Lavasoft Ad-aware
http://www.lavasoft.de/
or http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
or http://www.lavasoftusa.net/
or http://www.lavasoftusa.org/
or http://www.lavasoft.nu/
or http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=506
Can't say enough good things about this one.

Microsoft AntiSpyware Windows Defender(Beta)
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/s...re/default.mspx
Real time protection, excellent scanner. Still in beta mode. You must have a legal version of XP installed. If for some reason you do not have a LEGAL copy of Windows XP, do not try to download this. It will put your machine through the Windows Genuine Advantage test, and it will fail.

Webroot Spy Sweeper
http://www.webroot.com/wb/products/spysweeper/index.php
30 day free trial, very good scanner. If your machine is infected, download and run
after Spybot S&D

X-Cleaner Deluxe
http://www.xblock.com/
http://www.xblock.com/deluxe.shtml
http://www.spywareinfo.com/downloads/x/
They have a free version available. This thing can fit on a single floppy, which makes it nice if you are using a public access machine.

On heavily infected machines I run this while I am running Trend micros Clean Sys



Spybot S & D Intranet Update Server
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/iuserver/index.html
Can't say enough good things about this program either. I always run it first.
S&D is the most gentlest on the machine and can fix New.net infections with out knocking the entire Internet off line.
Real good innoculation program, and a massive host file list.

HijackThis
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/
or http://www.lurkhere.com/~nicefiles/index.html
or http://www.spywareinfo.com/.../hijackthis.zip (direct download)
Very good program in the hands of someone trained to use it. Big warning, don't delete anything
until you are told what to delete, don't. This thing shows all running processes. Feel free to post HJT logs for me to go over.
Since I am to lazy to re-invent the wheel, here are detailed instructions on how to post a Hijackthis log.
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/tutorial94.html

Please post it on a new message screen and not on this link.


Yahoo Tool Bar with Anti Spy
http://toolbar.yahoo.com/
Uses Pest Patrol Engine.


SpywareBlaster
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html
or http://www.wilderssecurity.net/spywareblaster.html

Will not get rid of spyware, but innoculates your machine against Active X and hazardous websites and many of the drive by downloads.
Highly- highly recommend the downloading and updating at least on a monthly bases with this one

Free Virus scanners

AVAST! home
http://www.avast.com/
The most powerful of all the free anti-virus programs. Slight learning curve,
Regular updates. Great E-mail scanning. This also has some great skins, I use the Star Trek skin.
Sometimes this thing just won't install. If that happens, Use one of the others below.

Grisoft AVG Antivirus Free Edition
http://free.grisoft.com/
Most easy to use of all the three. Very nice e-mail scanner. Daily updates. Can set it to do full scan everyday.
This is rated as the weakest of the three scanners when it comes to ratings. But don't let that discourage you from using it. I can say nothing but good about this one.
I use it on all my laptops.

AntiVir Personal Edition
http://www.free-av.com/ I use this one on most of my crunching machines.
Very small CPU usage and footprint. Only thing I don't like about the scanner is on many updates you have to download and re-install the whole thing.
Virus updates either require task manager running or do it manually. Updates do come out quite regularly.


In a class by itself

A2 Anti-Malware Free
http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/
Hmmm, how can I explain this one? Not really a virus scanner, not really a spyware/malware scanner. But it does remove a lot of both of them.
This scanner mainly goes after Trojans and keyloggers and it does a very good job of it. It does take a real simple registration to get the program activated. I have gotten a grand total of 6 emails in one year (and I'm signed up for everything they send out) so don't be worried about getting spammed.
Highly-highly recommend adding it to your personnel and update/run it at least once a month

"Many available products have weaknesses in detecting other malicious software (Malware) like Trojans, Dialers, Worms and Spyware (Adware). a˛ fills the gap that malware writers exploit."
Number of Signatures: July 16, 2006
Trojans 243294
Dialer 39889
Worms 67146
Spyware 10741
Traces 69738

Here is an eye opener for you, When I first made this post back in June 2005, this was the number of items detected. Which shows you why you have to keep and update AV/AntiSpyware.
June 2005
Trojans 80524
Dialer 27877
Worms 5064
Spyware 4166
Traces 26997
Get it, you won't be sorry



Ewido
http://www.ewido.net/en/

14 day full trial, after that you can still use the scanner manually and have to do manual updates. Ewido just recently merged with AVG. This scanner is very popular on all the anti malware security forums. It is one powerful tool.

"Widow Security Suite supplements existing safety systems and becomes a complete solution, because only a complete safety system is effective. We offer protection in real time against more than 67,000 threats and our malware database is updated daily."

On Line Virus Scanners

Trend Online
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

Panda Active Scan
http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/
Requires you to provide an e-mail address. I always use my Hotmail to get through that. Will not remove malware, but gives the name and path of where it is located.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus: Free Online Virus Scanner
http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner
This might not actually remove whatever it finds, but it does give the full path to it for manual cleaning.

CA E-Trust online scanner
http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/virusinfo/scan.aspx

F-Secure Online Scanner
http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/ols.shtml

No matter how good of a scanner that you have, these will sometimes find something that yours missed.
Many of the viruses will target your scanner. Feel free to use them anytime you want.


OnLine Anti Spyware Scans

http://www.trendmicro.com/spyware-scan/
http://www.spywareinfo.com/xscan.php
http://www.ewido.net/en/onlinescan/
http://www.bitdefender.com/scan8/ie.html

I did not mess with any of the free online scanners that only offers the scan and than will not actually remove what it finds.


Other Removal tools:

Microsoft GDI
http://www.microsoft.com/security/ma...e/default.mspx
The Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool checks computers running Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003 for infections by specific, prevalent malicious software—including Blaster, Sasser, and Mydoom—and helps remove any infection found. When the detection and removal process is complete, the tool displays a report describing the outcome, including which, if any, malicious software was detected and removed.

This tool is not a replacement for an anti-virus product. To help protect your computer, you should use an anti-virus product.

Microsoft will release an updated version of this tool on the second Tuesday of each month. New versions will be made available through this web page, Windows Update, and the Malicious Software Removal Tool Web site on Microsoft.com.


Mcafee Stinger
http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/
Stinger is a stand-alone utility used to detect and remove specific viruses. It is not a substitute for full anti-virus protection, but rather a tool to assist administrators and users when dealing with an infected system. Stinger utilizes next generation scan engine technology, including process scanning, digitally signed DAT files, and scan performance optimizations.


Get the Zone Alarm Free Addition

Prevents unauthorized access into your computer. It will also tell you when a program tries to access the Internet. The first time a program tries to contact the Internet a box pops up, gives you the name of the program, the path and asks what you want to do. If you know a program is legit, just hit always allow. If you have no idea what the program is, Google it to find out. Think of it as a giant alarm bell.

Please Read: I have installed the popular ZA on several clients machine recently, and frankly it has become a bloat hog. Some machines I could not even get it to run and have had to make several trips back to remove the blasted thing. I now recommend using the one below.



Sunbelt Kerio Free Personal Firewall
http://www.sunbelt-software.com/kerio.cfm

You get the full product for 30 days, after that the firewall will still work but in a limited mode. But, you will still be much better protected than just using the Windows built in firewall.

"Most products you test function for a month and then they stop. But not the Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall. After 30 days, it shuts down selected features, but will continue to run in 'free' mode".

You can see the table that compares the differences between Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall running in a free mode vs. a full (paid) mode on the website. This does require a sign up, in order to get the download. But don't worry, they do not spam or sell your e-mail address.

HD Tune
http://www.hdtune.com/
While not a virus scanner sometimes hard drive failure will mimic that of computer viruses or a malware infection. This little gem above will give you all the information on how your hard drive is behaving usually way before a complete hard drive failure. My advice is to get the thing and run it at least monthly to insure your hard drive is still performing properly. You can also leave it on all the time and if something goes wrong it will give you an alert message.


Many of the spyware programs out there are nothing but spyware themselves.
When in doubt check this website.
http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_...re.htm#ss_note