How does a person get rid of a spyware app?

Ok, last Saturday I was searching and downloading Nintendo 64 roms. A lot of the site where pure bulls**t and just kept sending me in a circle to other sites, making you click their stupid "Vote" buttons, then supplying no roms. Anyway I went through a lot of sites. Somewhere in there a spyware app installed itself.

What the app does is install some retarded "clock sync" app, "whenUsearch" app, "EARN" app, and "purityscan". Also one very disturbing thing is my home page is always reset to some crappy search site, even if I delete all history, cookies and set the home page to something like yahoo.com. Its very frustrating, I also noticed some [b][i][color=limegreen]memorywatch[/i][/b] program in my add/remove list[/color]. I can delete the "clock sync" app there but not the other apps, they don't appear. Also it seems that opening sites takes longer, a lot of ad windows open and my active window randomly go's inactive for seamingly no reason.

Needless to say this really piss's me off, I wish I could beat the basturd that wrote this covert s**t application.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

(on a lighter note I did actually get some pretty good games)

<!-- ZoneLabs Popup Blocking Insertion -->Only advice I can give you is to download ad-aware. I'll put in on my webspace for a while if you or anyone else wants to download it.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/suicidle_tramp/

I always search google "removing -insert name here-" and check that way, spyware tools usually don't catch those.

Yeah, run Adaware. Then when it's done, make a note of the things it's found/deleted, and go through your registry/hard-drive as it's not 100% efficient at completely removing programs... You might want to update your windos too if you haven't, plug those security holes :wink:

Yeah, get adaware from lavasoft. Also, run msconfig to see if any of these programs are in startup there. You can also check the registry, HKLM/software/windows/currentversion/run and HKCU/software/windows/currentversion/run, as sometimes things are in startup that don't show up in msconfig, but that are there. After you have removed them from startup, you should be able to find and delete them in windows explorer.

*Spybot Plug*

Alsor, try HijackThis and CWShredder to get rid of those annoying Home page hijackers.

Also it is possible the IE default homepage has been registry tinkered as well

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main

Then change it to whatever you please.. also in the "main" key is your search bar/search page (that thing you get when you mistype a URL), if any of those need changing as well.

One spyware app I got somehow once made any page I typed the url in go to some crappy search site. And also it wouldn't let me go to sites to download Ad Aware or any spyware removers. I had to edit registries and get lep to help me by looking on the net for a solution to it all.

Whats with the multicoloured post too Grimlock lol

Some things to do to prevent this stuff installing - disable ActiveX and Java and only use them for trusted sites, ditch IE and use a Mozilla based browser. Moz browsers like Nav and Firefox have handy popup ad killers :smile:

And use a software firewall, not XP's lame excuse for one.

Strange we JUST had a tread on this, so ill quote the solution from vash:

Vash said:
Solution:

Programs that are need...

Spybot Search & Destroy
Adaware
Trojan Remover
Registery Mechanic
PCBug Doctor

Run them in this order:

1. Run Adaware. Search for your entire PC, then delete all files brought up. If asked to startup when you restart windows, select "Yes". (NOTE: Do not restart your PC yet)

2. Search for your entire PC, then delete all files brought up. If asked to startup when you restart windows, select "Yes". Now, go to Immunize, and install the program that "blocks all bad pages silently". (NOTE: Do not restart your PC yet)

3. Run Trojan Remover. Let it search, delete all files pulled up. (NOTE: Do not restart PC yet)

4. Run Registery Mechanic. Search your entire PC, and fix all found problems. (NOTE: Do not restart PC yet)

5. Finally, search with PCBug. Fix all selected files, and then restart your PC.

Now, your PC Should be sprinklee clean ^_^!

If problems still persist, I suggest the Google ToolBar (Built-in popup blocker)

As for PC rug doctor you had to download a cracked exe from a "bad" site, but the link was removed to save lep from getting in trouble.

Thanks, you guys are a big help.

The miscolored post was me trying to highlight the important coments, a lot of people see a long post and just skip it.

If you read all but the white text its a simplified version of what I'm trying to say.

Thanks again, hopefully removing the covert apps wont be too difficult (crossing fingers)

plus, it makes your post a lot prettier.

AWESOME!!! All the apps are gone, worked great!!!!

Thanks again.

I'M GLAD[color=yellow] IT I[size=32]S[/color] WO[size=32]RKIN[/size][/size]G NOW

Y O U A R E ? T H A N K S B R O ! :rolleyes: