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"Uh oh! Not spyware again! Oh no, now what do I do?"

As a Network Administrator I deal with spyware and malware on a weekly basis. It's a nuisance and can sometimes be a real pain to remove. Occasionally I run into malware that has so infected a PC that there is no way to remove it and then only thing one can do is reformat and start over! However, I have found three really great programs that seem to do the trick.

1. Malwarebytes.org: Found at: http://malwarebytes.org This is one of the best malware cleaning software I have found. It is easy to load and run and does an excellent job. There is a free version or a paid version. This seems to get rid of some of the nastiest malware out there.

2. Spyware Doctor: This is another great spyware/malware cleaner. It is active rather than passive as it runs in the desktop tray and scans and intervals. You can get the free version from google at: http://pack.google.com along with some other good software.

3. Spybot S&D: found at: http://www.safer-networking.or g/en/index.html A great active and passive tool to have in your arsenal. This software has settings to actively block bad web-pages as well as you can run it passively when needed. You will need to go and get the updates periodically so you will need a computer that has access to the Internet. It is a little more involved to setup and it takes upwards of 30 minutes to run (depending on how large your hard-drive is and how many programs you have). Spybot does a great job though at finding the large and small stuff and does a through scan of your registry. One word of caution though, when setting it up make sure to uncheck the Tea Timer unless you like constant pop-up's telling you about potential bad stuff. In my professional opinion you really don't need this feature and unless you know what to tell it to block you will probably only become frustrated with it.

With these three great programs installed you shouldn't have much of a problem keeping the spyware/malware at bay. Yes, it does take more than one piece of software to really keep your machine cleaned of spyware/malware. I have yet to see one program do it all! I would also suggest you make sure to do updates on them regularly (once a week at least) to make sure you have the latest definitions in combating the newest malware/spyware that has popped up on the Internet. You may also want to keep a copy of these programs on a pen drive for 'emergencies'. Many times I have had to boot into the "safe-mode" to be able to clean off some malware. Having the programs available on a pen drive just makes those times that much quicker and easier and it ensures that the software hasn't been damaged by any malware that infected your PC.

Remember do NOT wait to clean your machine once you realize something may be wrong. The longer you wait the more infected it can become and then you may not be able to clean it at all and will be forced to format and re-install. Most malware/spyware programs are more of a nuisance than a real threat to PC damage but if your computer becomes too infected then it will run very slow, potentially crash and you may have a very hard time cleaning it.

Learn more about this author, Lynne Powell.
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