Spyware Terminator

It's been in use here for about three months now without problems like those being seen. Besides being very close to Ad-Aware SE Personal it also includes a small personal firewall and highly rated by PC World magazine. It actually finds things missed by the updated version of Ad-Aware.

Other sharewares like Webroot's Spysweeper crap places bogus files on the drive and then indicates you need to buy the full retail version to see them removed. NONSENSE! It's a gimic to suck you in there. ST is strictly a freeware. It's free of ads and the other crud seen with the one mentioned along with some others like Spyware Doctor also noted for that.
 
well last time instaled Spyware terminator i got loads of Pop ups saying a backdoor trojan has been detected and that i should buy some other software to clean it up:D
 
PC eye said:
It's been in use here for about three months now without problems like those being seen. Besides being very close to Ad-Aware SE Personal it also includes a small personal firewall and highly rated by PC World magazine. It actually finds things missed by the updated version of Ad-Aware.

Other sharewares like Webroot's Spysweeper crap places bogus files on the drive and then indicates you need to buy the full retail version to see them removed. NONSENSE! It's a gimic to suck you in there. ST is strictly a freeware. It's free of ads and the other crud seen with the one mentioned along with some others like Spyware Doctor also noted for that.
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Whilst I too am not a fan of Webroot's tactics, they certainly do not flag up bogus or non-existant files that their software could remove if bought. They do however list tracking cookies and other "not-neccessarily" malicious files which could easily be removed simply by cleaning down your cache, cookies, etc, by using the generic windows functions or a program like CCleaner. This is a tactic employed also by a number of other softwares such as Spybot and Ad-aware - although with these programs being free it's not so much of a problem. However, they are still guilty of contributing to the confusion as to what is, and is not a malicious file.

I'm not surprised to hear SpywareTerminator catching things that Spybot and Adaware missed, as they have been on a steep decline over the last 12months+. They used to be the pinnacle of spyware/adware programs, but I would no longer recommend these, and do not use them on any of my PCs anymore. I predict they will both be extinct programs by early 2008.
 
When first going to use Ad-Aware it used to catch registry values for adware crap and a few other things. The only reason it still is used here is it will clean stuff missed(mainly data miners) or overlooked by others. Currently beta tesing a new 2007 version is pending.

Spyware Doctor, Spyware Blaster, and any others that are downloaded as sharewares are the typical ones for seeing the "must buy to see remove this" gimic. A few of the best sites for downloading and trying out various programs(freewares and sharewares alike) are majorgeeks, softpedia, download.com, and very few others to add. Other sites tend to have their own adwares to thrown in.

The main problem with either type of download, free or trial, is the occasional "univited elements" that are included. You'll try and remove one thing to see other crap come to life on you. :eek: "what's this?!" as you pull hair is part of the process in weeding out the good from the garbage programs.
 
PC eye said:
When first going to use Ad-Aware it used to catch registry values for adware crap and a few other things. The only reason it still is used here is it will clean stuff missed(mainly data miners) or overlooked by others. Currently beta tesing a new 2007 version is pending.

Spyware Doctor, Spyware Blaster, and any others that are downloaded as sharewares are the typical ones for seeing the "must buy to see remove this" gimic. A few of the best sites for downloading and trying out various programs(freewares and sharewares alike) are majorgeeks, softpedia, download.com, and very few others to add. Other sites tend to have their own adwares to thrown in.

The main problem with either type of download, free or trial, is the occasional "univited elements" that are included. You'll try and remove one thing to see other crap come to life on you. :eek: "what's this?!" as you pull hair is part of the process in weeding out the good from the garbage programs.
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hmm not to try and argue I just would like to say that I have Spyware Blaster on my PC and I have never once seen a you must buy this to get rid of anything it usually works just fine with no issue for me..but I don't know I haven't fooled with it for a long time maybe other people have had issues with it.
 
The new Spybot 1.5 is the worst program I've ever tried. It's always poping up with somethings changed . It reminds me of the UAC on Vista.I've been using the free version of SuperAntispyware which works very well and is 64 bit compactable.
 
As far as I am aware, there are two programs by different companies that both go by the name of Spyware Terminator. Spyware Terminator by invender.nl is listed as rogue by Spyware Warrior's Rogue/Suspect Anti-Spyware Products List. Spyware Terminator by Crawler (which I believe is the one that PC Eye is talking about) was removed from the rogue list in 2006. Spyware Warrior's explanation:
Note on SpywareTerminator: We originally listed Spyware Terminator on this page out of concerns that Crawler, the company behind the product, had established connections with IBIS, a well known adware distributor responsible for such adware programs as Wintools, Websearch, & Huntbar. Although we found no problems in our initial testing with Spyware Terminator, and while the vendor itself announced that it was exiting the adware business (1), we decided out of caution to impose a three month probation period before we would consider re-testing and, if warranted, de-listing the the product from the Rogue/Suspect list. During that three month probation period we monitored the behavior of IBIS and Crawler. At the end of the three month probation period we re-tested Spyware Terminator, again finding no problems serious enough to justify listing the program on this page. As the vendor involved has not been involved in the distribution of adware for many months, and as the program itself exhibits no problems serious enough to warrant mention on this page, we have decided to de-list Spyware Terminator from the Rogue/Suspect list and can no longer regard the program to be "rogue/suspect."
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It would seem that that product is considered legitimate now, although having never used it myself I can't vouch for its effectiveness.

Webroot's SpySweeper and Spyware Doctor are both legitimate programs and do infect your system or use false positives to lure users into a purchase.

Personally, I'd recommend AVG Anti-spyware. The real-time scanning functionality is a 30 day trial, but the on-demand scanner doesn't expire and is very effective at removing spyware.
 
I knew about crawler coming into spyware terminator, so I kept suspicious. Been using it for around two months, and I think it's great, no adware, no spyware, full resident protection, OK scanner, etc. It's a good, free product. I've found that SUPERantispyware has a higher detection rate than spyware terminator during a scan, but it's resident protection is neutered in the free version, so I keep both handy.

Edit: It also comes bundled with ClamAV, not the best, but free. Also mild preventative measures, though I haven't enabled them myslef.
 
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With ST you will see regular confirmation prompts for allowing or denying things when installing a new program or when making any alteration like updating or removing some feature. Having tried scores of these types of programs over the years I'm well aware of the Crawler toolbar just you get smacked with the Google toolbar as a prechecked item you have to uncheck when installing a number of programs.

One reason for still running Ad-Aware while the 2007 version now sees an Ad Watch feature included as a live shield is the ability to spot and remove browser hijackers and remove the registry entries as well. ST has a live shield similar to a regular firewall. AVG on the ohter hand can be totally disabled and spring to life when detecting the malicious code in a trojan copied to the hard drive upon simply arriving at some odd site.

Experience and finding a winning combination is a great help as well as smart web browsing in keeping most bugs off in the first place. And it takes more then simply clearing your off line content to remove some adwares that are designed to hide themselves on drives in other locations.
 
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