acoona

January 25, 2006 1:39 AM

how do i get rid of acoona , the friendly piece of spyware that wont go away ?

I'm using Spybot to get rid of it at the moment , but its not working , i'm currently in favour of nuking the acoona hq from outer space........

posted by sgt.serenity to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Response by poster: er...i think its spelt accoona.
posted by sgt.serenity at 2:02 AM on January 25, 2006

Could try housecall:

http://www.trendmicro.com/hc_intro/default.asp

(Or one of the other reputable anti-apyware programs, Microsoft, Ad-Aware, etc.)
posted by ed\26h at 2:11 AM on January 25, 2006

Instructions for the removal of Accoona using Hijackthis and some program called cleanup. (You can find a link to it on the instruction page.) In general, Hijackthis is usually the best bet for removing anything persistent but it is also possible to delete important stuff with it, so use with care.
posted by insomnus at 3:20 AM on January 25, 2006

I finally gave up on Spybot and Ad-Aware to get rid of a particuarly nasty infection a few months ago, and dropped the $20 on Webroot's SpySweeper.

If you download/install the trial version off the website, you should get an offer to buy the full version for $19.95 versus the $29.95 it costs retail...

Anyway, it solved my problem and i've now got it installed on all of my machines.
posted by mrbill at 4:14 AM on January 25, 2006

Do you use Windows XP? It's got an awesome feature called System Restore Wizard which lets your computer revert back to an earlier state -- as in to a date before this spyware was installed. Search for ihow to do it in Windows Help.
posted by fourstar at 4:41 AM on January 25, 2006

Don't know about acoona in particular, but frequently system restore is no use for getting rid of malware (and may do more harm than good) since many types of malware hide in system restore points and even old issues you previously thought had been resolved could reassert themselves. I'm not, however, saying to disable system restore entirely as there can certainly be circumstances under which being able to restore to an infected state is better than not being able to restore at all.

for reference (very bottom of page)
posted by juv3nal at 1:38 PM on January 25, 2006