Get our latest top picks
Subscribe to our Top Picks RSS Feed or enter your email address below to get the feed delivered to you by email:
|
Follow Gizmo |
 |
 |
 |
Register/Login
Top Rated
Gizmo's Freeware is Recruiting
We are looking for people with skills or interest in the following:
- Mobile Platform Reviews
- Rootkit Scanner and Remover
- Streaming Media Recorder
- Email Client
- Archive Manager Interested? Click here
Best Free Adware-Spyware-Scumware Remover
|
Other Language?
|
 Read this article in Spanish |
|
In a Hurry?
|
 Go straight to the Quick Selection Guide |
|
Introduction
|
|
The internet is a dangerous place to be in the 21st century, with many people using increasingly ingenious ways to part you with your hard earned cash, whether it be by exploitation, surreptitiously harvesting your credit card and bank details for their own nefarious purposes, or tempting you to spend money on products and services that you neither need nor want. During the latter years of the 20th century, and the early years of the 21st, Spybot S&D and AdAware were kings, protecting you from all manner of malware that tried to infect your computer with the sole intention of parting you from your wallet. But as technology improves, so do the malware writers, and the kings of yesterday in terms of protection may no longer be up to the job. With every new generation of malware, there will be a new generation of software to combat it, and in my own tests, these are the best free products I recommend. |
|
Discussion
|
|
Top of the list is Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free (MBAM). MBAM is a top notch and reputable product. A fairly lightweight download (just over 10 MB) and simple installation means this is not a burdensome product. In my testing, even when the PC was severely infected with many nasties running, it started without any problem and scanned and removed those nasties effectively. The interface is very simple, the scans are very fast and detection is first class. A reboot to complete cleaning was still required for some malware, though this is a minor inconvenience, and required by most programs of this type. The only downside is it has no portable version, and if there is no working network connection in the infected PC you won't be able to download the latest virus definition updates. Second is SUPERAntiSpyware (SAS). Once upon a time this was a good product but recent releases have not been up to the mark. The interface is simple, updates are speedy but it still installs a start-up item which doesn't actually do anything at all. The scan speed is twice to thrice that of MBAM and the detection is less than half of it. The removal also left a lot to be desired. It left a few nasties running even when it showed them as removed. SAS also requires a reboot to complete the removal process. The upside is, it has a portable version which will help with the removal of infections from computers without a working network connection. I hope version 5 brings improvements. ~~~~~ Below is the old review which is still going to be updated ~~~~~
Top of the list once again is SuperAntiSpyware, which successfully detected and cleaned 121 threats on my test system. A fairly lightweight download and simple installation (5.99 MB) mean that this is not a burdensome product. If anything the general package whilst aesthetically similar, has improved, managing to detect and clean after a single scan rather than the two scans required previously. A reboot to complete cleaning was still required, though this is a minor inconvenience, and required by most packages. If I had to raise a criticism, it's that the freeware version still installs a start-up item which doesn't actually do anything at all. In the paid version, it loads the always on protection which is not available in the freeware version. This minor annoyance aside, it remains my top recommendation.
Promoted this time to joint second place is Emsisoft Anti Malware free edition, and let me be very clear that it is ONLY the free edition that I am able to recommend. Emsisoft Anti Malware was able to identify just 43 infections; though some of the more serious threats identified by SAS were included in these. If we disregard tracking cookies, then the margins narrow. However, detection rate is only half the battle, and unfortunately EAM was unable to automatically clean some of the more virulent infections found by itself. Nevertheless, it helpfully provides a link to forums for manual removal instructions.
The downside of EAM is the download size, being a huge 91.69 MB, immediately followed by further updates. Anyone on restricted bandwidth or dial up may be advised to look elsewhere, but for an average broadband connection this should not be a factor.
Separating A2 and MBAM is almost impossible. I found them to be on a par with each other regarding their scans, but both require a technical proficiency that many may not possess; A2 requires manual removal of many threats, whilst MBAM forced me to jump through hoops to get it working.
PCTools SpywareDoctor SE also performed well in scanning, finding 24 threats (excluding cookies). Unfortunately, cleaning the system proved more problematic. Despite reporting successful cleansing, SD failed to terminate processes already running, and did not in fact clean some of the more annoying infections. It would also be useful if SD prompted a reboot after cleansing, though it did not do this, and only experience dictated that this would be a good idea.
SD does, however, include real time protection, which most other products don't, and this protection did block those infections that it had failed to clean. Nevertheless, a further scan and clean with SAS was needed to fully clean my test system. A fine effort, but sadly falling short of the mark. Do note that the free version is no longer available from the PCTools website. It can be obtained as part of the Google pack, or from *here. *Warning: This is a Cnet download link. Downloads from Cnet (Download.com) now require the use of a proprietary installer.
Old timer Ad-Aware, coming in at 35.7MB performed reasonably, if not exceptionally, finding a further 24 infections even after cleaning with A-squared, 4 of which represented real threats, whilst the remaining 20 were cookies.
Doing less well in on demand tests were Spybot S&D, and The Cleaner 2010. Spybot was the other program that was actively blocked from running, and nothing I tried could overcome this. It does come with an on demand file scanner which can be run from the command line and set to scan your entire drive. However, after letting this run for over an hour and noting that progress had barely touched my relatively small installation system (2.1 GB) I cancelled. It would take an age to complete the scan, and would only examine files. Registry entries and services would be left untouched. The Cleaner 2010 found absolutely none.
Arovax Shield is still in development, and starting to mature, though there are still bugs to be ironed out. For example, once installed, and after the obligatory reboot to enable it to start it's services, it immediately complained that it could not find Firefox. This is no surprise since FF was not installed on the test system, though I fail to see why it should prevent it from doing its job. Maybe as time progresses this will become more viable, but in my opinion it isn't quite there yet.
And so that leads us to my standard "other recommendations". Internet Explorer has now reached version 8, which I am sure will become the most prolific web browser before too long, and as such will be the most heavily targeted. I stand by previous recommendations that an alternative browser (of which there are many free ones these days, including Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome and Safari) will offer a safer browsing experience.
And in order to shut the door after the horse has bolted, there are few more useful than HiJack This, which is still a tool requiring expert help, but can be invaluable in helping to clean an infected system. Fortunately, the expert help is still only a forum away.
And as always, let common sense guide you. Don't run a program from an untrusted source, and don't visit websites where infection is likely. You should also beware of popups from programs that you haven't installed, some of the fake anti-spyware I managed to pick up in my browsing sessions was surprisingly convincing. Remember, sometimes malware will scream into your face that it is there (see pic, not a genuine window amongst them). It will just not tell you what it really is.
|
|
Related Products and Links
|
Some issues have been reported on 64 bit systems
|
Editor
|
|
This software category is in need of an editor. If you would like to give something back to the freeware community by taking it over, check out this page for more details. You can then contact us from that page or by clicking here |
The comments section below is so lengthy that it has become difficult for our visitors to read. Future posts will now be edited for length and repetition, and personal attacks deleted. You are all welcome to join our Security Forum which is much better-suited for intensive debate.
- Article type:
- Login or register to post comments
Printer-friendly version
Comments
There are portable versions of both SuperAntiSpyware and Emsisoft Anti-Malware that don't install startup processes.
Emsisoft Anti-Malware (portable) installs a service that would need to be disabled or removed.
M gonna edit the article soon
MBAM new version released : 1.51.0
This page needs refreshing
Mbam should be on top
sas is pathetic against threats
and i thnk hitmanpro should be added to the list
Irrespect of whether Malwarebytes Antimalware should be top, I have personally seen Superantispyware find and remove malware that Malwarebytes has missed, on more than one occasion. Claiming that it is 'pathetic' is bizarre to say the least. No program can catch everything and when faced with dealing with infected computers you need as many weapons in your arsenal as possible. Superantispyware is one of those for many people.
Just see this real time testing results
http://malwareresearchgroup.com/malware-tests/flash-test-results/
Mbam - 50 of 52
SAS - 19 of 52
There are programs which have poor detection but good disinfection, and vice-versa. Avira Antivir, for instance, has some of the best detection but isn't so good at disinfecting files/registry/etc.
I agree ur point but for now sas doesnt have both...maybe v5 will be an improvement...
and im gonna test both of them also so u can see my results also
btw i just tested both of them on some links and sas missed 4 malware
This category acquired a new editor three months ago, but as nothing has happened with the review we had no alternative other than to offer it back up for adoption. Maybe you'd like to take this on? You have more than enough experience to make a really worthwhile contribution.
My 2 cents: it is better using some really good software like Adblock to avoid getting tracked by ads servers, than having an offline utility to remove tracking cookies and anther nasty things *after* had being tracked!
Of course, the offline part is important, but our digital lives are more and more online than offline, desktop computing is losing ground as focal point of our digital lives and, for most people, becoming a media to go online where interesting services (mail, social, and all other forms of communication and groupware) and contents are.
It is not just another first line of defense, blocking ads is the only way to keep the control of our online activities, it does not only means not being bothered by ads, but also be free from tracking and other forms of "gray" control from advertisers, and reclaim hard payed bandwidth back.
It is the online part that generate the revenue now: content and service providers are always in control, they own the data and the service, and you need the bandwidth to use them: a perfect example of giving people a service (so they depends on it and keep paying) rather than a tool (so they can stay independent).
That's why advertising is striking hard here, online, on each webpage: because the honey is here!
And that's why consumers must strike equally hard now and claim back their bandwidth (ads are heavy), the user experience (ads disrupts the quality of the pages), and last but not least their privacy, BEFORE the data about user's navigation is stolen by advertiser, not AFTER, like offline software here advertised does!
Hello,
Have you thought about testing BitDefender Free since it is an On-Demand Scanner?
http://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/free.html
Thank you,
-John Jr :)
Why are MBAM updates always the same (mb) size, even if you don't update this program for a few days the update size never increases ?
I don't get it....I put MalwareBytes on several computers over the years. It finds 1, 2 or 3 things the 'first' time you run it, and then finds NOTHING thereafter!
And it takes a LONG time to run. Am I missing something here?
For MalwareBytes, a QUICK scan usually suffices... by "looking in the right places", it can find about 98% (or even more??) of all malware on your system.
So unless you're actually experiencing symptoms of malware (page hijackings, or popups [especially those saying you need to purchase "their" scanner to remove the malware on your system]), you generally doN'T need to run MBAM's FULL scan.
If MBAM is not finding anything after the first scan, that's probably a sign that your system is clean... and you should be happy. Unless you're saying that you're experiencing problems that MBAM isn't finding.
Note that MBAM does NOT scan for "tracking cookies"... so it reports a much lower count of "problems" than alternative scanners (such as SAS) that include tracking cookies.
Thanks for the update SC. Do you have any recent word on when Superantispyware 5 will be released?
A limited number of PRE-RELEASES of SAS 5 are now available for download from their site: http://www.superantispyware.com/superantispyware5.html
Any news on the OFFICIAL final release of SAS 5?
It's time, obviously, for a new round of testing and reviewing some Spyware and Malware scanners. I am currently setting up the test system. From there I'll image it and start testing. I do this on a regular basis as it is, so I will try to make notes and share info on these programs from both my point-of-view, as well as have a non-technical person review them with me. My goal being, which program can you have Mom download and work through over the phone when she has a problem? From my experience, regardless of each of our technical levels, we always have one or two personal friends or family that require frequent assistance! I shall report back soon. Shoot me any questions you may have. SC
I've been using SAS for several years now. Great product. But just last week, something changed - on computer startup, SAS started automatically loading my web browser (Firefox 3.6.13) with an advert for the paid version of SAS. The browser doesn't open my normal homepage. It's like SAS has hijacked my homepage, instead of preventing it from hijacks.
I haven't touched the settings at all. SAS does not detect any spyware. A forum search doesn't reveal anyone else having this problem (yet).
Any ideas on how to fix it?
And does this intrustive marketing tactic mean SAS should not receive such a positive recommendation?
Sorry for the delayed response. Please advise if you're still having a problem, and if so, a few more details.
The bad guys are watching every move we make in our computers using their installed malware. Always use common sense don`t use any programs you do not trust.
Threatfire has "finally" been updated!
http://www.pctools.com/forum/showthread.php?68805-Release-of-ThreatFire-v4.7.0.48
There are various professional companies and organizations who are only into the lab testing of antivirus programs and they work primarily for IT companies by testing the programs provided to them. So before an organization decides to implement particular antivirus software widely in the organization, they contact the lab and ask them to perform a test on the program. The lab will perform professional test cases with malware and adware programs on the antivirus and give the result to the organization.
As a forensics expert I have used most of these products. For the average user I generally recommend Malwarebytes as it is good but not too aggressive.
SuperAntispyware is a bit more aggressive and I have seen it quarantine an important system file so the system would no longer function. That is not a problem for me but would be for many average users. Great product for a technician though.
Anyway, only recommending Malwarebytes as a free version these days. Problems with the purchase and getting registration keys can be as much of a nuisance as the stuff it is supposed to be getting rid of.
HiJack this is great for finding problems due to the extensive reporting. It can often be used to find problem details even if it can't fix them.
If you don't know what you are doing then please stay away from Combofix and some of the other items mentioned by users. Great products and often get rid of the really bad ones but if it is that bad you should take it to a pro to get it fixed. Try Malwarebytes free, or Super AntiSpyware and if they do not fix it take it in somewhere.
I have to deal extensively with spyware as it is a common defense in legal cases (I did not send that, my computer must have spyware or something that did it, etc.). Use the ones on this article and most problems will be resolved. If not then take it in.
[Edit] Thanks for the great post but please appreciate we cannot allow any recommendations for paid software (removed) as this only encourages the spammers to put more here :)
If you are an expert then why did you not mention HitMan Pro.? You can use it free for 30 days. Then after that just use it as an on demand scanner. It is most excellent. Most experts use this first, then MBAM, lastly Superantispyware, and if all else fails, Norton Power Eraser, and yes it works.
There is also a portable version of Superantispyware http://www.superantispyware.com/portablescanner.html which maybe very useful.
the best is Kaspersky free rescue cd
Gentlemen,
What do you think about the so-called "Traitorware"? (devices that act behind your back to betray your privacy.)
More info, here: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/12/what-traitorware
Can we consider "Traitorware" as a form of "Spyware"? (at least, as long as the manufacturers of PC peripherals and other electronic devices deliberately "omit" to inform the purchaser about what these devices are doing without its knowledge/consent.)
I think this is a separate issues from the more widely used tactic employed by a lot of software to "phone home". I also think it's important to keep this in perspective as demonstrated by this comment about the same report.
"The author sees an evil trend here that I suspect doesn't really exist. Even the Sony rootkit was probably motivated only as a mechanism to enforce DRM, not to violate privacy more broadly. The others issues are side-effects of good intentions, and privacy isn't the only value in the world".
From personal experience, I see the very people likely to complain about this stuff are the ones with their personal details plastered all over Facebook and Twitter or in personal blogs. Criminals are using this goldmine of information increasingly to target empty houses and/or properties containing high value goods.
Moving back to the core of this post I don't think anyone has anything to fear so long as they are not using the equipment for illegal purposes. Don't forget also that in most countries any privacy breaches not signed away by an agreement acceptance, or wrong actions prosecuted by a third party would result in a massive compensation payout and I can't recall ever seeing anything like this.