AdwCleaner is a program for removing toolbars, adware and other advertising junk. About adware and spyware Programs similar to adware removal tool

Today, the Internet is a very dangerous place. It is full of unscrupulous people who use various malicious software to gain access to information on your computer or to trick you into spending money.

Spyware collects a variety of information from your computer - everything you typed on your keyboard (for example, to steal passwords; of course, you can use secure on-screen keyboards to fight), what you did (for example, to compromise you), and much more. other.

Malicious adware programs are designed to analyze everything you do (they can also be fought with adware and spyware removal programs). What sites do you visit? Your habits and hobbies. Which will ultimately allow you to sell some goods. Of course, advertising programs cannot directly force you to buy something, but they provide enough information to people who have a good understanding of psychology and marketing. There is also special malicious software that allows you to change advertising links on sites to the necessary ones. For example, replace all links with links from various prohibited sites. And all this disgrace must be fought.

Each new generation of malware (we are talking not only about technologies, but also about new types) gives rise to a new generation of programs to combat them. Therefore, there are already a multitude of different solutions for each category of malware. This review will look at solutions to combat spyware and adware specifically. You can find reviews on combating other types of malware in the reviews of this site in the "security" section.

A short preface. All of the programs reviewed here allow you to perform manual scanning, but not all of them provide real-time protection in the free version. Part is for searching and removing, and part is for setting up your system so that the enemy doesn't get through. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to find a free program that will do everything. Spybot was chosen as the best program because it cleans well and provides real-time protection. SuperAntiSpyware is better at fighting malware, but the free version still lacks real-time protection.

Review of free adware and spyware removal programs

Spybot adware and spyware removal program is a good solution for all users

Spywareblaster adware and spyware removal program - preventing system infection

Important difference: is a program for taking measures to prevent infection of your system, not detection and removal.

This may seem very strange to you. How can you do without scanning? How can you get rid of this long and painstaking process? These are the questions that this program solves. Spywareblaster is a system prevention tool. This approach makes constant system scanning unnecessary. The whole secret is that the program plays with the browser's security settings, adds restrictions on different sites and a number of other tricks. All you have to do is open it once a week to update the database and apply new settings. Then feel free to close it. But, nevertheless, it is still worth taking a snapshot of the system (this is a feature of this type of program), so that if something goes wrong, you can always quickly return to the original version. On the issue of update frequency, always keep in mind that malware is constantly evolving, so the more often you update the database, the better. In this case, one of the differences between the paid version is automatic updating.

Quick Guide (links to download free adware and spyware removal programs)

SpyBot Search and Destroy

		Real-time protection. Provides protection to one or more user profiles.
		The scan did not find the test file (but did find a number of other problems).

SUPERAntiSpyware

		Simple functional menu. Scans well. Supports all existing browsers.
		The free version does not support real-time protection.

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free

		Does his job well.
		Does not support real-time protection. To scan for rootkits, you need to download a separate program.

Advertising modules can penetrate your computer during the installation of some free programs; sometimes this is the main condition for the ability to operate the installed application. This was one of the main methods of distribution of the first Adware. Moreover, during the installation process, the user was often informed what Adware is and for what purpose it is included in the program distribution (for example, Installing this module is a fee for using the program). In the most “advanced” programs, during installation it was even offered to choose the option of using the program - free with the Adware advertising module or on a paid basis. When you uninstalled an application, the advertising module was also deleted.

However, nowadays Adware is almost no longer distributed in such civilized ways. Often, an advertising module is installed on a computer even after the user has refused it. A “registered” advertising module is not easy to detect and remove. If Adware entered the computer during the installation of some program, then when it is removed there is no question of removing the ad module along with it.

Advertising modules created using modern technologies are comparable to Trojans and other modern viruses in their ability to penetrate a computer and conduct their activities there. The most “advanced” Adware is capable of entering into a kind of “battle” with competitors who have previously penetrated the computer and destroying them. At the same time, the user may not suspect anything about such “battles” and other hectic activities carried out by advertising modules on his computer. Only periodically appearing advertisements, which are becoming more and more annoying each time, suggest that, apparently, someone has finally “taken root” in the computer.

How do advertising modules work? It all depends on their focus, as well as on the imagination of the developer. For example, the appearance of pop-up advertising windows is very annoying for users. As a rule, they appear exactly when you least want to see them. Advertising windows created using advanced technology are difficult to remove from the screen and often move across the page as you scroll along with other content.

A variety of advertising windows are transitional and additional windows. Transitional ones appear after you click on a link and are displayed until the next window opens, and additional ones are shown between two information windows.

Some ad modules display ads that cannot be removed using the Back or Close buttons because these buttons are blocked. In this case, you have to close the window with advertising by pressing the Alt+F4 key combination or cancel the corresponding task in the Task Manager window.

Sometimes you can try to find and neutralize the adware yourself, using approximately the same methods as for searching SpyWare. However, this is not always effective, so it is easier to solve the problem using specialized software.

Please note that Adware (as well as SpyWare) is difficult to detect and destroy using antivirus programs. Despite the fact that some anti-virus software developers include functions in their products to combat adware, it is more advisable to use specially designed utilities for this, which are widely available on the Internet.

For example, the multifunctional Ad-Aware program from the German company Lavasoft is a powerful utility for detecting and removing various types of malware, including adware. Currently, it is one of the most popular programs of this kind. The advantage of Ad-Aware is that it has a free version, which has the only limitation - protecting your computer in monitoring mode. It is also important that the program supports the Russian language.

During the scanning process, Ad-Aware checks the contents of RAM, the system registry, as well as Internet Explorer settings and content. The utility has a simple, ergonomic and user-friendly interface, which makes it accessible even to novice users.

The main purpose of the Spybot Search & Destroy program is to search and destroy spyware and adware modules. In addition, it provides the ability to clear temporary Internet files and cookies, as well as delete information about previous use of the computer. The program is distributed free of charge and, in addition to Russian, supports about 30 more languages.

Spybot Search & Destroy implements a mechanism for flexible configuration of scanning parameters. In particular, you can set up selective scanning, for example, search only for Adware advertising modules, and ignore spyware modules and other malware. In addition, the program's tools allow you to remember the current state of system settings and subsequently roll back to one of the previous states (to eliminate the consequences of malware).

Of particular note is the ability to monitor files downloaded from the Internet, which allows you to identify malicious modules before they penetrate your computer.

The NoAdware program helps to get rid of not only adware, but also a whole range of malware. Its advantages include speed and ease of use; The disadvantages are the lack of a Russian-language interface (however, you can find a localizer for it on the Internet), and also the fact that sometimes it does not detect all Adware. In addition, a new version of the utility has not been released for a couple of years. During the scanning process, the system registry and local drives of the computer are checked. If necessary, you can selectively check only objects that cause suspicion. The program implements the ability to manually or automatically update signature databases.

You can download the NoAdware program on the developer’s website www.noadware.net.

Description of the AdwCleaner program​

AdwCleaner is a program that searches for and removes Adware, toolbars, potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) and other junk from your computer. Using AdwCleaner, you can easily remove many types of these programs, improving the user experience on your computer and while browsing the Internet.

The programs that AdwCleaner removes usually come bundled with free programs that you download from the Internet. In many cases, when you download and install a program, if you do not notice and uncheck the box during installation (sometimes you need to switch to custom installation mode to do this), toolbars and other advertising modules will be installed on your computer. AdwCleaner is designed to find and remove these programs.

Instructions for using AdwCleaner​

Using AdwCleaner is very easy. Just download the program and run it (the Internet connection should be turned on if possible).

Once the agreement is accepted, a One-Button Dashboard will appear. Run scan. Click it and AdwCleaner will scan for malware and then display all the files, folders and registry entries found on your computer that are used by adware.

When the scan is complete, review the scan results and uncheck the entries that you do not want to delete (especially pay attention to the "Preinstalled Software" section). For most people, the contents of the report may seem confusing, if you do not see the name of the program that you do not want to remove, then simply proceed to the next step. Click on the button Quarantine. AdwCleaner will warn you about closing processes and saving the necessary data.

After pressing the button Continue will be followed by cleaning and a request to reboot the system.
After rebooting, the program will launch automatically with a brief summary:

Spoiler: Additional options

• "Remove IFEO Keys" : Removes all subkeys from the key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options with non-zero debugger values.
• "Delete Tracing Keys": Deletes all keys. Enabled by default.
• "Delete Prefetch Files": deletes all .pf files from the C:\Windows\Prefetch folder
• "Reset Proxy Settings": Resets all proxy settings.
• "Reset Winsock: Resets all Winsock settings to fix network problems. Enabled by default.
• "Reset TCP/IP Settings" : Resets TCP/IP settings: the correct settings will be restored automatically if the network uses DHCP. In other cases, the settings must be restored manually.
• "Reset Firewall Settings": Resets all Windows firewall rules.
• "Reset IPSec" : Resets IPSec settings. This protocol is used to establish an encrypted connection between hosts. There may be connection problems caused by specific malware.
• "Reset BITS" : Clears the "Background Intelligent Transfer Service" queue. It is used to transfer files (programs or updates) between hosts, but can cause connection problems.
• "Reset Internet Explorer policies": Removing all Internet Explorer policies and setting the default values.
• "Reset Chrome Policies": Removing all Google Chrome policies and setting the default values.
• "Reset Hosts files": Replaces the current Hosts file with the standard English one. hosts file (the only difference from the Russian reference one is that at the beginning of the file there are comments in English).
• "Mode": Creates a report C:\AdwCleaner\AdwCleaner_Debug.log containing more detailed information about the operations performed. This is required to help figure out if the utility stops working with an error.
• "Database": The database on the server may be damaged (or damaged during downloading) and may not be usable. This option helps to force the use of a local database.

To be more effective, these options should be checked before performing other actions.

It's also important to note that some advertising programs, such as Babylon and Delta Search, include a program that alerts you when someone tries to change your browser's search or home page settings. When launched, AdwCleaner will reset your search settings to default (to Microsoft) if it detects that they have been changed by adware. If you see a warning that AdwCleaner is trying to change your browser settings, please allow it to do so.