If you get spyware, popupls, adaware, viruses, trojans, or any other crap that windows users faces, then read this guide!

Adaware SE
SpyBot Search & Destory
Microsoft Antispyware


First off, download these tools, there anti-spyware tools, called adaware, spybot search and destroy, and MS anti-spyware, all of which are free for use. You need to run these tools atleast every month, and make sure there all up to date.

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Then for viruses, run these online tools, use atleast 2 of em, and you should run a scan online maybe once every 2 months.

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/
http://www.bitdefender.com/scan/licence.php
http://www.pcpitstop.com/pcpitstop/AntiVirusCntr.asp

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http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1 <---free antivirus

ClamAV <---free open source antivirus, lots of internet servers use this scanner and is very very good
ClamAV for other operating systems <---- got linux, mac osx, bsd and need to scan files before you put em on a windows puter? then download the release that goes with ye puter

Also download this antivirus and keep it on your computer, it'll give you round the clock protection since its running locally, and its free Make sure its up to date, and run a scan every other week, you can set the program to do this automatically.

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To prevent spyware/ad's from ever getting on your computer then get these tools:

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/ <--- don;t ever go back to internet explorer!!!!!

https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/morei...ication=firefox <----stops ads

https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=1136 <---keeps adblock up to date


http://www.download.com/3000-2092-10039884.html <--- free firewall

I use all the tools my self, and i get zero ad's/spyware/viruses, and i install it on all of my clients pc's as well happy.gif

Ok... I've seen some good posts and I've seen some bad posts XD.

Use Firefox, and if you need IE, use the IETab extension for Firefox, not IE itself.

Spybot SD is definitely a good program, not just for its anti-virus but for the ability to toggle what programs run at startup and listing your bho's and activex's etc.

AVG, panda, adaware (plus, silver, whatever the hell else they're calling it now) are ok, but losing it compared to some of the newer and better antivirus/anti-adware programs. I would advise against Norton, I'm not entirely sure about it's ability, but I do know that I haven't found another one that causes my computer to go so slowly and causes me so many problems.

Bitdender is good, but you need a licence. There are several different versions (i have professional 9), and it includes a firewall, script regulation, spam prevention (don't really use that), very good virus/adware scan - not the fastest ever, but very thorough, and much faster and less demanding than Norton. Also has a live protection ability that will quarentine/delete/attempt to fix, any virus/worm etc or corrupted file.

Go to sysinternals.com. Get processexplorer, which is a very advanced version of the task manager with like 500 times the ability, and is usefull for checking on the running programs, it offers a lot more info on each process and what they're doing. Also from that site, get the RootKitRevealer, an invaluable program and the only RootKit finding program that actually works (that I know of), and made by the guy who discovered the rootkits in the Sony Music CD's (search that on Google if you don't know what I'm talking about). Ironically, he was testing out rootkitrevealer, and that was how he found the Sony one lol. Now, if it turns out you do have a rootkit, I'm not exactly sure how to help you, definitely search through forums, but really, they're a ***** to remove, and you can never really be sure that it's completely gone.

Get hijackthis. I know, I know, the name isn't very conforting, but it's a very good program that analyzes the your system, and makes a log of everything it finds - registry startup entries, processes, services etc. Then you post it to a tech site (make sure they are expecting it), and they'll check out what the log finds. Hijackthis does have the ability to make some fixes, but not the same type that most antivirus programs will find.

You don't need like 6 firewalls and 10 antivirus and anti-adware programs, that's actually probably more dangerous than having fewer b/c they are likely to conflict with eachother, sometimes dissabling one another or worse, and while that war is going on, some virus is gonna slip past. I once put down my firewall for less than a minute, b/c i was having problems connecting to site, and 1 virus got onto my computer, with the sole purpose of downloading 70 more. It took me a week of combing through my registry and system files to get everything back to normal. Which reminds me, get killbox. Killbox will delete files that are protected or that rebuild themselves after you delete them (pain in the a**) since a lot of virus's tend to have protection like that, by deleting them after windows is off, but before the computer actually shuts down (very, very usefull).

I have issues with the newest microsoft anti-virus tools, mainly they're slow as hell (unless there's a newer better version), and they can really be replaced by any good antivirus program. If you've already got it, run it once in a while, but I wouldn't count on it as my only defense.

I already posted this already, but get AdblockPlus for firefox, not adblock, and definitely not both -_-; also, get the gupdate extension which will keep AdblockPlus up to date on subscriptions. For the ultra paranoid, get the NoScript extension for firefox, it'll keep you pretty safe, but it can be a pain if you surf sites with and javascript or php or whatever in them.

Just a little piece of advice, don't forget that some virus's are made specifically to attack antivirus. I was hit with a virus that disabled all of bitdefender's buttons. Luckily, the repair option under add/remove programs fixed that, but I still had to manually remove the virus (can't remember what it was called >_<).

Good Luck People - Stay Safe lol