Explanation of results of things like root kit scan

[alternety]

I am a simple user. I run it, it does something, it quits. But quite frequently (always for root scan) I have no idea what it is telling me. What do those displayed messages actually mean in terms I can understand? And what do I do when I finally understand what it means. I have used this over many iterations and it never gets better about explaining to a Joe six pack (or Farnsworth with a 40 year old single malt) what to do with the developed information. Sometimes I am scared that I am doing more harm than good using this application. I just looked at the quarantine file. There were hundreds. I expected maybe half a dozen. I don't know what any of them are or why they are there. How do I filter out mistakes vs real? I have no criteria. At least providing the reason would help. I feel like I am flying a plane and don't know what any of the controls are for or why there are messages on my instruments.

Could you please build a guide/tutorial/help that actually explains things?

[Zenobia]

For the rootkit scan,please see here:
http://www.safer-networking.org/faq/...ally-rootkits/
If you are unsure about anything found,you can ask about it in the rootalyzer forum:
http://forums.spybot.info/forumdispl...?46-RootAlyzer

There is a first steps tutorial here.It has the removing threats found section at number 6:
http://www.safer-networking.org/supp...teps-tutorial/

There's a Frequently Asked Questions section here:
http://www.safer-networking.org/supp...ked-questions/
This page explains Usage Tracks:
http://www.safer-networking.org/faq/usage-tracks/
Some of what you are seeing in Quarantine is likely to be these,which helps explain the larger amount of things listed in Quarantine.

These are the How-tos:
http://www.safer-networking.org/support/how-tos/

Video Channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/SaferNetworking/feed

If you click on anything found during a scan,you should get a threat level number between 1 and 10 in the details pane on the lower left,and also it should have a danger level listed.If you click Show Details,it will open this forum and should show you info on it.If an item is a usage track,results will vary and might be a little confusing,so you can look at the category it is in,and if it says Usage Track,it is not a threat.If what was found is an actual threat,clicking View Details should open the page about the item in this section of the forum,which will give you details about it:
http://forums.spybot.info/forumdispl...Removal-Guides

If you run a spybot scan and you suspect something was a false positive,for example if one of the scan results seems to be a legitimate program,or one of your normal computer programs stops working,you can ask about it in the false positives forum.

I hope this helps a little.It's difficult to put things simply because with scan results,it takes a lot of looking and learning over time.