1) Updated: Free SpyWare-Remover

A few months ago, we discussed "Ad-Aware," a free and excellent spyware- remover from LavaSoft. Ad-Aware scans your entire system, looking for "phone-home" components that sometimes are installed on the sly by various applications; they're also very commonly included as part of "adware" or "bannerware" apps.

Many times, these "phone-home" apps are fairly benign; they just steal a little of your bandwidth and CPU cycles as they invisibly update their local databases with fresh ads and whatnot from their home server.

But the problem is, you can't know exactly what these apps do. Any app that silently communicates with a distant server or site also has the potential to send that site or server whatever information it can collect about you or your system. You may not want this information shared; in the worst case, you may not even know the app is talking about you behind your back.

It's this potential for silent snooping that earned this class of software the nickname "spyware."

The first versions of Ad-Aware were quick-and-dirty stand-alone programs that ran great. Ad-Aware quickly and efficiently detected spyware lurking on your system, and then---if you told it to--- would delete the spyware, removing it completely. But because Ad-Aware was an all-in-one app, LavaSoft had to release an entirely new version of the software each time they modified Ad-Aware to handle new spyware.

With the new version, Ad-Aware has matured and morphed. Ad-Aware now has an "engine" that does the sniffing and a separate small, updatable database of "spyware definitions" that it looks for. (In this regard, Ad- Aware is now structured like many anti-virus tools.) Now, when LavaSoft wants to update Ad-Aware to handle new spyware, it only needs to update the definition file instead of the whole app. Nice!

There's much more, too: The app now has a full install/uninstall front end; it can monitor for spyware in real-time, it can auto-start with Windows, it can accept command-line parameters etc. etc. etc. And it's still free!

It's now at version 4.01. If you're running an older version--- or if you're not running any version--- grab yourself a fresh copy at http://www.lavasoft.de/aaw/index.html .

Highly recommended!

http://www.langa.com/

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2000

Answers

Sounds like a good recommendation. Just downloaded it and the installation screen said it detected several spyware critters although I haven't run the scan program as yet. However, being a user of ZoneAlarmPro, I hope these critters have already been "neutralized" as only programs I specifically permit can access the internet from my computer...or at least that's the theory...if these critters use Netscape to access the 'net, then as I've permitted Netscape to browse at will, I'm in trouble.

-- Anonymous, December 01, 2000