Essential programs, part 2

Okay, yesterday's post was my first ever blog and there was one thing I definately learned from it. Never, ever move your post to your e-mail's html editor in order to find and repair an error. In case you were wondering, that's where those strange linebreaks came from.

Continuing in yesterday's vein, here are several more programs that I use often. I keep all of these in a folder on my desktop so it's easy access to run any of them if I am concerned that something has gotten on my computer.

Your Uninstaller
www.ursoftware.com

When I first tried Your Uninstaller, I downloaded the trial from Cnet or Tucows or one of the many download sites that let you try out a program before you purchase it. I hated the trial! It was awful, you could only remove 2 programs at a time and then you had to restart it. And you could only try it for a few days (I think it was 10). When I went to remove it, I got a popup box asking me my opinion about it, and unusual for me, I wrote back and told them how disappointed I was with their trial. The program's creator responded, offering a discount on the product if I wanted to purchase it. I decided to take a chance and do it, and I've never been disappointed.

This program will remove all the junk that Windows uninstaller and even the program uninstallers leave behind. It will even fix removals that have messed up for some reason or other, and it's all very intuitive. Plus, you can even remove hidden files with it, see and edit your startup list, tell what programs have been added since you last ran it, edit your IE right click menu, and clean up your temp files. If I sound like I'm raving about this program, I am. It's become a necessary item on any computer I'm using.

KL Detector
http://dewasoft.com/privacy/kldetector.htm

From the site:

Top 10 Reasons Why You Need KL-Detector
(Why Keyloggers Threaten Your Privacy)

1. Surveillance software is very common nowadays. A Google search on keyloggers yields 39,000+ results.
2. Software mentioned in (1) has a bunch of features to record your activity in every possible way.
3. Due to their "good purpose", keyloggers and other types of surveillance software are not detected by AntiVirus programs.
4. Most keyloggers are more threatening than the so-called spyware. Keyloggers can record your passwords, emails, credit card number, etc.
5. Some keyloggers can even be installed remotely.
6. Most (if not all) keyloggers are invisible. This means you will not know if a keylogger is running on your system.
7. More and more people are using keyloggers or surveillance software. These include your friends, spouse, employer, etc.
8. The recorded keystrokes can be sent to an email address. So physical access to your computer is not necessary.
9. Public computers (e.g. public library's) might have keyloggers installed. It is just a possibility.
10. You value your privacy, don't you?

There are a couple things you might want to know about this program. 1) It doesn't fix what it finds and 2) it doesn't have a setting to run it continuiously. Neither of these are serious issues as you can always go to a free computer help site (I'll list some of my favorites later) and ask for help, plus the author of KL says that you can send him an e-mail if you have problems removing something. And for 2) you can always just rerun the program.

Microsoft Anti-Spyware
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

Serious computer users often laugh at this one, but even with all the antispyware I run on my machine, MS found a couple adware programs installed when I ran it. When trying to get rid of spyware, more is usually better, since all of them are a little bit different. And, on top of that, it's totally free.

If you'd like to learn more about spyware removal, the latest issue of 2600 has a great article on it. You can usually find the magazine at Barnes & Nobles or at www.2600.com. This article gives instructions on how to remove spyware in Safe mode on your computer or if you have some that can't be removed that way. how to disable the startup items to remove it. Just remember to always make a backup copy of your registry before making any changes to it.

HiJack This
www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn

This is the most powerful program out there in your search to get rid of spyware...or anything else that is causing problems with your computer. This program comes with a warning though. If you don't know much about computers, don't try to interpret this on your own. Run the program and select the option to also save it in Notepad. Copy the notepad selection and go to one of the many sites that will interpret your HJT files for you and ask them very nicely if they will tell you what you need to fix. Then paste the information into your post. Usually someone will get back to you rather quickly.

Because this program removes items straight from the registry, it's always a good idea to back up your registry first. Here are instructions on how to do it in Windows XP (there are also links there for other versions of Windows): support.microsoft.com/kb/322756.

On the site there is this warning:
Just a short note on the domain HIJACK-THIS.NET: this is not mine! It has been registered by XoftSpy (who are also on the Rogue Antispyware List on SpywareWarrior.com) and they are luring people into downloading their software believing it is HijackThis. Also, they have registered a few AdWords at Google leading to the same result. I have contacted them about this and received no reply (how surprising). Google can't do much about it since there is no copyright being breached. We'll see where this goes.
In the meantime, if you want to download any of my programs, the official domain is and always will be www.merijn.org.

CWShredder
http://www.intermute.com/products/cwshredder.html

By the same person who created HiJackThis. Uh, well, it was by him. He's sold it to Intermute, but it's still a free download. You can also still download it on the HiJack This site, but I don't know if it's up to date on here.

From the website:
CWShredder™ finds and destroys traces of CoolWebSearch. CoolWebSearch is a name given to a wide range of different browser hijackers. Though the code is very different between variants, they are all used to redirect users to coolwebsearch.com and other sites affiliated with its operators.

If you suspect you have a trojan on your computer, try running this. In most cases, I've found that it removes whatever I can't get rid of by other methods.