And some of them do a bad job of it. A good example being Ad-aware trying to remove the sponsor that is optionally installed with Messenger Plus! 2.

Ad-aware doesn't actually get rid of it all, and so some shit is still left over and popups still occur. However, it removes enough to fuck-over the uninstall program, so even if you uninstall Messenger Plus! 2 (which genuinely removes the sponsor when you uninstall) the nasty stuff will still be there.

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Website: Indigo Onion -BETA- MSN: inspectorgajit (with the usual Hotmail bit) E-mail: tehforum (blah) indigo-onion.co.uk

Yeah, Ad-Aware screwed up the removal of new.net scum, forcing a OS reinstall.
I find Spybot to be a lot safer in removal, but I find that I need to run run both so that nothing is missed.

That's weird, I swear by Spybot. I've got everyone at work using it now, too. Can't believe it missed something so obvious.

You got the *real* Spybot, right? The one with the thumbprint icon? There's a faker commercial-y venture out there that manages to make itself come up first on Google when you search "spybot"

Edit: If I was ALLOWED to go to work, which I'm not...

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AARRGGHH!!!!!

on leaving the house last night I said to the babysitter 'fell free to use the internet'

today I have had to run adaware, spybot, hijack, system mechanic & delete 3 folders manually - it's taken over 30 mins to remove all the crap (including a 'helpfull' toolbar).

babysitter will NOT be invited to 'use the internet' next time.

PC Licence.

I say no more.

(And no, the European Computer Driving Licence is NOT what I'm talking about)

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Website: Indigo Onion -BETA- MSN: inspectorgajit (with the usual Hotmail bit) E-mail: tehforum (blah) indigo-onion.co.uk

babysitter is here now - she says 'it said I have to click yes to access the site'

aarrgghh

in other news: she did something similar on her own PC and agreed to a 09 style premium rate dial up number - luckily her son binned that after just £19 of browsing.

I heard today that the local PC guy in town wanted £55 to 'equip a PC with sound' so this girl could chat online - he had the PC in the shop, so had no real excuse for not knowing she only needed a microphone

so you're right, some are making a good living from numptys

Spybot works a lot better if run from the Advanced setting, using that to access and activate the "hosts" file.

I use Spybot and Adaware with great success, and both are updated daily if possible.

Well I run Spybot in advanced mode. What's this about the hosts file?

I would update it daily, but it hasn't found any updates in a while. Maybe I have an old version.

Update to version 1.2 for Spybot if necessary.

The Hosts file resides in settings, but unless you enable Advanced mode, I think it might be Hell's own job to find it. <G>

I found it like I found all the other computer stuff I "know" - by accident.
<G>

Also, the latest version of Adaware is 6.00, build 6.181. Older versions will not update as I recall.

Spybot is sometimes slow to download updates if busy. Try changing the mirror to a U.S. site if you have difficulties. Conversly, U.S. users should try to use UniDo to take advantage of the time differential. ;-)