Can anyone help me with removing Malware?

[Beefcake]

Well last night while surfing youtube, my computer was infected with the malware program cowabanga. I knew something was wrong fairly quickly and I shut down my Internet connection so it wouldn't download anything while I was trying to figure out what to do. I found the Cowabanga by OIM program in my Add/Remove panel but whenever I tried to remove it, it would popup a "please enter the number below thingy to remove" which I didn't trust at all and I just canceled. I tried to delete the folder from Program Files but it couldn't as it was running a process, so I booted up Ad-Aware and let it do a couple of scans. Ad-Aware found and killed the process as well as the keys for it, and once that was done I was able to delete it from my C drive, which seem to have killed the popups and random icons showing up.

My question is, does anyone know of a good, -TRUSTED- program that I can use to check my computer to see if there are any leftover parts or other hidden/dormant malware programs hiding on my computer? I'm not very computer savvy but I know that these little things can bury themselves deep in the computer.

[Denholm]

Well, ad-aware does the job for me, not sure of how to locate anything else. Usually I just search for random malware / spyware names in my registry, if anything appears I get rid of it and search my system for the file that was linked to the registry value.

[Beefcake]

Actually while posting this I had something popup so the problem has not been fixed yet. I just unplugged my computer from the internet and went to my labtop to go online to check things.

I would check the registry but I don't know much about computers and I really don't want to screw mine up. However, I noticed while typing this that Ad-Aware keeps finding a registry value.

[lasersailor184]

I run Adaware, then Spy bot, and then if that doesn't work, I look up on Yahoo the process for getting rid of the program manually.

[Airscrew]

Try Hijack This.   works for me, just be careful with some of the tools.

check out this, other tools also but I havent tried any of them yet so do some research first.

http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/programs.php

[john9001]

i run avast anti virus, ad aware, registry mechanic

[DES]

http://www.superantispyware.com/

This is what I've been using lately for families Pc's when they get infected (which is too often).

[nirvana]

CWshredder, it's for browser hijacks but I've used it with success on some of the tougher spyware/malware.  Other then that I just use Ad-aware but registry mechanic is also a really good tool.

[storch]

trend-micro

[Sketch]

Try these...

Link One

Link Two

All I did was a Google search on it and checked the top two...

[Dago]

Try avgfree.

[WhiteHawk]

Originally posted by Beefcake
Well last night while surfing youtube, my computer was infected with the malware program cowabanga. I knew something was wrong fairly quickly and I shut down my Internet connection so it wouldn't download anything while I was trying to figure out what to do. I found the Cowabanga by OIM program in my Add/Remove panel but whenever I tried to remove it, it would popup a "please enter the number below thingy to remove" which I didn't trust at all and I just canceled. I tried to delete the folder from Program Files but it couldn't as it was running a process, so I booted up Ad-Aware and let it do a couple of scans. Ad-Aware found and killed the process as well as the keys for it, and once that was done I was able to delete it from my C drive, which seem to have killed the popups and random icons showing up.

My question is, does anyone know of a good, -TRUSTED- program that I can use to check my computer to see if there are any leftover parts or other hidden/dormant malware programs hiding on my computer? I'm not very computer savvy but I know that these little things can bury themselves deep in the computer.

didnt read the replies, but hijack this usually does the trick, be careful not to zap a necessry thing tho.

[Helrazr1]

A friend of mine who has worked in the IT industry for quite a while suggested this to me.  Upon trying the software, it is awesome, although it isn't free.  IMO though, it's well worth it.

[DREDIOCK]

For free try

http://www.ewido.net/en/

I find Ewido was able to remove things AdAware and Mcaffy wouldnt.

Was also able to find thing neither did also

Another handly little tool is

EasyCleaner2.0

The Startup inspecter might be particularly helpful in your case

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by Helrazr1
A friend of mine who has worked in the IT industry for quite a while suggested this to me.  Upon trying the software, it is awesome, although it isn't free.  IMO though, it's well worth it.

How big a footprint does it leave?
that is how many processes does it have running?