Add THIS to Your Anti-Malware Arsenal - Comments Page 1

I run MBAM, Glary Utilities and SuperAntispyware after I run my Avast scan. Is AdwCleaner a good addition or would it be overkill? Do you have an opinion on whether it's better than SuperAntispyware?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Probably overkill. :-)

I have always run pretty much parallel to your suggestions on my own, but we get a divorce on Advanced System Care Pro. The first problem I have with it is the sneaky ways that it tries to sneak its way onto your computer when downloading other products. Second, is that it is often diverted to Download.com, which my experience downloads as much malware as software. I have used AVG free and Malwarebytes free for years, and have had no problems (maybe the fact that I update and scan with each daily.) I really like the feature on AVG which shuts down the computer when it is finished - I did not find that feature on other spyware, virus, or malware programs. I also like CCleaner as an occasional extra scan (registry cleaner, duplicate files, and the whole computer scan.)

I like your daily emails. You're almost as good as Leo Laporte.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Almost as good as Leo Laporte?!? What more could a man aspire to? I think I can die happy! :-)

I have been using Adwclearn for about 6 months. It's great, but it is NOT a replacement for anything. It should be run in addition to whatever else you are running. It normally runs within 3 to 5 minutes. It seem to find and destroy the worst offenders.

I run AdwCleaner first, then threat scan on MBAB, then custom scan on MBAB, then a Windows scan with Avast, and finally a boot time scan with Avast. Is that overkill? No, because I have had machine where I have found something in each scan.

AdwCleaner only catches the worst offenders. You still need MBAB and Avast pickup the rest. I don't understand why I have to run both the Windows Avast scan and the boot time Avast scan, but I have noticed that I Windows scan will pickup stuff the boot time scan will not.

As for overkill - how sure do you want to be that you have found everything possible? It's your machine. Do you want it to be "good enough" or do you want to be sure you have removed everything?

Recently my computer started slowing down and taking a long time to load Web pages. I used MBAM, SuperAntispyware, Sypbot search and destroy, Glary Utilities, Ccleaner and Advanced
System Care but none solved my problem. Then I read your article on ADWcleaner... it found all the hidden stuff the others had missed. Now I am back up to speed. Thanks.

I went to the adwcleaner site to be surprised by the fact that it was powered by ASK toolbar. No thank you for the invite to a download of the ASK toolbar.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Ummm, what? AdwCleaner is specifically designed to remove the Ask Toolbar. You didn't see "powered by Ask" on the link I gave. (https://toolslib.net/downloads/viewdownload/1-adwcleaner/)

I ran AdwCleaner on a friends computer and when it rebooted none of the browser icons worked. I had to go to the C: drive, programs, internet explorer and get a copy of ie that would run. From there I loaded firefox and chrome and we were back in business.

I just used the AdwCleaner but unchecked all the 40 things it found in the registry. How is one to know if those registry keys might be essential to certain programs or not?

Seems useless to me. All it found was legitimate apps:

# AdwCleaner v4.108 - Report created 21/01/2015 at 15:04:32
# Updated 17/01/2015 by Xplode
# Database : 2015-01-18.1 [Live]
# Operating System : Windows 8.1 Pro (64 bits)
# Username : D - DESKTOP
# Running from : C:\Users\D\Downloads\adwcleaner_4.108.exe
# Option : Scan

***** [ Services ] *****

Service Found : hshld
Service Found : hsstrayservice
Service Found : hsswd

***** [ Files / Folders ] *****

File Found : C:\Users\D\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\n3u1nfji.default\user.js
File Found : C:\Users\Public\Desktop\Hotspot Shield.lnk
File Found : C:\Windows\System32\drivers\hssdrv6.sys
File Found : C:\Windows\System32\drivers\taphss6.sys
Folder Found : C:\Program Files (x86)\hotspot shield
Folder Found : C:\ProgramData\hotspot shield
Folder Found : C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\hotspot shield
Folder Found : C:\Users\D\AppData\Local\Comodo\Dragon\User Data\Default\Extensions\cmaiofennmphjldldcpphcechfnnohja
Folder Found : C:\Users\D\AppData\Local\Comodo\Dragon\User Data\Default\Extensions\lbiofflfdlpgchfieeclnffadkejchnn
Folder Found : C:\Users\D\AppData\Roaming\hotspot shield
Folder Found : C:\Users\D\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\n3u1nfji.default\Extensions\anttoolbar@ant.com
Folder Found : C:\Users\D\AppData\Roaming\pdfforge
Folder Found : C:\Windows\SysWOW64\hotspot shield

***** [ Scheduled Tasks ] *****

***** [ Shortcuts ] *****

***** [ Registry ] *****

Key Found : HKCU\Software\anchorfree
Key Found : [x64] HKCU\Software\anchorfree
Key Found : HKLM\SOFTWARE\hotspotshield
Key Found : HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\hotspotshield
Key Found : HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\SpyHunter

***** [ Browsers ] *****

-\\ Internet Explorer v11.0.9600.17416

-\\ Mozilla Firefox v34.0.5 (x86 en-US)

-\\ Comodo Dragon v36.1.1.21

[C:\Users\D\AppData\Local\Comodo\Dragon\User Data\Default\preferences] - Found [Extension] : cmaiofennmphjldldcpphcechfnnohja
[C:\Users\D\AppData\Local\Comodo\Dragon\User Data\Default\preferences] - Found [Extension] : lbiofflfdlpgchfieeclnffadkejchnn

-\\ Opera v26.0.1656.60

*************************

AdwCleaner[R0].txt - [2220 octets] - [21/01/2015 15:04:32]

########## EOF - C:\AdwCleaner\AdwCleaner[R0].txt - [2280 octets] ##########

comments on the DL site complain of this 'software' containing a virus (Trojan). Hope Bob checks this out and pulls his recommendation; if so.

EDITOR'S NOTE: It's a false positive. AdwCleaner is not and does not contain any viruses.

Not EVERYONE shuts their computer down or WANTS it shut down. 1) I run World Community Grid (look it up, it's well worth while) an it's MY contribution to Humanity - so I just kill my screen and let the CUP and Graphics accelerator scream along at 90% of their load using Core Temp(?) to keep it about 5 degrees below critical mass when it heats up in the summer. 2)I was doing a graphics program for a coplea few years where I could fill or empty the old lake that used to fill up a lot of Northern Nevada - give me a height of an Indian camp, it can guess the years that it was on 'the shore line' - empty the lake and it will show you exposed land that's worth looking at. Kinda cool among other things it did. That computer ran a nitrogen cooled heat-sink over the ALREADY SUPPER FAST CUP-- again, I wanted that puppy running all night because when she stopped (power or say) she'd (duh!) dump her RAM and that could kill up to two days of computing. So not everyone wants their computer to shut down, though I imagine there are reasons that people would want to - my experience with Lap-tops, even at 50% critical mass might have been a reason but sine my POS (brand name) crashed 5 times in a year, and you only had one week from the date of purchase to get an extended warranty should have told me something.

Helping other people with World Community Grid is not a bad thing to do, and by the time you wear out your comptuer you DO need another one-- now that I don't need to keep shuffling disks so I had one at home to use, one in the mail and one coming back from the post-office I feel FAR safer than every grad student feels when they think about losing a year or two of work. At wost I'd have to copies at home (mail box and house) with the next one to be delivered to the burnt out ashes of a house. and yes, a safe might have been 'safe enough' but having been a firefighter (how DO you get money for Grad School anyway) you've seen nearly everything NOT work at least once. - hint: safest place for a few pages or some cash? THICKEST book you have and put it on the bottom shelf -- 1) the centers of books (think thick dictionaries) SELDOM burn, and if on a low place the stuff that falls on it protects it -- even if it falls from second t first story, it'll have enough stuff around it to protect it. And the fact that water runs down hill to the bottom of a fire helps a lot too. But with research notes and all, it's a bit much, so I'd mail it to myself each morning and PM after the mail had come so copy at home, copy to come tomorrow, and one the day after - but now with the Amazing Doctor Bob's books of Amazing Scientific and Electrical miracles you, too, can be spared the cost of a new hard drive by making an Image each day and putting it is a safe carefully marked out (like a Faraday caged box hole of Concrete dug in your back yard) you too can be safe and STILL have that picture of Aunt Betty you don't know from whence it came, and thus cannot destroy it least you curse yourself and your work for all eternity! (thanks for the book Bob even a dullard like me learned a few things that earned me the good old dope-slap or three!

Hi Bob. used this for a while and you are correct, it is an excellent additional tool for the arsenal. Graham.

mbam regards this as a virus

EDITOR'S NOTE: False positive.

This program found the ASK on my computer and REMOVED it without any trouble at all. All of my previous attempts to remove the ASK tool bar failed miserably. Zapped the ASK tool bar with no problem even though it attempted to send me to another web site to reinstall it. Once I got over my fear of the ASK trap it works as advertised. Bob Rankin to the rescue again.

I ran the program. and it found a couple of item in the Registry I could tell was bad. It found two programs I use regularly, Coupon Printer from Coupon dot com, and YouTube Downloader. I have used both for years with no ill effect.

Another thing happened AFTER I ran the program, and restarted my PC, then got online. A box popped up saying an unknown program wants to change my search engine to Bing. I never had that before running this program. I ran a full Virus scan this morning, and reported no problems.

Is AdwCleaner compatible with Windows Security Essentials? Can they both coexist on Windows 7?
--Unable to Search and find an answer to this on askbobrankin.com.

EDITOR'S NOTE: As far as I know, yes.

At your suggestion, I tried AdwCleaner once and uninstalled it. 1) It was suppose to create a restore point but did not 2) I unchecked items that I did not want deleted and it deleted them 3) it STOPPED Avast and Windows Defender 4) the 1st 3 are enough

EDITOR'S NOTE: AdwCleaner does not create a restore point. That's why I advised reader to do this BEFORE installing it. Also, when you do the CLEAN, it will stop ALL programs first, and then reboot.

I tried this program for a week, but it insisted on deleting a profile file for Mozilla's Firefox (completely up to date), rendering my browser inaccessible. I made several attempts at removing and reinstalling the program to no avail, it kept removing that profile file. All of the other items that AdwCleaner found had a checkbox to prevent the item from being deleted, except that one. I could not get AdwCleaner to leave it alone. One of your other readers (Danny G) mentioned that he had the same problem with the same Firefox profile file, so I assume that mine is not an isolated incident. That makes AdwCleaner a NoGO for me.

I read your article yesterday (Thursday evening)
and decided to download AdwCleaner. I have few problems with my computer and MBam and Avast normally provide adequate protection. I chose this program because my other half continually has problems with her computers. If it worked I'd try it on hers. Unfortunately after creating a system restore point then downloading and running the program it found many problems, mostly in the registry. Before I go further, I should explain, I got to the download by clicking your link. When I got to the page a note had been added that said "this is bad (indicating the download button) click her and pointed to a different button. I smelled a rat. I should have just clicked off the page but I tried to guess which link would get be a working download, oh, and I had a restore point.
After I clicked clean, the problems started. That was 4-5 hours ago and right now I'm writing this in safe mode with networking. Oh, and the restore point, it was erased along with all other restore points that may have been on the computer. It's probably going to the shop tomorrow (later today).

You say, "My PC is running smoothly, and that’s all I need to know." Wasn't it running "smoothly" before AdwCleaner was used? Or did AdwCleaner make your PC run "smoothly"? Considering you ran Avast, Advanced System Care Pro, and MalwareBytes Anti-Malware, I'm sure your PC was working fine. Your statement is a bit missleading.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I did mention that AdwCleaner found some traces of malware that the others missed...

I think you can go into over kill with many programs, how many do you actually need before the paranoia sets in. I use MBAM, SupereAntiSpyware, among other things and I have never had a problem. I went to the web site of AdwCleaner and I am not at all convinced it is good. too many people having too many problems with it. I myself as I said, think you can go into shall we say, too much mode. No matter what you do and how many of these programs you have, nothing and I mean nothing will make you completely safe, it is the way it is these days. You could have 15 scanners on your computer and still something could be found. I think I am happy with what I have now and to add more would simply be too much, you can waste a lot of time in fear if you wish scanning your computers all days long, but that is over kill. Just my opinion of course, everyone has their own way. Being a computer tech myself I understand a lot of these programs and some make no sense at all. Have a great day everyone....one last thing, playing with your registry without understanding what your really doing is just asking for trouble, do not do it, cleaning a registry will not make your computer faster or really help you much unless you do have a verifiable virus or malware. Seek help with registry repair. I bet I have said that a thousand times and people still play with it and get into trouble.....