Adaware, is a really good program for cleaning out spyware and I really do recommend it. As far are as you are concerned though, if your PC is still acting strangely after your scan you might want to invest in a pay to use program. I personally don't use one myself so I can't suggest something specific. If it working now after your Adaware run, thats great, but you should to a scan about once every week to two weeks though you can run it more frequently if you wish.

Another option you have is to use those free scanners that you were talking about. They may not remove the offending software for you, they uasually give the location of the related files and registry entries. If you are comfortable trudging through the file system and deleteing registry entries yourself, then by all means do so. It's time consuming but rewarding in the end.   If your not willing to do that you may also want to invest in a pay program.

If your computer is really running badly the best thing you can do really is back up your important files and perform a factory restore. Once alot of stuff gets on there it can be hard for even the best made sypware killers to scrape it all off. A restore will clear it all out no questions asked though. For the most part a handy program like Adaware. you may also want to consider running a virus scanner as well. I don't know any free ones off hand but McAfee is a good one.

You should let us know what sort of wird things your computer is doing though. Without specific details on symptoms it kind of hard to tell what a problem is. For all intents and purposes it is probably jsut spyware. but you never know.

Hope this helps.

If you could though

Ive heard about AVG its supposed to work pretty well actually. I'm not too fond of Spybot though it never seemed to find anything that anything else I ran did. It is free so you can go ahead and try it if you want, but it never seemed to work that well for me.

I've used both ad-aware and spybot (spybot isn't spyware but ad-aware thinks so). Ad-Aware is updated more often. My V-Com System Suite (a retail multi-tool) does catch some that even ad-aware misses. So if your still having trouble it'd be a good idea to pay a little to get a little.

thanks for all the response, very cool. I'm talked into trying spybot, I googled it, and it came up with quite alot of different websites and programs, which makes me wonder which is the actual program that ya'll are talking about. If any of ya could throw a URL my way, it'd be even better!

Thanks!

I currently use 4 programs for computer security. The list includes:

-Spybot S&D
-Adaware
-Norton internet security (planning on switching)
-Hijack this

Spybot has an immunize function that uses prevents spybots from being installed on to the computer. The people who make have been having trouble with people making fake websites to fool users. There also have been a few issues between Spybot S&D and an old beta version of a Microsoft anti spybot program. So any bad stories might of came from that, though Microsoft denies it.

Adaware has a version that can be downloaded for free that you can use to get rid of adware. You can, however buy a better version.

Norton internet security provides virus scans, and a firewall to protect your computer. I haven't been too impressed with it over the past few years I've had it. I plan to switch to something else, and it would be a good idea to take someone else's recomendations for antivirus program.

"Hijack this" is a program that finds all files, and registry entries that might potentially cause your computer lots of problems. It WILL produce a lot of false positives since it scans for threats by methods rather than known products. Ask you computer expect for addition information.

Here are some links you can use:
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/home/index.html
http://www.download.com/3405-8022-5153545.html?part=dl-ad-aware&subj=dl&tag=top5
http://www.download.com/HijackThis/3000-8022_4-10379544.html

Any advice would be welcome.

Adaware
SpyBot (make sure to use the "immunize" feature
MS Defender
Zone Alarm
AVG Antivirus

HijackThis
Router

Norton internet security provides virus scans, and a firewall to protect your computer. I haven't been too impressed with it over the past few years I've had it. I plan to switch to something else, and it would be a good idea to take someone else's recomendations for antivirus program.

I use Zonealarm, they do a free version of their firewall or you can purchase one of their security packages. I use the firewall/antivirus option and I've got no complaints. I think compared to Norton its less of a system hogg and less intrusive. Norton just seems to take over. Try the free firewall out see what you think.

I combine it with Adaware and Spybot S&D to handle the non-virus stuff.