[SOLVED] Spy Sweeper for MSN not catching spyware/malware?

manalerie · 07-26-2008, 04:38 PM

Hello, I am new here,

I hope I am posting this correctly. I will try to give as much info as possible... without giving too much!! lol

Two days ago, I stupidly downloaded smiley's from smiley central. My friend quickly informed me that this download caused major problems with her PC. Scared by my stupid decision, I googled and saw that this was in fact a big mistake.

I have SpySweeper for MSN and McAfee that run daily, but for some reason that day I decided to go with Spybot. Spybot was mysteriously no longer on my PC (I may have un-installed it at one point, but do not remember)

Downloaded Spybot, and found Malware, MyWebSearch I believe. Spybot was not able to delete. After numerous spybot recommended reboots, I gave up, and I came to this forum. I followed most of the "5 steps" Removed one item from the list in step 1 (which was not myway or myweb... those were not in add/remove and at this time, I can't remember what it was that I removed) Ran panda scan (came up with 13 items not removed) downloaded Spywareblaster.

At one point I had spywareblaster on my PC, but that too was gone. While searching for it I came across Ad-Aware SE, which advised me to upgrade. I downloaded Ad-Aware 2008, ran it and found 80 infected files, including 1 trojan and numerous malware. Ad-Aware cleaned them, and everything seems to be fixed... which is why I didn't complete the "5steps" from this site.

Now, in order to be totally sure that everything is clean, I have been frequently running Ad-Aware. Ad-Aware comes up with 5 or so cookies everyday. Throughout all of this, SpySweeper has found NOTHING. I thought maybe SpySweeper was corrupted, so I checked for updates, un-installed, re-installed, still finds nothing. Also, in Add/Remove programs it says that SpySweeper is used Rarely, and hasn't been used since Aug 2007... I run it everyday.

My question: Is SpySweeper just not working??? I get warnings from it now and then, usually when I am making changes to the system or something. I wonder if I have had all of these "infections" for WAY longer than just a few days. Since I removed everything with Ad-Aware, my system (mainly windows) has been running SUPER FAST. It had been running pretty slow, but never thought I had a problem, because of SpySweeper and McAffee daily scans.

Another thought, I only use firefox, accept in the instances that firefox is not supported, then I use IE. Could this be why SpySweeper is not picking up this stuff?

Any thoughts or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance,
Amanda

07-26-2008, 04:38 PM	#1 (permalink)
manalerie Registered User Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 1 OS: WinXP sp2	[SOLVED] Spy Sweeper for MSN not catching spyware/malware? Hello, I am new here, I hope I am posting this correctly. I will try to give as much info as possible... without giving too much!! lol Two days ago, I stupidly downloaded smiley's from smiley central. My friend quickly informed me that this download caused major problems with her PC. Scared by my stupid decision, I googled and saw that this was in fact a big mistake. I have SpySweeper for MSN and McAfee that run daily, but for some reason that day I decided to go with Spybot. Spybot was mysteriously no longer on my PC (I may have un-installed it at one point, but do not remember) Downloaded Spybot, and found Malware, MyWebSearch I believe. Spybot was not able to delete. After numerous spybot recommended reboots, I gave up, and I came to this forum. I followed most of the "5 steps" Removed one item from the list in step 1 (which was not myway or myweb... those were not in add/remove and at this time, I can't remember what it was that I removed) Ran panda scan (came up with 13 items not removed) downloaded Spywareblaster. At one point I had spywareblaster on my PC, but that too was gone. While searching for it I came across Ad-Aware SE, which advised me to upgrade. I downloaded Ad-Aware 2008, ran it and found 80 infected files, including 1 trojan and numerous malware. Ad-Aware cleaned them, and everything seems to be fixed... which is why I didn't complete the "5steps" from this site. Now, in order to be totally sure that everything is clean, I have been frequently running Ad-Aware. Ad-Aware comes up with 5 or so cookies everyday. Throughout all of this, SpySweeper has found NOTHING. I thought maybe SpySweeper was corrupted, so I checked for updates, un-installed, re-installed, still finds nothing. Also, in Add/Remove programs it says that SpySweeper is used Rarely, and hasn't been used since Aug 2007... I run it everyday. My question: Is SpySweeper just not working??? I get warnings from it now and then, usually when I am making changes to the system or something. I wonder if I have had all of these "infections" for WAY longer than just a few days. Since I removed everything with Ad-Aware, my system (mainly windows) has been running SUPER FAST. It had been running pretty slow, but never thought I had a problem, because of SpySweeper and McAffee daily scans. Another thought, I only use firefox, accept in the instances that firefox is not supported, then I use IE. Could this be why SpySweeper is not picking up this stuff? Any thoughts or suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance, Amanda