Using Ad-Aware to cover your tracks??

Seismic Anamoly · Joined: 22 Aug 2002 Posts: 3039

For what it's worth to ya...

You might want to make these adjustments....see what you have been missing....

Quote:

Launch Ad-Aware, and click on the little Gear icon at the top of the start screen.

Click the "Scanning" button (On the left side).

Under Drives & Folders, select "Scan within Archives" (Checked will be indicated by a green circle with a check mark in it, Un-Checked is a red circle with an X in it. If it is greyed out, those features are only available in the retail version.)

Click "Click here to select Drives + folders" and select your installed hard drives.

Under Memory & Registry, select all options.

Click the "Advanced" button (On the left hand side).

Under "Log-file detail", select all options.

Click the "Tweak" button (Again, on the left hand side).

Expand "Scanning Engine" by clicking on the "+" (Plus) symbol) and select the following:

"Include additional Ad-aware settings in logfile"

"Unload recognized processes during scanning."

Under "Cleaning Engine", select the following:

"Automatically try to unregister objects prior to deletion."

"Let Windows remove files in use after reboot."

Click on "Proceed" to save these Preferences.

Click on the "Scan Now" button on the left.

Under "Select Scan Mode, be sure to select "Use Custom Scanning Options".

Select "Activate in-Depth scan".

Close all programs except ad-aware.

Click on "Next" in the bottom right corner to start the scan.

Run the Ad-Aware scan and allow it to remove everything it finds and then REBOOT - Even if not prompted to.

After you log back in, Ad-Aware may run to finalize the scan and remove any locked files that it may of found. Allow it to finish.

RonOnGuitar · Joined: 08 Jan 2003 Posts: 1916

This is to clean out browser records mostly, Seismo?

To do that, I use the "clean all" option in my usual freebie browser,

Maxthon (formerly "MyIE2") - screen cap:

The index.dat (in cookies) file can grow to an ungodly, unneeded size. To keep that in check, I use a simple program called "delindex". It works fine with Win98/ME, but does not work for Windows XP/NT/2000.

I do use Ad-aware for finding naughty garbage & bugs, which it does pretty well, along with my AV prog(EZantivrus), Spybot, Bazooka and another cool free prog, a2free - it detects all sorts of malware.

Seismic Anamoly · Joined: 22 Aug 2002 Posts: 3039

That looks excellent Ron.....I haven't seen that....appreciate the info!!

How are things up on the "Ranch", Cowboy?? :lol

bbchris

Wow! Seismic! Great info there! Thank you! Is adaware free? where can i get it from?

RonOnGuitar · Joined: 08 Jan 2003 Posts: 1916

Hey Pardner - I'm just fine and dandy!

Chris - AdAware has both free ("Personal") and commercial versions. The free one is great - scans for all manner of nasty bugs that most AV programs miss. Then you can choose either to delete, "quarantine" or keep anything that it deems risky. And you can easily update it's database online for free.

Ad-Aware download page

info -

"Ad-Aware is designed to provide advanced protection from known Data-mining, aggressive advertising, Parasites, Scumware, selected traditional Trojans, Dialers, Malware, Browser hijackers, and tracking components. With the release of Ad-Aware SE Personal edition, Lavasoft takes the fight against Spyware to the next level.

With Lavasoft’s all new Code Sequence Identification (CSI) technology, you will not only be protected from know content, but will also have advanced protection against many of their unknown variants. To further protect you, Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition also has the capability to scan and list Alternate Data Streams (ADS) in NTFS enabled volumes. In combination with the new scanning engine, Ad-Aware SE will scan your computer faster and more thoroughly than ever before!"

droolymutt

AdAware is an excellent cleanup utility.

Simple, and very efficient.

Seismo - did you know they recently released an upgrade? (AdAware SE)

It catches even more nasties than the previous version...

bbchris

So do I just run in one section of Win XP and it'll tidy it from all the different users?

RonOnGuitar · Joined: 08 Jan 2003 Posts: 1916

Drooly - thanks for the heads up on the new version (8-12-04).

Chris - You mean when it shows this option during install?

The helpfile says:

5. Install to All Users menu

If you have multiple user accounts on your system choose "Anyone who uses this computer" and click "Next".

It should scan the whole disc for bugs using either option. Even though I'm the only user ("nobody"), I always select "Anyone who uses this computer" during the install. I think if you choose "only for me" you might be the only person who can run the program(?).

If you're not sure if you should keep something's that's reported by a scan, you have the option to "Ignore" the item(s) in question and remove them later if you want or you can "Quarantine" them - they can be "un-quarantine" the items later if you want.

You can right-click on any item it reports for more info on what it is.

There might be some items reported that may you want to keep. For instance, I have my startpage set for "blank". AdAware deemed that a start-page "hijacking" attempt , so when it reported it I just right-clicked on the items and selected "ignore".

It's a relatively easy-2-use program!

:gl

bbchris

I'm aiming to do this tomorrow then. I need to buy compressed air in the meanwhile....

Social Spit · Joined: 28 Sep 2002 Posts: 251

I did it, and it WoRKS... Really WELL!

I found some new PARASITICAL programs that were fooking me up a bit! Got rid of em... THANX!

Seismic Anamoly · Joined: 22 Aug 2002 Posts: 3039

Anytime, brother man....glad it helped...got access to some other helpful tutorials I'll put up from time to time... :thumb

Social Spit · Joined: 28 Sep 2002 Posts: 251

I also use Kaspersky Anti-Viral Toolkit Pro version 3.5...

It works REALLY good to compleatly get rid of all virii- You know any tricks to improve performance?

RonOnGuitar · Joined: 08 Jan 2003 Posts: 1916

Spit, you might like these other small freeware (you can make a donation if you want to) programs that detect "scumware":

CWShredder

Bazooka AdWare & Spyware Scanner

bbchris · Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2004 6:40 am Post subject: Re: Cool!

I'm upgrading my Norton to Internet Security 2004 and apparently that will check for spyware & adware. it's currently downloading to my desktop - so will I still need Adaware?

RonOnGuitar · Joined: 08 Jan 2003 Posts: 1916

Unless AdAware causes a conflict with Norton, Chris, I would keep it and update it's database(since it's free). I use 4 such progs in addition to my usual, good AV program. Often one will catch something that the other ones didn't.

You could run a test - surf along for awhile, picking up cookies and all other usual tracking stuff that piles up. Then run AdAware to see what it detects - but don't delete whatever shows up, just exit AdAware instead. (I believe you can save or print the logfile of what it reports as a text file)

Then run Norton to see if it picks up the same things and compare the two.

Malware, startpage hijackers and other nasties are much more common than they used to be. I like to have as many options as possible, but that's just me, lol.