PC Essentials – Spyware Remover
Spyware is a potentially harmful kind of malware that can hide very well within a user’s system, making detection and removal difficult. Commonly installed without the user’s knowledge, spyware software can be hidden within desirable, and apparently legitimate free antivirus software, or disguise itself as useful utility to dupe unknowing users into downloading it.
Unlike computer viruses, spyware does not seek to spread from infected computers to others. Instead it stays within the PC to pry on sensitive personal information. A particularly harmful type of spyware software are ‘key-loggers’; small programs that monitor each keystroke typed by the user, including typos, backspacing and retyping. ‘Key-loggers’ are sophisticated, and are increasingly used by online criminals to log banking passwords and credit card information.
The corruption of a user’s system by spyware can have a number of recognizable symptoms. System performance may be reduced, with unprompted disk and memory usage. A PC may begin to display stability issues, with applications freezing, crashes, and system boot failures. Internet connection speeds can be slowed or interrupted, and home pages may be changed.
If you are sure your system is infected, and reduced performance is not due to other factors, the following information could help wipe out most forms of spyware. However, your machine’s infestation may resist these measures and you may still need professional PC repair.
Free tools are available online – in particular there is a free spyware remover from Bullguard. Some spyware applications prevent you visiting the websites that host these tools, or block the download, so you may have to download the programs to a clean PC and transfer them via a USB device.
These programs are designed to pick up the most serious and common spyware applications, but there are many that will slip through the net or cannot be removed. A full scan with an anti-virus software package should be performed next. These can be purchased or free versions can be found online – if you already have such a programme installed, make sure it is fully updated.
Scans by these three methods should detect and remove any spyware on your PC. In the unlikely event that you have picked up a new specimen that isn’t included in the anti-spyware databases, some further manual system changes will be necessary. This requires an amount of technical know-how, and may be the point at which you wish to seek professional help.
Manual removal involves examining every process running on your machine to determine whether any of them are spyware. Spyware software specifically hides itself from Window’s ‘Task Manager’, so you will have to seek an alternative application online. ‘Process Explorer’ and ‘Security Task Manager’ are good and are free to download. Either of these programs will show you everything that’s running on your PC, and will help you determine whether a particular application should be there.
Before stopping system processes and applications, it’s wise to back-up important documents and set a System Restore point. If when examining processes you come across a program and don’t know what it is, or does, you’ll have to do some research online – anti-virus forums can be very useful.
When it comes to removing identified spyware programs, it is likely the software will have changed your Registry to make itself difficult to eradicate. ‘HijackThis’ is a free program designed to revert registry entries and other settings that spyware makes to prevent its deletion. Take care though and proceed with caution, as ‘HijackThis’ can cause lasting damage if used incorrectly – if in doubt, seek professional help.
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