The Digital Surgery (computer questions/problems here)

[buksida]

How much RAM do you have? Can you post a list of what is still running in msconfig? Are there a bunch of icons down near the clock?

[PET]

Ram is 2 GB

msconfig is :-
avguiu
ctfonom

Items by clock:-
AVG PC Tune UP
AVG Link Scanner Free Edition
Local Area Connection
Volume

[PET]

Ram is 2 GB

msconfig is :-
avguiu
ctfmon

Items by clock:-
AVG PC Tune UP
AVG Link Scanner Free Edition
Local Area Connection
Volume

[buksida]

That all checks out so there must be another problem - suggest giving it a full malware scan with the latest version of Spybot.

[Big Boy]

suggest giving it a full malware scan with the latest version of Spybot.

You used to swear by Malwarebytes, which I've been using. Are you saying that Spybot is the beast to use these days please?

[buksida]

Seems to be, I've run Malwarebytes on systems and found nothing, the same scan with Spybot shows up a lot more.

[Big Boy]

That's good enough for me

[Roel]

I have been using Malwarebytes my whole computer life and I am very happy with it. CNET Editors' rating is 3.5 stars for Spybot (very good) but 4.5 stars for Malwarebytes (excellent). Buksida are you sure Spybot finds more because I mean these programs can tell you anything in order to show you how good they are.

[buksida]

I am sure.

I had been using Malwarebytes for years, recently scans (on several different systems) would show up very little, I knew full well there was malware on the machine (browser hijackers, toolbars, "clean your computer" popups, dodgy software etc). I then switched to Spybot (which has a new version 2 now), and scanned with that which revealed plenty of these nasties that MWB simply ignored or didnt find. This is why I no longer use it.

Edit: Can anyone suggest a third reliable malware scanner to test?

[Roel]

Okay then, I will gratefully install. Can you recommend a safe download link. I usually only download this kind of stuff through CNET but that has only the old version of Spybot. Of course Google gives links to Spybot 2.0 but I do not recognize any of them, so not sure if safe. I might be overly suspicious but that has saved me so far from having any serious trouble with my computers. [ Knock on wood ] Advice appreciated.

[buksida]

Here are the mirrors for the official SB site: http://www.safer-networking.org/mirrors/

[Roel]

Thanks. System scan took 1.8 seconds. Apparently 5 items found although there were only 4 listed. All four quite harmless tracking cookies. They will probably be there again once I visited the sites where they come from. And everything is now immunized, whatever that may be, that took about 1 minute.

[PET]

That all checks out so there must be another problem - suggest giving it a full malware scan with the latest version of Spybot.

I downloaded Spybot, not without some difficulty, and their search took something like 3 seconds it came up with a number of Cookies, which I disabled. Then found the computer seemed to get stuck, so as I was uncomfortable with the constant ask for a donation, I went to Revo-Uninstaller and removed it - there were 171 items that were leftover.

I am sure Spybot is good but it made me feel uncomfortable so I wanted to be safe to be sure.

Anyway I am no longer stuck but still slow over 1 minute to get on line.

[buksida]

Spybot is a free malware scanner that does exactly what it says on the tin: clean malware.

If you've left 171 nasties on your computer you will still have problems, if not comfortable cleaning it yourself I suggest you take it to a reputable computer guy in town that can do it (recommend K.Ton on soi 56). All we can do within the limitations of this thread is offer suggestions ... which is what we have done.

[Roel]

After successfully installing Spybot on my office desk top I decided to run it on my laptop at home as well. System scan took a few seconds and found one tracking cookie. Then I tried to run the Immunization module and I encountered problems same as PET mentioned. "Firefox is not responding" message kept coming up time after time. So I stopped the Immunization and decided to do what experts always recommend: re-start the computer.

This took about 15 minutes (!) and then instead of my Google homepage a screen came up saying "Firefox cannot connect to the proxy server". Never seen that before. I decided to uninstall Spybot. Once done and restarted everything was fine again. Now during the uninstalling process I took the opportunity to tell Spybot why I uninstalled their product.

I received this almost instant reply:
You can disable the proxy.
Open the Spybot – Search & Destroy “Start Center“ and click on “Settings“.
Choose the tab “Internet Connection“.
Here you can untick the checkbox in front of "Use Spybot proxy".
Now click “Apply“ and “OK“.

So apparently a known issue and this should be the solution and stop Firefox from freezing.
Did not have time to re-install Spybot but will do so soon. PET maybe also a solution for you.