Best Free Mal/Spyware Remover?

[Guy]

Hi folks,

Have just discovered that my girlfriend's notebook is riddled with crap. I've run Ad-Aware and Spybot but there's some stuff I just can't seem to kill with those (starting with Do-Search). Anyone have any good leads for really good spyware and malware removal tools that're free?

 

[Rochdale]

I've used malwarebytes anti-malware free version a few times, seems to do the trick. Haven't had to resort to manual removals for a while.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/mwb-download/

 

[Guy]

A'ight I'll give that a shot tonight. Anyone else have any ideas?

 

[Zed]

+1 for Malwarebytes

 

[Artanix]

if you get properly stuck, a time consuming but good way to check stuff is to go to run, then type msconfig.

Its worth googling anything that looks suspect on the startup tab, or anything you don't know. Unticking them stops them from running on startup, or you can probably find good ways to remove them from the pages.


The other way is to run ad-aware and spybot in safe mode. I've found both programs don't really tell you that they couldn't remove stuff properly. Safe mode usually gets around that.

Oh, also give CC cleaner a try:
https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download

Not sure if this installer has extras, but just pay attention on the install options, I'm fairly sure it has some stuff that sounds like its part of the install, but actually it isn't and you can cancel/decline them without affecting the regular installation.

 

[Aciiid]

Mcafee's stinger program removes some more prevalent virus' from the command line in dos safe mode:

http://www.mcafee.com/us/downloads/free-tools/how-to-use-stinger.aspx

just run it with /repair and /silent and it won't try and run the windows interface. (you won't have an idea of when it's finished though...)

 

[Tempy]

You can always boot using a "Live" linux CD, then use this to remove any hard to delete files.

 

[Anubis]

+1 for Malwarebytes.

CC Cleaner is good as well, although I can not remember what I did with it.