Read on this antispyware site: http://detect-spyware.atspace.com/spyware-secrets.html that spyware leaves left-overs in the registry, and that it is good policy to use a RegCleaner program after getting rid of spyware. Is that a prooven fact or is it snake oil? Who has an opinion about this?
I personally think it is better to read the technical aspects of an infection together with what it does to the registry before you manually fiddle with it.
And you should have a backup of the registry ready at hand always.
That’s what Bazooka Scanner always tries to teach you. You can’t clean anything with Bazooka Scanner, but after scanning, and of course if it finds something malicious, it gives you a link for their official web site, section spyware/adware/hijackers removal and procedure. Best of all, it gives you as much detailed information as possible on how to boot in safe mode, which folders and files to remove (exactly the names and paths), and best of all, it lists all possible locations inside your registry. It tells you what is safe to remove, and how to find it… unbelievable that this program never got as popular as some others. Well, it’s kind of understandable… people want everything to be done for them, so this program asking you to participate is kind of too much of a hassle for them I guess… By the way, during my work on client’s computers, many, many times Bazooka found some browser hijacker that Spybot and Ad-aware never ever caught nor reported, besides some spyware and adware of course…
I always clean my registry even when it’s malware clean Polonus(to get rid of those unnecesary leftover keys left by programs i uninstalled) .I know alot of experts say registry cleaning causes nothing but trouble but that sure isn’t the case with me(never had problems cause of that) and i have been cleaning the registry since win98 days.But if i get a spyware on my pc i like to do a little research about it to see what registry keys it actually leaves behind and delete them manually trough my registry cleaning program(no auto cleaning stuff)…
Regardless of what the program is if I uninstall it (for good) I follow that up with a registry clean to ensure all traces are gone.
I have just done this with firefox 1.5 as I was having issues that I believe were related to NoScript stopping extension updates and/or installation. Nothing I did could resolve the problem and a simple uninstall doesn’t get rid of everything, you have to delete the program folder and profile and any registry entries to be thoroughly clear.
Once reinstalled things are working as they should be with the exception I haven’t installed the NoScript extension.
So if this applies to ordinary software which really isn’t trying to hide, what would spyware leave behind.
A registry cleaner for the most part is fine depending on the one you choose some are very cautious some are very aggressive in what they flag and if you know little about the registry, then you could have problems especially if that cleaner doesn’t have a backup/recovery function.
