Monica said in news:
[email protected]:
It seems I have become victim to the spyware/adware
demons. (I can tell by reading the discussion board that I
am not alone). I was having the same problem with my home
page and my search page changing. I ran SpySweeper which
found a program called SubmitHook.dll on my computer. I
uninstalled it and solved my home page problem but ever
since then I have been getting pop-up ads from "Only the
Best" and "Search-777". I am too scared to install either
Adaware or Spybot because of the reviews that were given
on Cnet. I have tried countless times to update my McAfee
virus definitions but I keep getting an error page. (Is
this related somehow?) I was wondering if anyone has
figured out a way to remove this adware or if anyone has
had any luck in removing it with McAfee VirusScan?
Thanks,
Monica
Regarding the "review" at Cnet, make sure you are looking at "Spybot -
Search and Destroy" and not the rip-off product similarly named as
"Spybot" from ZeroSpyware. When a product becomes well-known as
effective, and especially if freeware, other will try to steal its
thunder by using a disceptive similar name for their product. Go to
http://www.safer-networking.org/ to get the REAL Spybot product.
Regarding the poor review at Cnet of Spybot Search and Destroy, the only
thing bad they mentioned bad was online support. And when has 8.3 been
considered a poor review, especially for a free product? Their review
of Adobe Photoshop, a very pricey PAID product only got an 8.0 rating.
SpySweeper got a 7.6 rating and PestPatrol got 8.0. You expect one guy
to personally support thousands upon thousands of Spybot users? No, so
visit the forums to get peer support
(
http://www.net-integration.net/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi). It's
free, and you expect a level of support reminiscent of paid-for
WordPerfect a decade ago when it was as big as Word? Support costs
money. So how much did you pay? Donations are optional for Spybot, so
how much do you think its author actually gets paid for it? It is NOT a
commercial product. Remember that "reviews" at Cnet, PC Mag, and so
forth are made by educated users, not by independent testing labs.
Lacking decent integrated help is not a defect unique to just freeware
or Spybot. I have many commercial-grade software products that still
require reading a separate manual, searching a knowledgebase, or looking
through FAQs to figure out what it all does.
Any software tool in the hands of a moron is cause for a worse cure than
the disease it combats. "Backups" is still a foreign concept to most
consumer-grade computer users. If you eliminate the negative posts
where the poster gives no analysis or critique, cannot compose
intelligible sentences, installed a fake copy of Spybot, or is an
obvious boob then many of those negative comments disappear. Take the
negative reviewer at their word, and grade the quality of their review
by their words, and most of those so-called reviews get disqualified.
Spybot, Ad-Aware, CWshredder, SpywareBlaster, and HijackThis are good
tools in the fight against malware infection but they are not complete.
You will also have to foot some manual effort yourself to investigate,
isolate, and eradicate. They don't have the financial resources,
manpower, nor expertise as, say, the commercial-grade anti-virus
products. SpySweeper has false positives, like reporting you have the
Bonz[a]i spyware just because you have a folder named "Finances" in your
Favorites, and PestPatrol has many false positives which, when you go
through their manual eradication instructions, you find nothing of the
infection they claim exists, and this is for PAID commercial
anti-spyware products. Look in your toolbox. How many tools are in
there? Just one? No, and likewise you'll need several software tools
to combat malware, too.
