Now that your suspicions have been confirmed, you are probably feeling like the unluckiest web user on the globe. But do not fear, not all is lost quite yet. The spyware or adware has so far infected your computer; it has placed various files and at least one application on your computer in strategic locations, so that it can influence the display you see with pop-ups, and/or monitor your activity. Therefore the answer is simple: remove and destroy those foreign files!
As mentioned previously, malware ranges in complexity from very simple and easy to detect, to very complex and hard to detect.
Experienced users may use specialized applications which can trace windows shown by the operating system back to the application which created them, or they may use logging tools to note which files have been accessed recently (and so find out which ones have been accessed that shouldn’t have).
There is always the failsafe method of reformatting your hard disk which is guaranteed to remove any malicious items from your computer, but it will also remove every file from your computer, meaning a fresh installation of your operating system is required. This method is undesirable, least of all due to its impracticality and time consuming nature.
Finally and perhaps the most technical method, is to prevent the malware from being able to run. This is achieved by booting the operating system into Safe Mode, then running msconfig.exe, un-checking any suspicious applications and deleting files found in the directory listed next to the suspicious item.
But here you are still reading this article, and the above options are relatively complex albeit effective enough. So you need a solution and fast.
What if there was some way to eradicate the malware without researching heavily into the workings of the operating system and so on? It would be a damn sight easier that’s for sure. Et voila! Anti-malware software was formed.
There are absolutely loads of programs out there which will do the job of removing spyware, adware, worms, Trojans and viruses. Some tools are specifically made to remove particularly notorious infections (such as Blaster and Sasser infections), whereas other utilities are made to handle generic cases of malware, and there are a few well known software brands which will detect and eradicate almost all known malicious software in one go! Norton, Kaspersky and Kerio are companies which invest in the latter category of software. If you do not know much about the particular issue which is affecting your computer or indeed you know nothing about it at all- only that it is there- then the generic solutions are often the most effective.
There are, as always, free and professional versions of utilities available to stop spyware and avoid adware. The choice is wholly up to you in the end, but the software which you have to pay for are in fact, usually the best ones. Using a search engine to locate suitable anti-malware software is the logical decision after reading this section.