SpyBot-S&D searches your hard drive for so-called spy- or adbots; little modules that are responsible for the ads many programs display. But many of these modules also transmit information about your surfing behaviour and more to the net.

If SpyBot-S&D finds such modules, it can remove them - or replace them with empty dummies in case their host software won't run with its bot removed. In most cases, the host still runs fine after removing the bot.

Download: SpyBot-Search & Destroy 1.3 Final (4.2mb).

You know, Spybot has always been my weapon of choice for spyware removal at work. However, within the past 2 months I've noticed it is having trouble with certain "search-bars" I am sure we're all familiar with, which attach to IE on every dumb user's computer at work.

It was then that I decided to go back to Ad-aware which was always my number 1 choice before they stopped updating a while back but have now started again. I find that ad-aware does a much better job and faster too.

I gotta say, aside from the other bells and whistles Spybot offers, of which, the very large host file replacement happens to be my favorite, I see no compelling reason to come back to it.

I wonder what spyware remover you guys prefer for these clean-up operations; is there a better one out there?

Those two usually complement each other very well... I use both...

The best cure is to prevent the disease.. But let's not get into browser wars here

Using both spybot and Ad-Aware together yields good results. Both of them miss some stuff but fortunately it's not the same things.

Another good thing to do is to disable third party extensions in IE altogether. You can still get "infected" but at least IE won't load the bad stuff.

I hear ya; I must say replacing the host file with one containing a huge list of known spyware hosts pointing to localhost yields excellent results for me. That is what I like the most about Spybot. It would suck having to put that list together by myself

I guess I will continue to use both. It's just hard when you're supporting 65 users by yourself and they're all numbnuts

I love the "I haven't clicked on anything" or "I haven't installed anything" or "I only go to yahoo.com" excuses. LOL

for me, it's Adaware and Spybot plus an anti-virus program, all kept updated and run. Throw in a popup blocker (google for me) and the proper security settings, and i usually don't get anything. Two other worthwhile programs are Hijackthis! (slightly more advanced) and CWShredder for the pesky coolwebsearch toolbars.