Spyware

[Nigel H-J]

Deciding on which spyware to use, either a commercial product or Windows Defender for XP.

Has anyone any knowledge of the Defender Programme and whether it might be just as effective. The reason for asking is that some time ago I downloaded Spybot but it played havoc with my computer for reasons unknown.

Any advice appreciated.

Regards Nigel.

[speedbird591]

Hi Nigel. Windows Defender is good in that it is very low maintenance. It updates and scans without you having to do anything. On the other hand it's not very good at detecting spyware The thing about anti-spyware progs is that none of them are good at detecting everything so you really need to run two or three to get the best protection. I do run Defender because it is easy.

Things to consider when choosing anti-spyware is that there are hundreds of rogue programs that will do an online scan and find something that only a subscription to their product will delete, so don't go along that path. Only choose from the half-dozen most popular and I'll list some of these in a minute.

Probably the best single defence against malware is Spyware Blaster, which acts like a firewall and stops any malware on it's database from downloading in the first place. The downside is that you have to update the definitions manually every few days and then enable the new ones. http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

I also run AVG anti-spyware (along with my AVG AV) http://free.grisoft.com/doc/download-fr ... e/us/frt/0 and also a-squared free http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/ which is good at detecting Trojans. So I'm running Spyware Blaster, AVG Anti-Spyware, a-squared and Windows Defender and I never get any malware (even on cyberbrat's laptop ). So it's a good start.

Others which are popular are Spybot, Ad-aware, SuperAntiSpyware, Spyware Terminator and I'm sure others will name more. Some of the free versions will have regular pop-ups and splashscreens trying to get you to upgrade which can be annoying. The ones I use don't.

If you want to read more about it go to the forum at PC Advisor Helproom and type anti-spyware in the search box and see what advice the gurus give.
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/forums/index ... &forumid=1

Ian

EDIT: Regarding your problem with Spybot, it may have caused a problem because you had enabled the real-time protection. None of the programs I use have real time protection so they are inert until you activate a scan. Even spyware blaster doesn't do anything until something nasty tickles it's definition database. So none of them will interfere with either your PC or each other

[Garry Russell]

I use AVG, Spybot and Zone Alarm and never had any problem with them.

Every now and then I run AdAware

Not had a prob for a loing time

Garry

[Nigel H-J]

Wow, many thanks Ian and Garry, had never thought about running multiple programmes for spyware, thought that only one was enough!! :roll:

Will browse through tomorrow and download.


Again, very many thanks.

Regards Nigel.

[speedbird591]

Another thing to consider, Nigel, which you may or may not know. You should have a firewall - and probably have. Garry mentions Zone Alarm which is an excellent firewall and I use it on my XP machine. Your router will have a hardware firewall built in and the Windows XP firewall will protect against incoming but not against outgoing, which is why you need another one. There may be a Trojan calling home! But Vista has a two-way firewall which is very good and I don't use another one on either of our Vista laptops. The latest IE - version 7 also has an anti-phishing site protection. If you accidentally go to a known phishing site it will warn you so that's handy as well.

But the best protection of all is that of avoidance. If you avoid visiting peer-to-peer or porn websites and don't download dubious stuff or open unexpected email attachments you are highly unlikely to be exposed to any of this stuff anyway.

Ian

[bobdawkins]

Try NOD 32 by Eset updates every day don't even know its running but this one is payware but well worth the money

[Nigel H-J]

Thanks Ian, I already have Zone Alarm installed and running. As far as porn sites go don't touch them, the wife would demonstrate her carvery skills on a certain part of my anatomy if I did!!

many thanks for that heads up Bob.

Nigel.