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It seems clear that startup programs (including spyware) are an increasingly ubiquitous problem in Windows based systems. Programs get installed without our knowledge either via security holes, other program's "features", and by our kids and loved ones. These slow down your computer, and most of them we don't even know what they are or if we need them. The extreme solution is to lock down your computer and allow nothing to be installed using a program like Fortress [1]. A lot of schools and libraries use these lock down programs to protect themselves from the hundreds of visitors that use their computers every single day. But in a household the solution should be simpler and cheaper -- and we found nothing simpler nor cheaper than to use Winpatrol.
Winpatrol is Free, so if you download it, try it, and don't like it, you lose nothing -- but we suspect you are going to like this little utility. There are several things that Winpatrol does, but the two we are going to cover are the removal of startup programs, and the removal of Browser Helper Objects or BHOS.
Startup programs are those annoying little programs that load up into your system every time you turn your computer on. Some of them are needed and useful like your anti virus, others are just not needed and only slow down your computer and use system resources. You can get an idea of all the stuff your computer is running right now by looking at your taskbar, on the bottom right side of your screen. Each of those little icons represents a loaded program, and if you don't recognize the program...you may not need it. If you fire up Winpatrol, the first tab on the program is a list of all these startup programs. You can simply click on one to select it, click on the remove button, and that program is history. It's that simple. If a program automatically keeps coming back (MSN Messenger is notorious for this), click on the disable button and Winpatrol will keep an eye out for it and remove it everytime it tries to reinstall itself.
BHOs are similar to startup programs, but they only get installed and exist inside Internet Explorer. Some examples of BHOs are the Google Toolbar and the Yahoo Toolbar. Those may be ok and you may want to keep them, but sometimes other "Search Bars" or unwanted BHOs get installed unintentionally. Removing these critters is as simple as removing startup programs. Just fire up Winpatrol and select the tab for BHOs to see the list of installed helper objects. If you don't want and/or don't recognize one, click on it to select it, click on remove, and it's gone.
You will always have added protection after you install Winpatrol. Winpatrol will warn you if one of this programs is trying to reload or reintall itself as a Startup program or as a BHO and give you the option to block it from doing so. For a complete list of features visit the Winpatrol website. The home of Winpatrol is http://www.winpatrol.com/
Note: There is a version of this program called WinPatrol PLUS that contains additional features and it is not free. The version covered in this article is WinPatrol Free, which can be found at the Winpatrol website.
[1] Fortress Software - http://www.fortres.com/products/fortres_101.htm
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