Techie Haven

I often get friends, family, and coworkers looking to fix their computers when they have spyware or viruses.

Before you take your PC to somewhere like CompUSA or Best Buy try the following to clean up your PC of stubborn spyware. Use another PC in your house or have a neighbor download and put these on a CD, USB Flash Drive, or Portable Hard Drive for you.

Malwarebytes – Free for home use and will take care of most Spyware related problems.
SuperAntiSpyware – Another free for home use program and should get rid of the rest.
Dr.Web CureIt! – Free and gets rid of the real stubborn spyware. If the first 2 don’t work try running this one in safe mode.

To enter safe mode, something you should do when scanning and cleaning spyware and viruses, restart your PC and hit F8 before the Windows start-up splash screen. I am not positive but I believe all 3 of these programs will work and install in safe mode (Cureit does not install it just runs). You might want to select the option of Safe Mode with Networking as the first two programs will need updating over the internet. If that still gives you problems restart and select just Safe Mode.

If you use these and still can’t access the internet or still have spyware/virus issues let me know and I can lend a hand. Friends and family I clean computers for free, referrals I do for $40. (Disclaimer, sometimes spyware/viruses are not the root of a slow PC and the culprit is typically a bad or failing hard drive).

After you clean up the PC of spyware and viruses use CCleaner from Piriform to remove unwanted registry entries that might be left over.

Sometime people get spyware and viruses because their Antivirus Software has expired and has not updated in some time. Either update your antivirus subscription or consider installing a new antivirus program.

If you are on Bright House I believe you can get CA Internet Security Suite for free (At least for a little while). If you have Verizon they have a monthly pay option for Verizon Internet Security Suite.

A completely free option that is pretty respected is AVG Free.

No matter what if you are running a Windows operating System you really do need to have an up to date antivirus program running.

The other option (which I have employed for a few family members that found it difficult to stay off sites loaded with Spyware) is to run a Linux based OS and avoid spyware altogether. An expensive way is to buy a new Apple Computer. The free way is to visit Ubuntu and download their OS for free. It is perfect for people that mostly just surf the web, chat, and e-mail. There is even a free software suite for opening and editing Microsoft office documents.

Any and all software that you need for things like movie editing, sound editing, photo editing, burning CD’s, etc is completely free as well and can be downloaded online through the OS very easily (Think Droid or IPhone app stores but with no charge for the software).

The operating system runs faster than Windows and is virtually impervious to Spyware and Viruses. The only downside is gaming and programs that are for Windows only. There is a way to even get these to work but it might be a little too technical and gaming performance will be effected. It’s a program called Wine, feel free to check it out if you want.