Spyware is a nightmare
I recently had to undertake the loathesome task of reinstalling Windows. It was unrelated to the recent hard disk failure I had, but it was still a complete chore. The reason? My machine had become infested with some sort of spyware that I knew was present, but was hiding in a manner I've never seen before. It was real pesky, and somehow managed to stop me from being able to access places like the Lavasoft website, or the Spybot website (before you ask, yes, I did check my hosts file).
From what I could tell the spyware was using the NFTS alternate data stream exploit to hide from me, and I wasn't comfortable with removing the junk, so I did a full reinstall. It was a complete hassle.
This leads me onto Webroot Spy Sweeper. I wouldn't usually use anything other than Ad-aware or Spybot, but I ended up installing Webroot as it was one of the only programs which would update itself given my current problem - it did help, and removed a few otherwise unfound bits of data knocking about on the computer, which was nice. I always worry that by putting all of my Spyware-related eggs in one basket I'm setting myself up for a fall, so it's nice to have a few programs installed at once. Apparently Spy Sweeper is the most award winning spyware software on the market, too, which is nice.
My tip is to install it, and a couple of other anti-spyware apps at the same time - that way you know you're getting protection from all angles.
- 14th June, 2007
- The Internet.
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