How can you tell if there is some sort of spy ware on your computer?

Question

My yahoo mail account won't let me email out. I can check one email at a time but not reply. The rest of the internet is ok.

Answer 1

There are quite a few free anti-spyware programs available! I suggest that users should use at least 3 different products to regularly scan their systems. Most of these products are free for non-commercial use versions that have disabled some features, usually the active resident protection.

Spybot Search and Destroy is an excellent program for scanning for and removing spyware. The resident modules can be a bit buggy, but the extra included tools such as startup manger are great! http://www.safer-networking.org/en/mirrors/index.html

Adaware is another good scanner and removal tool but it has no resident abilities at all in the free version. http://free.lavasoft.com

Ewido is fairly new as a free spyware scanner, but it comes from the people who brought us AVG, so I expect good things: http://free.grisoft.com

Microsoft has their free scanner avalable for download although many advise that this tool is a bit permissive of questionable programs and add ons! Defender does offer a couple of options the others do not have such as scheduled scan and a resident process for active protection. http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

A new player is on the scene with SUPERAntiSpware. I was fairly impressed with the deep scans performed by this product, and it found some inactive files with spyware embedded,that the others had missed. I will add this to the list of tools in the arsenal and see how it really performs on active spyware. If you want to try it you can download it here: http://www.superantispyware.com/download.html

Once you have your system cleaned up of all the spyware, then you should protect yourself against new infestations. Spyware Blaster does a very good job and does not use up any system resourses in doing so. Works with both IE and Firefox browsers: This Download can be found at http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

Another good way to avoid spyware is to use the Firefox browser. While not immune from spyware infestation, you will certainly not have as many problems as when you run I.E. Easy Download at http://www.mozilla.com

Answer 2

You can download Windows Defender from the windows website which checks and removes for you. Also your anti-virus software should be able to check.

Answer 3

as some others have said, I've always used both Ad-aware and Spy-bot, both available free from www.download.com
That's gets everything.

Answer 4

Two downloads which will help and both are free

http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-SE-Personal-Edition/3000-8022_4-10399602.html?tag=lst-0-2

http://www.download.com/Spybot-Search-Destroy/3000-8022_4-10401314.html?tag=lst-0-1

These should clear the majority of spyware/adware from your computer

Answer 5

Get some good anti-spyware. Check out www.majorgeeks.com for some good free anti-spyware.

Answer 6

put on a hat and smoke a pipe and hold a magnifying glass and totter round the back streets of london

Answer 7

Download, install and run any/all of these,

Free Anti-Adware/Malware/Spyware protection:
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1 I recommend ewido!!!
http://www.safer-networking.org/
http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-SE-Personal-Edition/3000-8022_4-10045910.html?part=dl-ad-aware&subj=dl&tag=top5
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx
http://www.superantispyware.com/

Have fun but be safe!

Answer 8

download spybot search and destroy software its free and works find it through a search engine

Answer 9

run a full scan with ur virus program