I need a free and effective program to rid my computer of Adware?

You need to run it in Safe Mode (tap F8 as the computer boots up and choose to boot to safe mode). This will take care of it for good. I also highly recommend Spybot.

Ideally you should run a virus removal program in Safe Mode (without networking) and reboot and repeat the scan and reboot until there is a cycle where no virus is detected.

The idea behind the Safe Mode is that the operating system would only load your essential programs and drivers to the memory and hence there is a “high” chance that the virus-infected file is on the drive but not loaded into memory. This would enable the AV to clean it easily and the next reboot/scan would detect nothing. There could still be a small possibility that one of the drivers or programs that are loaded by the OS in the Safe Mode is infected. That’s why you need to keep rebooting and rescanning to make sure you’ve found them all.

I strongly recommend using FireFox, it's a far better and safer alternative to Internet Explorer. If you add-on McAfee SiteAdvisor, it will warn you of potentially harmful sites. I also recommend CCleaner which is a free system optimization and privacy tool.

Download the free version of Supernantispyware. I use myself and will resolve all your problems related to viruses, adware, spyware. There is no conflict with your own antivirus. http://www.superantispyware.com/ Update and run an in depth scan. Must update on a manual basis daily being free.

Mind Doctor, France

Alot of virus and spyware programs hide in several places and reinstall themselves at startup. Windows allows startup files to be specified in a startup directory and in the registry. To prevent easy removal, some spyware will run 2 or more programs that hide in the system files, and each one routinely checks to see that the other is running, and if not, it will restart or reinstall the program.

Spybot S&D has a "vaccinate" function that monitors for registry changes that helps prevent this.

I agree with Samuel Adams you should do your scans in safe mode.

Spyware Doctor is not a bad antispyware program but it does not have real time protection, if you add free comodo boclean to it then you will have real time protection.

If you've gone off Spyware Doctor then use Spybot S&D or Spyware Terminator both have real time protection.

I would run smitfraud removal tool as well as your antiware programs

Or try this:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/RogueRemover_d5360.html

Have you tried http://www.treandmicro.com/? they have a download called 'housecall 6.5' just click on scan now and it will do it's thing. sometimes it takes quite some time to finish but it deals with all malware/etc. They also have a single automated cleaning tool called 'Sysclean' that cleans those items which are detected but not able to be cleaned by your virus scanner! http://www.trendmicro.com/downloads/dcs.asp. I tried spyware doctor and got nothing but spent time and a headache. Good Luck

I use "AdAware" from lavasoft. They have a free version you can download. It has worked very well for me. You will also be notified of free updates to the program as they become available.

You can type in www.adaware.com to go their website or here's a direct link to the free download:

http://www.lavasoft.com/single/trialpay.php

Update your anti-virus

http://free.grisoft.com/ [If you do not have one]

Update your anti-spyware software.

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/s... [if you do not have one]

Restart your PC in safe mode

http://www.pchell.com/support/safemode.shtml

And run a full scan with both.

You may also want to have a look at your start up items by using msconfig.

http://www.netsquirrel.com/msconfig/

Be careful with the items you uncheck, you can have a look here to see if they are necessary

http://www.greatis.com/appdata/index.html

I'm not sure if safe mode is necessary for adware.

Get Spyware Terminator (http://www.spywareterminator.com/) and Spybot - Search and Destroy (http://www.safer-networking.org/).

If you do not have anti-virus, get Avira (http://free-av.com/)

http://filehippo.com/download/7b994ea66f70a7139e12...