please advise am going nuts!

[Francesca]

Can someone please recommend the best (in their opinion) spyware/adware remover. I don't have any on my laptop and am 99% certain that I am thoroughly infested and am operating at a crawl and need help... takes 10 minutes to open a word doc (am exaggerating just a little) and I used to be able to have Quark and adobe running together with hefty images open can barely open a JPEG at this point.. my anti virus is current and I am very confident that is not the prob... I am almost always connected to the internet so am sure its spyware/adware but don't know which one to buy...

[idiosyncratic]

1. Download "Spybot -- Search and Destroy" and "AdAware"

Both are free. After running those, I would clear out all your temporary files and temporary Internet files.

Then I would run Scandisk and Defrag.

If you use Internet Explorer as your browser, I highly recommend switching to Opera, which is now free and is half the size of Firefox.

Opera is much less prone to infestations than IE.

Which Anti-Virus program do you use? I use the free version of AVG and it works very well, without bogging down my computer the way Norton can.

Do you have a Firewall? I use the free version of Zone Alarm and recommend it.

[LiberalUprising]

2. I second idiosyncratic

Also download CCleaner, it's free as well

CCleaner is a freeware system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. But the best part is that it's fast (normally taking less that a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware! :)

http://www.ccleaner.com/

And CWshredder (also free)

Trend Micro CWShredder is the premier tool to find and remove traces of CoolWebSearch – the name for a wide range of insidious browser hijackers– from your PC. A small utility for removing CoolWebSearch (aka CoolWwwSearch, YouFindAll, White-Pages.ws and a dozen other names). The CoolWebSearch Chronicles detail the variants of the browser hijacker known as CoolWebSearch

http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/CWShredder-Download-8114.html

[welshTerrier2]

3. i use SpywareBlaster ...

i used to have all kinds of spyware problems ... not anymore ... SpyBot never finds anything now that i run SpywareBlaster ... i still run adAware though ...

here's a link to download SpywareBlaster: http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

if you download it, make sure you go through all the menus to activate all the options ... and then, maybe once every month or two, click update on the menu ...

also, i would highly recommend running AVG anti-virus software ... i don't have the link to get their free version but it works great ... maybe someone else has the link ...

[RC]

4. google is your friend...

Get AVG for your home PC virus protection

http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/