Spyware attacks! Windows Safe Mode is no Longer Safe.Written by Kevin Souter
Spyware and virii are getting craftier. New methods allow them to boot up even when user attempts to use safe mode; making them extremely hard to remove.Many of us have run into an annoying and time-consuming error. With your machine running goofey you decide to run a scan for trojans and spyware. Following scan, which usually takes fourty minutes or longer if you scan entire system, you are hit with "access denied" error. Frustrating, for sure, but being savvy computer user that you are you decide to boot to safe mode to take care of issue. No spyware can load when booted to safe mode, right? Wrong. The newer variants of CoolWebSearch, HuntBar, and VX2 infections all load even when safe mode is used. There are a few different ways of accomplishing this, most common being that spyware registers itself as a critical system process. This ensures that it is loaded regardless of what happens, and makes it much harder to shut down. If you can't prevent it from loading then how do you kill it? The answer to that is easier than it might seem. If you're running Windows 98 or ME, then easiest way is to boot to DOS, and use a command-line scanner to search your hard drive. These scans actually tend to run a bit faster, since they have more system resources available to them courtesy of no GUI being loaded.
| | Free Spyware Removal - It's Not as Easy as it SoundsWritten by Kevin Souter
Spyware is a massive problem in today's world. People get paid for creating this new and annoying threat, and conversely, others get paid to help us remove it. There are ways to get rid of it for free, but it takes a hint more effort.Nobody wants to pay to remove spyware. At very least, I don't. The blasted stuff shouldn't be on my computer anyway, so what ever would make me want to shell out cash to get rid of something that I shouldn't have in first place? Spyware removal tools come in many different forms, and from many different places. Lavasoft's Ad-Aware is from Sweden, and Spybot: Search and Destroy is from Germany, I think. (Their error messages come up in German, so I have to assume..) Purchasing adware removal software can even be dangerous, so to speak. If you're buying it from a pop-up then more than likely you're just lining pockets of person that infected your machine in first place. I've had many infested machines have icons for spyware removers magically appear on desktop. Of course, if you want to actually clean anything, you have to shell out some dough. If you're going to go it alone, for free, then there are a few tools you'll need. The first is Ad-Aware, as mentioned above. Spybot: S&D is a second excellent choice. The third, and much more advanced (and therefore difficult to use) spyware remover is HijackThis. Almost all scanners will miss various adware items, simply because there is so much produced nowadays so quickly. It's impossible to keep up.
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