of what you are doing, particularly on the internet, and uses that information in all kinds of ways, some of them quite nasty. You can get them from websites or email attachments.
501520
Dudes!  That's not correct.\n\nA virus is a self replicating piece of code that tries to send itself to other peoples computers.  It does not have to do anything other than that.  They are not always malicious, but most do something to make their presence known.  This could range from deleting all your files, to simply displaying a pop up.  Spammers make a lot of viruses that secretly turn your machine into mass emailers.  You never see anything on the screen and they don't pop up anything.  You just notice your machine running a little slower than usual.\n\nSpyware does not self replicate.  You get it by visiting web sites, like this one, that put stuff like cookies on your computer.  The cookies are used to track your browsing habits.  There are other spyware programs as well that can be installed from any kind of active code in a web site.  Most primary cookies are harmless, but third party cookies are the ones to watch out for.  They are almost always spyware.
876365
same as the others but i recommend a combo of utilities to catch things that the others miss\n&#92;go to http://www.filehippo.com/software/antispyware/ and get ad-aware, spybot, windows defender, and spyware blaster all in one spot and run them all
156560
Batman, now u really gotta believe me, i have a trojan attack before, called SpyAxe, its really irritating, i cant remove it through the "Add/Remove" program on my computer. everytime i reboot, the SpyAxe comes back again. TRUST ME, DO NOT use another program, like the other answerers here said, to delete it. delete it manually, even if it takes a lot of time, like having to reboot to safemode n all that. yes it does work for some of these anti-spyware programs, BUT why am i stopping you, why? coz SpyAxe actually claims to be such an anti-spyware program, but it actually attached a trojan horse virus with it, that causes SpyAxe to appear each time we reboot our com. some pple couldnt stand it n decided to pay SpyAxe to remove the trojan. its all a scam from Spyaxe. to know more abt this spyaxe, u can search in Yahoo. i also found out how to remove the trojan manually through a search done in Yahoo, which brought me to a forum page(pls click on link below) where many others also caught this SpyAxe problem. the forum also states many other computer problems.\n\nin the 1st place, the reason i chose to delete this SPyAxe manually is becoz i needed to pay the other programs to delete the trojan. its really ridiculous rite? n u know what, wad i'm gonna say next is true, i read this from the forum page submitted by real pple.. this guy actually couldn't stand seeing the Spyaxe after rebooting his com everytime, so he download another anti-spyware program to get rid of the trojan, since he knows that SpyAxe is the one who actually attached the trojan with itself so pple who click on SpyAxe's advertisement n scan their PCs for free will get the trojan infection(whereby the scan results will show that u haf many viruses on your PC, which is not true). then they will ask u to download SpyAxe(there is a fee for using Spyaxe) to remove the trojan for you. then this guy, he downloaded other program, n PAID them, but it didnt work. he was so pissed off, he couldnt stand it, he actually decided to pay SpyAxe to remove e trojan for him!! n here comes the WORSE part... SpyAxe is not an anti-spyware prgm at all! e guy called the no. to look for SpyAxe management team, n the number actually was to a flower shop!! i didnt know whether to laugh or to cry when i saw this in the forum. tt's y i would really advise u to del e trojan manually urself, rather than download some other program to remove it. u will never know what u are downloading.\n\ni deleted it manually and it really did work, i didnt even need to spend a cent. even better, if your PC has a 'system recovery' program, u can juz restore it to an earlier time, a time before the trojan infected your PC. i know ACER computers have this program, n some other brands too. Mine is an ACER laptop, but too bad i didnt set a restore date so i couldn't use this program to help me. if your PC has this program too, do set a restore date where everything in your PC is working fine. you'll thank your lucky stars when you really need to use this program. \n\nBatman, REALLY< BELIEVE ME OK? i spent so much time typing this answer! good luck to you!! do check out the link, there are forums abt other PC problems, forums are best coz those are the pple who have the same problem n they have solved it using their ways, always finish reading every message in the forum, coz some might say this particular way works, but some say no. u haf to read through the whole thing to get the best solution.\n\nHope to hear from u how u removed the trojan, i noe how irritating it can be. do email me at yuni_chan88@yahoo.com.sg ok? thanks! =]
565475
Virus protection and Spyware protection are two completely different types of scanners.\nI recommend you run both.
808452
Use these scans below to clean any traces of spyware.\n\nAll of these are ones that I personally use and all are free.\n\nAVG Removes I-Worm/Stration · BackDoor.Generic3.GBB and .GBC · Worm/Generic.FX · Exploit.WMF\nhttp://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/lng/us/tpl/v5\n\nSpybot - Search & Destroy detects and removes spyware, a relatively new kind of threat not yet covered by common anti-virus applications. Spyware silently tracks your surfing behaviour to create a marketing profile for you that is transmitted without your knowledge to the compilers and sold to advertising companies. If you see new toolbars in your Internet Explorer that you haven't intentionally installed, if your browser crashes inexplicably, or if your home page has been "hijacked" (or changed without your knowledge), your computer is most probably infected with spyware. Even if you don't see the symptoms, your computer may be infected, because more and more spyware is emerging. Spybot-S&D is free, so there's no harm giving it a try to see if something has invaded your computer.\nhttp://www.safer-networking.org/\n\nhttp://superantispyware.com/\nSUPERAntiSpyware is the most thorough scanner on the market. Our Multi-Dimensional Scanning and Process Interrogation Technology will detect spyware that other products miss! SUPERAntiSpyware will remove ALL the Spyware, NOT just the easy ones!\nEasily remove over 100,000 pests such as SmitFraud, Vundo, WinFixer, SpyAxe, SpyFalcon, WinAntiVirus, AntiVermins and thousands more!\nMake sure after you download any of these, that you update them.\n\n *Be sure to come back to Yahoo Q&A and vote for one of the answers as best answer!
370188
Turn your cookies off or set to PROMPT to be safe.  As well, to see if your system has become infected, you can download, and install spyware scanners to locate and delete any spyware.\n\nFree and reliable spyware scanners are: \n\nSpybot Search and Destroy - http://www.safer-networking.org...\nAdaware - http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware...\nMicrosoft Windows Defender - http://www.microsoft.com/athome/... security/spyware/software/defa...\n\nOnce you have cleaned your system, you can try to track by useage what programs might cause you to become reinfected.
650087
Scan for virus and it should/will tell you what potential if any spyware has been downloaded to your computer. Then you have the option to delete the files or not. I use McAfee.
828884
Not if the programs you are using to test it use as many resources as all the BAD stuff out there I.E. Spyware, viruses, malware, etc.\n\nI recommend Norton or Avast for viruses, or Trend Micro products for the whole shebang. I use Lavasoft for spyware, as well as Ewido, it's good to have a few anti-spyware programs, because they all get something that the next one misses.\n\nAlso, I recommend disabling all start up programs that you don't need at start up--with winpatrol, perhaps. I don't have anti-virus enabled when I use applications that don't depend on the internet.
127912
Hello!\n\nTypically these sorts of things are programmed to start up when your comptuer starts up and write over the value in the registry. Here is how to combat this.\n\n1. Go to http://www.microsoft.com/\n2. Download Microsoft Antispyware.\n3. Install Microsoft Antispyware.\n4. Set Microsoft Antispyware to automatically update, use their sentries, and send information to Spynet. These settings are the defaults the first time you run Antispyware.\n5. Delete the registry key and restart your system.\n\nIf the spyware is badly written and MS Antispyware is doing it's job, it should notice the attempt to change your browser settings as a hijack attempt and ask you to block it.\n\nLet me know how that goes.\n\nBrandon