All the time, I see customers bringing their computers into the shop because of a spyware infection. No matter if it’s a minor or major infection, at least half of them have AdAware and/or Spybot – Search & Destroy installed.
Think about that for a moment. For years, these have been two of the most recommended tools on the internet for spyware removal, and yet they obviously don’t do a very good job of it! I suppose this is similar to Norton or McAfee products. They’re nigh on useless, but by having their name out there–and in the case of Norton and McAfee, coming preinstalled on many PCs–many think that being the most popular means they’re also the best.
There was a time when malware cleanup involved running at least three tools, often more, and still required booting in safe mode, manually finding and deleting infected files, and often times going through some complicated processes to give yourself the ability to delete the file. Then, when you think it’s all done, it just rewrites itself.
For a time, SUPERAntiSpyware was my preferred spyware removal tool, but not only was its scanner fairly slow, many times it still didn’t catch everything, and the tedium of manual cleanup remained. Spyware cleanup became such a timesink that as a business, our option was to have a computer on the bench for hours and charge far less, therefore losing money, or charge the customer very high fees for a spyware cleanup. Instead, it became policy that if we couldn’t fix it with SUPER, the customer had the choice of having the hard drive wiped and Windows reinstalled (saving any data the customer needs, of course) or living with the still-infected computer.
A lot of computers got a fresh install of Windows during that period.
Then we found MalwareBytes’ AntiMalware. I can’t praise this application enough. The scanner is fast, definition updates are frequent, and it comes in a very small package–as of this writing, 2.31 MB.
False antiviruses, trojans, spyware browser toolbars; you name it, it kills it. I’ve never been disappointed. I couldn’t even guess how much time this program has saved us, or the amount of money it’s saved our customers. I still sometimes make use of HijackThis, and more recently AutoRuns (a very useful tool in other situations as well), but these are practically formalities. MalwareBytes’ Anti-Malware’s quick scan is fast and very effective so long as it has the most recent updates, which are frequent. If you buy it for $24.95, you can get real-time protection, but I have yet to try it, so I can’t attest to it as a proactive solution. Either way, it’s about worth $24.95.
For post-infection malware removal, don’t waste your time with other tools. MalwareBytes’ Anti-Malware is where it’s at.