What is Search and Destroy?

Search and Destroy is another in a long list of fake "spyware removal programs". Most of these infect computers when you are required to download an infected codec program to watch a video online or you may have been attacked by a drive-by installation. In any case, the program "Search and Destroy" tries to use a name similar to a very popular and useful removal tool called Spybot Search and Destroy. It installs on your computer, then proceeds to run a scan and show you a variety of infections that need to be removed. The only problem is my test computer was completely clean of spyware, adware, viruses and other issues when I downloaded and installed Search and Destroy.

What I found was "Search and Destroy" listed files that did not exist on my system as issues. So, this program seems to find nonexistant files to blame for issues on my computer. A good example of this is it pointed to the All Users\Application Data folder for files related to the Viewpoint Media Player, which will install with AOL instant messenger. The only problem is the folder is not on my computer. Its one thing to say an actual file on a computer is infected with something, but to show a list of files that don't even exist on the computer is something totally different. You'll find screenshots below of what I'm talking about.

The Search and Destroy program hundreds of files on my test computer that are spyware/adware related. You'll see the screenshot below.

You'll notice it points to the ViewPoint Media Player in the Application Data folder as being a spyware threat. Here is the screenshot of the application data folder . There is nothing related to Viewpoint Media Player in the directory.

For these reasons, I would suggest removing Search and Destroy from your computer and using a real antimalware program such as SuperAntiSpyware or MalwareBytes Anti-Malware to name just a couple. In fact, I'll show you below how to remove Search and Destroy with the MalwareBytes Anti-Malware program

Step by Step Procedure for Removing Search and Destroy


Download and install MalwareBytes Anti-Malware

1) Click on this link to visit MalwareBytes and download their Anti-Malware application to your desktop

Visit MalwareBytes

2) Double-click on the file Download_mbam-setup.exe on your desktop to start the installation.

3) Follow the prompts during the installation process. Do not make any changes to default settings and make sure you leave both the Update Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and Launch Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware checked. Then click on the Finish button.

4) MalwareBytes Anti-Malware will now automatically start and you should see the screen below. Click on Perform Quick Scan and click on the Scan Button.

5) During the scan, you'll see the following screen as the program scans your computer for any issues. This may take quite some time. Please be patient.

6) When the scan is completed, you should see the following window. Click Ok, then click the Show Results button to examine the findings.

7) On the Scan Results page, click the Remove Selected button to remove the problem entries and files.

8) When the removal is completed, a log file will be created and shown in Notepad, you may review this information then close it and finally click on Exit to close the program

Congratulations! Your computer should be free of the fake spyware removal program called Search and Destroy and all the false positive results that it finds.