Free Spyware and Adware Detection & Removal Software

Ad-Aware SE Personal
Ad-Aware SE Personal is a tool freely available for personal use on Windows platform machines. It can scan your computer for stealthy spyware programs and help you to determine what they are doing and whether they are a threat to your system. At the push of a button, Ad-Aware will delete these insidious programs from your PC. Ad-Aware has been downloaded more than 68 million times in the past year. For a review of the software you can go to Product Review: Ad-Aware
Spybot S&D
Spybot - Search & Destroy can detect and remove spyware of different kinds from your computer. Spybot S&D is exceptionallu popular and very effective. It can be used in conjunction with a program like Ad-Aware because they will often catch a handful of spyware that the other did not detect. Spybot S&D is available completely free of charge.
IE-SPYAD
IE-SPYAD is a Registry file (IE-ADS.REG) that adds a long list of known advertisers, marketers, and spyware pushers to the Restricted sites zone of Internet Explorer to block those sites from being accessed.
SpywareBlaster
Rather than detecting and removing spyware after the fact, SpywareBlaster proactively protects your system to block spyware and adware from infiltrating in the first place.
HiJack This
Despite all of your security and protection you may still get infected with spyware or a web browser hijacker that the other tools are unable to detect for some reason. HiJack This will generate a report of all browser add-ons, buttons and start-up items to help you determine rogue items and remove them.
XP-AntiSpy
XP-AntiSpy does not detect or disable spyware in the traditional sense. There are services running by default on many Windows XP systems which some may consider a privacy or security concern. You can disable them on your own, but using XP-AntiSpy you can view and disable these services much quicker and allow you to re-enable them just as quickly if you choose.
X-Cleaner
X-Cleaner performs cookie cleaning, Internet cache cleaning, scans for many popular spy software packages and performs permanent file shredding. This version is available for free, but the developer also offers a Professional version with more functionality for purchase.