Getting rid of pop ups, antispyware, malware

[Guest]

Can anybody recommend the best products to get rid of these problems. I have
one that has put itself on my machine called magicantispy 2.1 anyone heard of
it?

Also how much anti-spyware, malware, do I need? Should I get all these or
will one or two do, AVG, Norton, Mcafee and Spybot Search and Destroy.

Is it better to reformat the hard drive and start again?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Guest]

That particular program doesn't appear to be a major threat. Look it up on
Symantec. I would try add/remove programs from the control panel. See what
date it has before removing it. Depending on what you have been doing since
July 4 or the date it was installed, you may want to try a system restore.
As to the best program - nothing is perfect. I rather like avg and antivir,
and spybot (with teatimer). And a decent firewall. You can get a free online
scan from trendmicro. It seems to be pretty good right now, but certainly not
the only option. You can read about one comparison here:
http://www.comparespywareremovers.org/ and you can also get reviews and
http://win.softpedia.com/ (antivirus, security)

Safer networking forums at http://forums.spybot.info/index.php; castlecops
at http://wiki.castlecops.com/MRP; bleepingcomputer.com among many others are
good forums for getting assistance. As is this one.

 

[Guest]

Ad-Aware works fairly well. -I say that even though it's currently finding a
false-positive on one of my published utilities :-/

Spybot S&D I didn;t find too effective. Hijack This is very effective in the
right hands, but requires a nerd to drive it.

Avoid Norton, and probably McAfee.

Main preventive measure is not to use Internet Explorer. Get Firefox,
Seamonkey or Opera instead.