Spybot Search & Destroy

[clifford_cooley]

Spybot Search & Destroy Home

Spybot - Search & Destroy detects and removes spyware, a relatively new kind of threat not yet covered by common anti-virus applications. Spyware silently tracks your surfing behaviour to create a marketing profile for you that is transmitted without your knowledge to the compilers and sold to advertising companies. If you see new toolbars in your Internet Explorer that you haven't intentionally installed, if your browser crashes inexplicably, or if your home page has been "hijacked" (or changed without your knowledge), your computer is most probably infected with spyware. Even if you don't see the symptoms, your computer may be infected, because more and more spyware is emerging. Spybot-S&D is free, so there's no harm giving it a try to see if something has invaded your computer.

Spybot Search & Destroy Home

 

[TrainableMan]

A few notes about the installation (of the 1.x versions) ...

The current default is NOT to install the Explorer file scan plug-in. If checked this adds lines to the context menu that appear when you right-click on a file but I have never used them so the default is perfect. If the installer ever changes and you see this is on, I would suggest you remove that check so it does not install.

I used Spybot S&D many years but I never use the TEA-Timer option as it has caused me problems in the past when I still had XP; i don't plan to even try the TEA-Timer add-in in W7. I don't like SD-Helper either, IMO uncheck both of those when you install. When some of the later 1.x installers completion page, where it used to just say "Run SpybotSD", try yet again to start tea-timer here too. Uncheck this box!

UPDATE: Spybot 2.25 is out now and the installer has changed a good bit. I suggest you create a restore point prior to install (just in case you want to restore your system) and then when you install Spybot 2, read the options closely and pick what is best for you.

WARNING: I find Version 2 to be more intrusive and a bigger CPU hog if you allow it's active scanner (could this be the old tea-timer I always avoided?). On my computer (which is an older model) it actually made my entire system sluggish. So I uninstalled active scan (settings > system services > Scanner Service > Uninstall) and the system tray icon, which has other features but is really only required for active scan (settings > system integration > tray icon > Uninstall). And I detest automatic updates on products so I disabled that as well (settings > system services > Updating Service > Uninstall).



TIPS for using the software:
The Search and Destroy tab is where the application opens but the third tab down is the valuable Immunize feature which blocks known tracking cookies, etc. The interface looks different in ver 2 but Immunize is still the best feature of this software. I actually close all my browsers and run this feature first because it is much faster than the Search & destroy scan which can take an hour or so.