Spybot is totally awesome for removing viruses! I use it all the time.
You don't need to pay for anything to get rid of some of even the nastiest viruses.
I never use more than 6 things to remove viruses and its all free:
- Might have to boot into safe mode with networking.
- Turn off your system restore.
- Cleanup (just some basic software some guy made that deletes temp files and stuff). Get it here somewhere:
www.stevengould.org
- Do a system scan using hijackthis and 'fix' everything that you are not sure of. You will want to get familiar with what this software detects in their scan if you want to be able to do things like get a computer with a nasty virus up and running in just a few minutes so that you can get back to work while running scans in the background to clean it up. I would recommend getting this software now and doing a scan just to see the list as it looks when your computer is NOT infected with a virus so that you can get familiar with everything that is legit. It is pretty easy to tell what is malicious when you are familiar with this scan and the legit things that it pulls.
- LSP fix is a must-have as well. Like hijackthis, run it right when you get it so that you know what legit stuff that it pulls.
- Use Malwarebytes AND spybot s&d to find and delete the remaining infected files. I always run both because these can find things that others do not.
- Use Process Explorer (free software as well) to find any files that nothing else has found if you know that there is still something wrong. A good way to find the infections is to watch this software as you do something like launch a web browser to see that is active while you do that.
I wouldn't pay a penny to any virus removal company . ... ever!
If you want virus protection that runs in the background AVG works good and is free as well.
: )