Wow, this is a good Spyware Remover!
 

I have had some lagging and annoying issues with my PC recently, but Adaware and Spybot S&D have returned very few results.

Then I happened upon this website for XoftSpy. I downloaded it, downloaded the newest database, and it returned:

390 definitions
39 running processes
153 Registry Keys
15 Registry Values
188 Files
27 Folders

Holy crap! And many were "High Threat" malware/spyware/trojans like javex80 (Trojan) and SCBAR.

Has anyone else used this program? Are Spybot and Adaware really that behind the times?

Ah, here's the catch. It's $40. D'oh!

It wouldn't surprise me if the reports were made up to scare you into buying the program. Be careful.

Yeah, I've heard of that too... people try one of those types of programs and it says they have a ton of spyware/viruses/etc, and then they buy it and it doesn't do anything that others don't do.

Personally, I wouldn't buy it. I'd try to find other programs and try and verify these results, or find specific information on those programs it says are on your computer. I've just never heard of that one, so I wouldn't shell out $40 for it, maybe others have an it's good, but yeah.

I tried XsoftSpy and found that it did not kill the worst offenders - Aurora (AbetterInternet) and Elitium - so I tried another ewido.com has a free trial download that did a great job on the above mentioned time wasters and several others. I still found that I had to go into safe mode to bag them completely but if you run ewido before you get into too much trouble it has a warning service that will stop most new bad stuff.

No way I was going to buy it. And after updating Spybot, it caught a lot of the same things.

I used to use XoftSpy (*cough*) myself, and it found some interesting things that others never picked up.

I've seen lots of computers where the spyware is disguised as spyware removal tools. I have a feeling that it's working, considering that my mom tried to buy it when she saw it.

/me laughs, then cries a little.

I still have Giant Antispyware on my pc, the one which Microsoft bought over. It's doing so much better than spybot or ad-aware or any others and i have no regrets getting it... just that... WHY MICROSOFT!??

What some people don't remember is, "you have to turn off system restore and the run Spybot and Ad-Aware in SAFE mode" to kill and rid your system of some of the more difficult spy/malware. If you leave system restore operable, the malware code is left in the restore point image and just re-installs itself on the next boot. Hope your problems are not too difficult to resolve.

my parents got xoftspy once, against my wishes so I did some digging and found out that some of the earlier versions of the software were confirmed to be faking results to con people into buying the software. The makers claimed to have cleaned their act but I won't trust them for a second.

The kicker, their PC was still slow after running xoftspy, it apparently removed 200 spyware. But for some reason left behind the extra IE search bar. I trotted down, installed ad aware and spybot, and between them, cleaned off 300 extra spyware that xoftspy didnt find. The PC was singing along after that.

I was told by an IT guy once that it is best to run 2 or more different spyware removal programs because advertisers often pay to have their stuff overlooked. I don't know if there is any truth to this, but I run Spybot and Giant Anti-Spyware (Now Microsoft Anti-Spyware) and what one doesn't detect the other does. I am gonan try running both in safe mode after turning off system restore....

Download SPYWAREBLASTER(free), keep it updated(the free version has to be manually updated) and a lot of the crap will not even be allowed to install on your machine. Make sure you enable all protection after the manual update. It has stop a lot of malware/cookies from getting to my laptop.
Spend a few minutes exercising your fingers getting the updates and it will ease the pain of spyware/malware/ trojans/auto dialers.
There are a lot of free utilities out there that work just as well as the $50 variety. Sure it take a while to find them, but in the end, well worth the time it saves having to cleanout what can do serious damage.

I like ad-aware and the microsoft as a combo. As far as anti-virus I use trend micro. Between all of them I have no problems.