Is there any way at all to be safe when downloading freeware programs? That is, how can I know if my freeware downloads don’t have adware attached to them? I recently got rid of an infection of Stickypops that I got this way.

I recently had a computer crash. I had lost some files when that happened, so I was looking for a file recovery program. I found a free version of one, and downloaded it. While the file recovery program worked well enough, I also had a Stickypops infection to deal with.

At first, I didn’t really notice anything. My computer was running slower, but I didn’t think anything of it. It was when Stickypops started giving me pop ups and redirecting my browser that I noticed something was wrong.

I’m glad my wife wasn’t around at the time. She might not have understood that what I was being exposed to was Stickypops’ doing, not mine. So, I had to think fast.

I didn’t know then that it was called Stickypops, but I knew that it was adware, and so I ran my antispyware program. It didn’t find it. I knew something was there, though, so I decided I’d have to look for a new antispyware program.

It was pretty frustrating searching for an antispyware program while Stickypops was running. The browsing was slow and I had to keep closing the pop ups. I also had to deal with my browser getting redirected every five minutes or so.

There were so many “best” programs to look at. I wanted to be sure that I could kill Stickypops, especially if I was going to have to pay for the program. I decided I would use “100% removal guarantee” as part of my search.

The only program I found with a 100% removal guarantee was SpyZooka. It found Stickypops within a few minutes. I killed it, and haven’t heard from it since. Count me as a happy customer!