www.baumdomain.com tech notes

The free AVG Anti-Root is designed to protect you. It does one thing, and one thing alone: finds and kills rootkits.

One of the most feared of all types of malware is the rootkit, software that is nearly undetectable--and in fact, can't be detected by many, if not most, anti-malware--and can then be used for all kinds of nefarious purposes.

Not uncommonly, rootkits are used to hide Trojans, that can then be used to take over your PC without your knowledge.

The free AVG Anti-Root is designed to protect you. It does one thing, and one thing alone: finds and kills rootkits. Run it and it scans your PC, sniffing them out. When it finds any, it removes them. Note that it doesn't work with Windows Vista.

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Spybot 2008

This anti-spyware program is free, provides proactive protection, and is largely effective.

Though its name sounds like bad dialog from a 60's sci-fi flick, Spybot Search & Destroy is a good program to have around for those trying times when you think someone is lurking behind the browser curtain tracking your every Web move. Fire it up and it'll spot all sorts of tracking cookies and the like, then remove them if you choose to do so.

Spybot offers an immunization feature which supposedly protects against the kinds of spyware that the program will remove. Not having used this feature for more than a few days, I can't say how effective it is, but it didn't seem to interfere with browsing and supported both Internet Explorer and Firefox. My scan inside a fairly new virtual machine didn't turn up much, but it turned up more than I thought it would. I've only used a browser a few times in the VM and there were already a bunch of tracking cookies. Some tracking cookies are actually useful while others are simple marketing spies and Spybot seemed to recognize the difference in most cases. The program also offers a restore function in case you delete one of the good kind by accident, and there's what seems to be an effective resident shield (TeaTimer) which will warn you of suspicious behavior like registry entries being changed or removed.

Though Spybot is free, if you find it useful you might consider donating a couple of bucks to the author who dedicated this program to "the most wonderful girl on earth" in the license agreement. How can you say no to a worthy program and sentiments like that?

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Ad-Aware 2008

Remove spyware and protect your privacy with this popular free anti-spyware program.

Lavasoft Ad-Aware Free 2008 ferrets out harmful Trojans, rootkits and other spyware, along with privacy concerns such as tracking cookies that may have wormed their way onto your PC.

The feature-limited free version doesn't offer real-time protection, and it will discover security or privacy threats only when you run a manual scan. But it should run happily alongside your existing antivirus (which likely has antispyware features of its own), and can offer an extra layer of protection for your PC.

Ad-Aware's free version also doesn't automatically update, so before you run a scan, be sure to click the Update button on the main program window get the latest spyware definitions. Then hit Scan Now to kick off your first scan.

You can choose between a 'smart' scan which focuses on critical parts of your PC, or a full scan that digs in everywhere. To create a custom scan that only checks particular locations, or to schedule a scan that runs automatically at certain times, you?ll need to upgrade to the paid Plus or Pro versions.

Ad-Aware Free helpfully separates scan results into critical objects that everyone will want to remove, such as Trojans and other harmful spyware, and privacy objects such as tracking cookies or document history that some people might not worry about. You can remove all discovered objects at once or individually.

You’ll find one minor annoyance in the scan results. To find out what each individual cookie actually is, you’ll need to greatly expand the size of the column that names it. Otherwise there’s far too much data on one line to see what’s there. But that’s more than offset by the ability to create a Windows System Restore point from within the software before you remove any objects, in case you accidentally remove something you wanted to keep.

In addition to scans, you can run a 'TrackSweep' capable of clearing browsing history, cache elements, cookies and other data from Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera, though each browser has a similar built-in feature. You’ll see additional options in the program for Ad-Watch, which actively monitors for threats, and other additional tools and plug-ins, but you'll need to upgrade to Plus or Pro for the extras. You'll also need to upgrade if you want tech support.

If you suspect you might have spyware on your machine that your current antivirus can't find, grab Ad-Aware Free and run a backup scan. It's an easy-to-use, albeit limited, extra layer of anti-spyware protection.