spyware problem what programm to use

[jrm6678]

hi, i have a problem, yesterday i was sat at my pc floating around online not really doing anything, when all of a sudden my screen flickered to blue screen then computer shut down and restarted.

when back on i went to test my firewall Mcafee and it told me i was secure as ever coz my connection was running through a proxy server and the ip requesting the firwall check was different to the one they have logged for me. i am on aol. so i think someone is hijacking my connection??

then i sighned off the net and ran a virus scan using AVG (which is up to date) nothing found.

then i ran spybot, and it found a couple of minor things which it cleared

because nothing bad was found i ran a programme called XOFTSPY and i found over 150 problems with over 40 of them being major major problems but it wont let me clear them without paying 59.99 dollars. which i dont have . is there a programme out ther i can use to get rid of all the problems on my pc that doesnt cost the earth??

and i also noticed when shutting down my pc i get a box flash up with KIXXIG.DLL in the title bar what is this??? cant get rid of it. and insight into this would be great thanks. :thumbs

[Zippeyrude]

From a freshly booted machine install, update and run the following:-

adaware se personal
spybot s&d 1.3
cwshredder

install spywareguard and spywareblaster and make sure your windows updates are all up to date.

if the problem persists get th latest copy of hijackthis and post a log on on of the professional anti spyware forums such as

http://forums.spywareinfo.com/index.php?showforum=18
http://forum.aumha.org/viewforum.php?f=30
http://castlecops.com/forum67.html
http://boards.cexx.org/viewforum.php?f=1
http://forums.net-integration.net/in...p?showforum=32
http://spywarewarrior.com/viewforum.php?f=5
http://forums.techguy.org/f54-s.html
http://forums.tomcoyote.org/index.php?showforum=27

I find that www.spywarewarrior.com is a very good general site for resources.

Spywarewarrior state the following in relation to XOFTSPY:-

Note on XoftSpy: XoftSpy was listed on this page because of concerns with false positives (1, 2, 3, 4), questionable license terms, and the use of aggressive, deceptive advertising (1, 2), including exploitation of the name "spybot" by affiliates. Earlier versions of XoftSpy were also Ad-aware knockoffs. (There was clone of XoftSpy named SpyBurn, but that application is no longer available.)
Over the past few months, XoftSpy has taken aggressive steps to reign in its affiliates (who were primarily responsible for the unsavory advertising), revised its license text, and released a new version of XoftSpy (version 4.0) that addresses our concerns with false positves. Given these changes we can no longer regard XoftSpy as "rogue/suspect" anti-spyware.

So I would not trust the results given to you by the above program.

:thumbs :thumbs :thumbs

[jrm6678]

hi thanks does that mean i have to wipe my hd and start all over again???

[Zippeyrude]

no it doesnt mean that you have to wipe the hdd.
follow the steps above first.

[dalepearson]

Also try the Microsoft Spyware checker.

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/secu...e/default.mspx

[ABCMan]

spybot s & d and ad aware are pretty good (and free) but webroots spysweeper will find stuff that they dont, a trial version should be available from www.webroot.com

you can also do a free online scan using the spysweeper engine from the same site, go to downloads then look below "free trial" and you'll see "free spyware scan"