You may notice that strange programs are showing up on your computer, or that your home page is no longer what it used to be and keeps going back to the wrong page no matter what you do. Sometimes, your computer starts getting slower  and slower and nothing you do seems to fix things.

Most of these problems are caused by Spyware and can easily be removed by using one of the two programs mentioned below.

If you are the least bit  squeamish about downloading and installing programs on to your computer, Pure Internet offers computer repair and troubleshooting services in our Halifax office. We do not offer telephone support for the programs listed below.

We now recommend the free Microsoft Defender program. You can download it from here.  This program requires Windows 2000 or Windows XP.  If you are still running Windows 98, read on for other solutions.

We recommend a program called Spybot.  You can download it from here. 

Spyot seems to be able to find and remove more different kinds of Spyware than Ad-aware (see below).  However, we use both programs to ensure that the computer is cleared of Spyware.

We also recommend a program called Ad-aware 6 which can be downloaded from here.  This program will remove most obnoxious programs that "hi-jack" your web browser.

Be careful that you download version 6.0 or higher of the Ad-aware program as the older version hasn't been updated in quite awhile.

Once the program is downloaded, you'll need to run it by double-clicking on the file. You should see the program open up. 

Look for the following link that says "Check for Updates Now".  Go ahead and click this so that your program is completely up-to-date.

Go ahead and click the start button to completely scan your computer for Spyware.

Once the scan has completed, you'll have the opportunity to remove all of the Spyware it finds. Click the "Next" button to see what you can remove.

We recommend that you run this program at least once per week if you tend to download a lot of files from the Internet.