I remember back in the day when I was a part of the "Black Tie" gang a friend of mine and I were working on a computer, and back then seeing a computer with fifty to a hundred instances of spyware wasn't common thanks to early versions of Peer to Peer (P2P) networks. One computer in particular that we were both working on had come in towards the end of the night and we had begun scanning it due to the customer's complaint of very slow performance despite it being a top of the line unit and having all the right parts to make it faster than what it was when it came to us. The scan process started at a very slow pace and after a couple forced shutdowns and restarts, we were finally able to scan and clean the machine. But not before we had removed 88,000+ instances of spyware. Yes you read that number correctly, 88,000+ instances. And those were back before the Sony Rootkit was announced to the public. How'd that user get so much? Easy, Peer 2 Peer (P2P) software like Kazaa, Morpheus, Bearshare, Limewire, and browsing adult websites. Folks, it hasn't gotten any cleaner on the internet.

That was several years ago and the only thing that has changed is what the spyware does behind the scenes. It used to be that spyware would bog down your system by calling on external websites to load advertising pop ups on your computer at a phenominal rate that would bring your ultra fast computer to a complete stop due to all the system resources being sucked dry and maxed out. Today, the malware is even more malicious. Remote dialers, password monitors and even embedded remote access control are just a few of the possibilities.

Removing Spyware/Malware and VIrus infections isn't that difficult if you catch it early on. However, if neglected to the point of terminal slow down for your PC, you're looking and a possible loss of data due to complete system corruption and/or system failure. One of the first steps in keeping your system free and clear of these infections is to STOP. Stop clicking on every thing you see on your computer, every pop up window that says your computer has whatever types of error, and everything that you see that you don't understand so you think it's safe to click on.

So many times I have heard or seen end users say "I saw a window that said that my registry had errors and to click here to fix it." Yes, you click there to fix the problem and in doing so you created even more. Windows by nature does NOT normally tell you that your registry has issues and provide you a way to simply single click fix it. If the registry has really that many problems, chances are the computer won't even start. This is just one example of how users are not aware of what to expect from their own computers due to lack of education and explanation.

Windows does have one valid popup that should be easily identified by the user. When you close a program that has stopped responding, a popup box  generally comes up asking if you want to send the information to Microsoft to be analyzed. That's the only legitimate popup on an otherwise healthy system folks, everything else is internet based and you're bringing it all on yourself everytime you click on something that you're not 100% sure of. Anything that pops up and says your system has issues, click here to scan, and then suddenly you now have to pay to have those scanned items removed, is an advertisement for some type of software. Some of it could be legitimate, some of it's down right awful and dangerous. If you don't know, STOP CLICKING and back away from the machine. People most noted for doing this fall into the following catagories: UNSUPERVISED kids/teenagers, some of our community's more senior users getting a new computer or a computer for the first time, the curious "what happens if I click here" user, and the down right ignorant "can't tell me anything I don't already know" user.

Yes, I called you out, parents letting your kids get on your computer without watching what they're doing or monitoring their computer use. But, you do have three options, become more engaged in what your kids are doing online, invest in NetNanny or some other piece of Internet restricting software, or be prepared to call me or someone like me to fix your problems once every two to three months on average because that's about how long it takes for your healthy system to go bad again. Something else I should explain right here, there is NO GUARANTEES whatsoever written, implied or stated otherwise for software. Example time........you take that brand new computer into the shop and have the "Black Tie" guys remove a virus infection and some spyware they found, charging you the $$$ for bench diagnostic fee, plus more $$$$ for each "PER SERVICE" fee. (First, that's just plain ridiculous to think that you have to pay so much money "PER SERVICE", second, you're only doing it to yourself.)  Anyway, you get your computer back and set it up and it works fine for a day or two. On day three, you click on what you thought was a legitimate website and BAM! Your computer gets hit with another virus, but only this time, it does critical system damage. Keep in mind that this is only 3 days after you had it "professionally" cleaned. You take it back to the "black tie" guys and guess what, you start the whole process over. It's a virus, they're a business. You're going to pay the bench diagnostic fee and the "PER SERVICE" removal fee AGAIN plus another "PER SERVICE" fee to repair the operating system damage.

My point here is you just probably spent just as much to have your computer cleaned, twice now, if not more than what you paid for it brand new off the shelf because you clicked on something or because you couldn't STOP clciking on something. NO, it's not wise to ALWAYS click on everything you see.

So how do you stop it? You can't, but you can control it. And here's where we're going to show you how.

The next step after you've taught yourself to STOP clicking on everything, is to invest in a good Antivirus software. Now there's many of them on the market, but they all generally do the same thing, some better than others, some not at all. A few things that I look for are the ability for the software to self automatic update, ability to schedule system scanning and effective removal techniques. Alot of the software I use rarely needs user intervention and is set up to run when most normal people are at least sleeping (I rarely sleep so i'm up at odd hours of the night anyways). These characteristics are also favorable when looking for spyware/malware removal programs as well and we'll get to those. One word of caution that I would provide, stay away from the "All-inOne" software suites. The reason why, when one part of it goes bad, because it's software, the rest isn't too far behind from suffering the same fate.

Alot of people talk about the effectiveness of one virus scanner versus another. Simply put, they all scan for the same things, but the scan engine for Norton might view a virus differently than the scan engine from AVG, NOD32, or Panda AV. Does that mean that one is better than the other? Possibly, but that is something that you're going to have to find out on your own. My friend, "Shadow" raves about the free version of AVG and how well it works with Spybot S&D (spyware/malware removal program). Me personally, I have yet to find a virus infection that it CAN find and resolve. Opinions vary, so it's important to do your homework before you drop alot of $$$$ on a program, you could possibly be throwing money out the window and still have to pay someone else to clean up the problem. Your best bet is to get online and do a side by side comparison of several across the board.

Regardless of which one you choose, it's only as effective as it is current. Updates updates updates! You can't expect to be protected from tomorrow's latest virus using last year's protection measures, it doesn't work that way.

Spyware and Malware on the other hand aren't often as easily found and removed as virus infections. These type of infections come to the user in the way of some internet window blinking a message that your computer has been infected, or that your registry has issues. These are advertising hoaxes to get you to purchase their software. Most users fall for these time and time again. 

My personal favorite and current line up for battling spyware and malware are Spybot S&D v.1.6.2 and Malwarebytes v.1.34. A lot of times when I'm scanning, I'll restart the computer and boot it into Safe Mode with Networking as this only loads the bare minimum to get the computer running. Which means all the spyware and malware and whatever memory spot or service they're tied to won't be running which makes removal that much easier. You'll also find that scanning in Safe Mode with Netoworking tends to be faster as well.

One important factor in Safe Mode/Safe Mode with Networking is the fact that the system's built in Administrator account is visible and available to be used. This account is the very first account created during the initial installation of Windows. If this account goes bad and disappears, it's very hard to do anything with the computer in the way of fixing or repairing it.

It's also important to know that the more user accounts you have on a given computer, the more problems you're likely to have as the problems will at some point infect other accounts and cross infect. Basically like a social STD, your computer has it, every account on the computer is going to be affected. So that being said, when you start scanning, you need to start at the top and work your way down through each account. As you get closer to the bottom you'll find that you're finding less and less and your scans are getting faster and faster. That's when you know you're cleaning with a purpose. It's probably also a good point to say that running through a few cleaning steps from the Keep it Clean and Running Mean page while in safe mode will also yield amazing results.