Advice Request Opinions for general purpose after-infection cleaners?

[cosmos]

Hello,

looking for information on easy-to-use and free toolkits/utilities to remove malware of all sorts from PC's. It is unknown whether the systems are infected or not.

My knowledge is not extensive in the area. Have used Lavasoft adaware and Spybot in the past. For the last 3-4 years I've been using Hitman pro (free), MBAM free and another adcleaner from Malwarebytes, whose name I do not recall. If needed, I use Kaspersky Rescue Disk to clean hard-remaining stuff, along with some offline registry by the hand cleaning (nothing fancy/knowledgeable in depth really, just checking the usual Run/RunOnce keys).

Have you got any suggestions on solid and free working tools than can be used alongside/replace (please specify) the tools I'm using now?

 

[Outpost]

Kaspersky Rescue Disk is fine. You could add EEK => Emsisoft | Emergency Kit: Free Portable Malware Scan and Removal

You can also create a USB Multiboot to insert multiple rescue or antivirus utilities => SARDU MultiBoot creator with legacy - EFI support

 

[brambedkar59]

Personally I prefer Emsisoft Emergency Kit, Hitman pro and Norton Power Eraser (if you can handle false positives. Also it's not worth using more than two 2nd opinion scanners).
If you find any serious threat (eg. Trojan, Virus, etc and not the adware), and it's your system (so you can clean install from scratch) I would say it's better to just nuke the system and clean install. Even after removing a malware you don't get the same level of confidence that your system is 100% clean. A decade ago I spent almost a week cleaning a WinXp system with help of malware removal experts at Malwarebytes forum. In the end after helping me clean the system he told me it's better to clean install the Windows cause no one can guarantee that any infected system is 100% clean even after following a detailed procedure for removing the malware. Just my 2 cents.

 

[cosmos]

Kaspersky Rescue Disk is fine. You could add EEK => Emsisoft | Emergency Kit: Free Portable Malware Scan and Removal

Thanks for the recommendation, will definitely use it.

You can also create a USB Multiboot to insert multiple rescue or antivirus utilities => SARDU MultiBoot creator with legacy - EFI support

Using easy2boot for the last 3 years, very satisfied. Wish I knew about it earlier...

Personally I prefer Emsisoft Emergency Kit, Hitman pro and Norton Power Eraser (if you can handle false positives. Also it's not worth using more than two 2nd opinion scanners).

I see that no-one referenced MBAM. No point in using it? It always finds more stuff, after running Hitman Pro. Or does the EMSISoft emergency kit just do a better job?

If you find any serious threat (eg. Trojan, Virus, etc and not the adware), and it's your system (so you can clean install from scratch) I would say it's better to just nuke the system and clean install.

Definitely, adding that a complete image of the drive(s) might be taken first, for a "forensic" analysis. See where you got damaged from, in a way of speaking.

Even after removing a malware you don't get the same level of confidence that your system is 100% clean. A decade ago I spent almost a week cleaning a WinXp system with help of malware removal experts at Malwarebytes forum. In the end after helping me clean the system he told me it's better to clean install the Windows cause no one can guarantee that any infected system is 100% clean even after following a detailed procedure remove the malware. Just my 2 cents.

Agree 100%!

 

[Arequire]

This thread my may help:

Battle - On-Demand scanners: Pro's and Con's of each

I would like to compare the pro's and con's of each of these software's. I know that using more than one is ideal, but for comparison sake I would like to know what these products are good and bad at. Thanks. Emsisoft Emergency Kit (EEK) Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (MBAM) Zemana Anti-malware...

malwaretips.com

 

[EndangeredPootis]

Hitmanpro is the best, it uses the datbase of Kaspersky, Bitdefender and Sohpos, spybot and adware are not as good as they once was, infact, I would consider them useless.

 

[harlan4096]

Agree, but HMP does not detect different files than PE exe files... for example even using Kaspersky engine, it can't detect scripts files and probably nor jar and other types of files that Kaspersky usually detects on demand...

 

[cosmos]

Hitmanpro is the best, it uses the datbase of Kaspersky, Bitdefender and Sohpos, spybot and adware are not as good as they once was, infact, I would consider them useless.

Was under the impression that HMP only has the Sophos engine nowadays.

Didn't know about Zemana. And didn't have Norton power eraser as a decent app.

I see that everyone has his/her favorites. If you were to pick only two, which ones would you go for guys (and gals)?

 

[EndangeredPootis]

Was under the impression that HMP only has the Sophos engine nowadays.

Didn't know about Zamana. And didn't have Norton power eraser as a decent app.

I see that everyone has his/her favorites. If you were to pick only two, which ones would you go for guys (and gals)?

If you double click on the threats it has detected, you would see the logo and detection names belonging to Kaspersky and Bitdefender.

 

[brambedkar59]

I see that no-one referenced MBAM. No point in using it? It always finds more stuff, after running Hitman Pro. Or does the EMSISoft emergency kit just do a better job?

Only reason I didn't list it was that it needs to be installed and not portable. It's good as 2nd opinion scanner.

 

[ForgottenSeer 77591]

Windows Repair Toolbox.

 

[ForgottenSeer 823865]

Don't waste time, nuke the system, clean install, it will be faster than doing manual cleaning, and since you are not an expert in malware removal, this will give you peace of mind.

Malware removal courses (like the one offered by Bleepingcomputer.com) are prerequisites to anyone pretending to be a malware remover.
People using MBAM or else to clean a machine are just jokers.

 

[ForgottenSeer 77591]

Don't waste time, nuke the system, clean install, it will be faster than doing manual cleaning, and since you are not an expert in malware removal, this will give you peace of mind.

Malware removal courses (like the one offered by Bleepingcomputer.com) are prerequisites to anyone pretending to be a malware remover.
People using MBAM or else to clean a machine are just jokers.

I agree.How many scanners are enough? Every tester uses 3.It must be the international standard.

 

[DDE_Server]

y

Hello,

looking for information on easy-to-use and free toolkits/utilities to remove malware of all sorts from PC's. It is unknown whether the systems are infected or not.

My knowledge is not extensive in the area. Have used Lavasoft adaware and Spybot in the past. For the last 3-4 years I've been using Hitman pro (free), MBAM free and another adcleaner from Malwarebytes, whose name I do not recall. If needed, I use Kaspersky Rescue Disk to clean hard-remaining stuff, along with some offline registry by the hand cleaning (nothing fancy/knowledgeable in depth really, just checking the usual Run/RunOnce keys).

Have you got any suggestions on solid and free working tools than can be used alongside/replace (please specify) the tools I'm using now?

you mean adware cleaner or junkware cleaner (abandoned)

 

[ForgottenSeer 77591]

y

you mean adware cleaner or junkware cleaner (abandoned)

Hello,

looking for information on easy-to-use and free toolkits/utilities to remove malware of all sorts from PC's. It is unknown whether the systems are infected or not.

My knowledge is not extensive in the area. Have used Lavasoft adaware and Spybot in the past. For the last 3-4 years I've been using Hitman pro (free), MBAM free and another adcleaner from Malwarebytes, whose name I do not recall. If needed, I use Kaspersky Rescue Disk to clean hard-remaining stuff, along with some offline registry by the hand cleaning (nothing fancy/knowledgeable in depth really, just checking the usual Run/RunOnce keys).

Have you got any suggestions on solid and free working tools than can be used alongside/replace (please specify) the tools I'm using now?

Emsisoft Emergency Kit is a good free tool.

 

[DDE_Server]

yes i think KVRT and EEK and NPE are my favorite however i agree with my colleagues here to make clean install (have clean image with basic software with latest Windows 10 build is the most fast speedy way for clean install)
however i prefer remove all virus to avoid any transmission for the infection to the new system (especially for rootkits and Trojans)
first step i will scan my system with 4 on demand scanner (NPE+MBAM+EEK+KVRT)
then rootkit check (there is light tool from kaspersky also updated frequently on their website)
then make a clean install from my fresh installed windows 10 image (i create fresh image with basic software installed such as office and telemetry tweaked - No antivirus installed-to avoid drivers error if i changed my AV solution) following by restoring my incremental backups until before infection discovery-also if you aren't sure just the full backup will be more trusted then it will be easier to build the rest of your system from that point - better than from scratch)

 

[ForgottenSeer 77591]

No regular user will let you do a clean install for fear of losing their browsing history.In this case scanners are your only option.Unless you can convince them their bank account or credit information may be compromised by an unknown type of malware.Good luck with trying that.

 

[DDE_Server]

No regular user will let you do a clean install for fear of losing their browsing history.In this case scanners are your only option.Unless you can convince them their bank account or credit information may be compromised by an unknown type of malware.Good luck with trying that.

you can prepare custom image with some decent pre-installed most used and cleaned software and make universal restore to any hardware many tools such as AOMEI pro do that you could make use of this feature.

 

[Protomartyr]

I agree with what @rockstarrocks and @Umbra have said. If it's possible, just nuke the system as it is the only way to guarantee a 100% clean system.

Generally, more advanced tools such as FRST, DDS, or HijackThis (FRST is the go-to nowadays) are used to detect and remove the malware. These tools require specialized knowledge in order to interpret the results and apply the appropriate fixes. The on-demand scanners are used after the fact to complete the cleanup process.

 

[plat]

As per request of cosmos in post #8:

HitmanPro (paid--for the right-click context menu option)
AdwCleaner oops, question was post-infection.

HitmanPro, RogueKiller.

Also use Defender's quick scan now and then. A full scan takes too long.