wildBoar's Journal: Windows and Spyware et al

I have recently cleaned up the PCs of some of my neighbours. They were running XP and the amount of crap on them was horrifying. Worms, Spyware, Trojans etc.

One I should of reinstalled completely, it would of been much quicker. What are people doing to get so much rubbish on there Pcs. I find it quite worrying.

A few useful online tools exists, but what I don't like is that they all work using ActiveX. I suppose they have to as ActiveX is probably the only thing lax enough from a security point of view to allow you the FS access necessary.

For those looking I can recommend :

SpyBot S&D (Free)
XoftSpy (Scan is free, then u have to pay)
BHO Daemon (Free)
HijackThis (registry reporting tool)

Pandasoft had an interesting online virus tool BUT VBX and they can access your entire PC.