Guide to Spyware Removers

Over the past few months, I have been called out to fix computers that were running slow, and it has turned out that the culprit has been a program claiming to be a Spyware remover, but was in fact itself Spyware.  There are hundreds of programs available on the internet that claim to be able to clean up your computer (for a small charge).  Some of these programs are legitimate, but a growing number are not - these are termed rogue anti-spyware programs).  Some are merely scams to part you from your money, though others also install Spyware on your computer to try to steal information about you.

What is rogue anti-spyware?  Rogue anti-spyware programs are defined by spyware and anti-spyware expert Eric Howes on the Rogue/Suspect Anti-Spyware Products and Sites page. 

"Rogue/Suspect" means that these products are of unknown, questionable, or dubious value as anti-spyware protection.  Some of the products simply do not provide proven, reliable anti-spyware protection or may be prone to ridiculous false positives.  Others may use unfair, deceptive, high pressure sales tactics to scare up sales from gullible, confused users.  Avery few of these products are either associated with known distributors of spyware/adware or have been known to install spyware/adware themselves.

The spyware remover I have on my computer is:

MalwareBytes Anti-Malware

A full list of "rogue/suspect" anti-spyware applications is available on SpyWare Warrior (http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm), along with information about why a program is on that list.  They also include information on other trustworthy spyware removers.