Okay, so … is there any anti-spyware program that’s better than SpyBot and Ad-Aware? Cuz I run both of 'em every five minutes, and keep getting something new, and the computer I’m on (my dad’s reasonably good WinXP laptop) still sometimes randomly gets popups on pages without popups, attempts to connect automatically, and for some reason a few links in random posts that lead to some weird ad site.
Jez, you run both and still get spyware? I’d cut down on the pron or get a popup blocker. I’ve also had very good luck with Avant Browser, its a free browser that blocks pop up, and is very reliable. Heres a link:
Start -> Run -> Type in ‘msconfig’ without the ’ and go to the startup tab. Disable various checkboxes there (but leave systray alone) unless you can identify them (IE quicktime). Thats a list of progs that load at startup, and some spyware burrows itself into that area. If you want to go a step further, experiment with this list and figure out which one is causing the spyware (will require a few restarts, but no matter). When you figure out which one is the one causing spyware, you can google it up and find specific instructions to manual removal. I had one called ‘bxxs’, which gave me some belgian dip spyware, and it was also evading adaware and spybot.
Sometimes just disabling them in the startup is sufficient though.
Okay … so how do I know spyware from the next program?
Delete stuff you dont know what it is. If its important, you’ll know.
I dunno what half of that is, and it LOOKS like it’s something important. Unlike IonMage, I did not just build myself a computer. 
You could always get Spysweeper, although I’m not sure if it’s better than Ad-Aware or Spybot, but it’s worth a try I suppose.
Here’s where you can get it:
Yes, get Ad-Aware pro. It might be a bit difficult to find, but it’ll do the trick
I think I’ll try and find Ad-Aware Pro for myself now…
I’m having a similar problem, but I only use Ad-Aware right now. Every time I go to run Ad-Aware, I find that more and more stuff has been added to my computer, and it’s not from viewing porn or anything, it’s from regular sites (lyrics and emulation sites for example).
It really depends on what Ad-aware is telling out your PC is infected with, it’s an excellent program but it does have it’s limitiations. For one thing it tends to be very agressive when it comes to calling a something spyware, hell I’ve even seen the cookie used at RPGC to remember your password come up a few times on its scan. The other problem is that it has a great deal of trouble dealing with certain types of viruses, namely those that run in stealth and with a .dll file. But these limitations aside it’s still an excellent program. My advice to yould would be to run it once a week, that should keep your system relativaly spyware clean. If you have any doubts try running it twice in a row, if a something you removed reappears on the list it means that it’s something that it can’t deal with, but very few pieces of spyware are that pervaisive. The thing to remember is that even if you just browse the internet you WILL pick up spyware, even if you stick to only well respected sites and don’t go looking for trouble chance are you’ll still get spyware, you just need to clean out your PC every now and then and you’ll be fine.