Best Ad-ware Program? 2

[JohnBates]

hi experts,

My PC has XP Pro with McAfee Security Center.

I want to be protected against ad-ware, malware so I'm looking for a good program. In earlier years I used Ad-Aware SE and liked it - it never caused a problem.

Now Ad-aware 2007 and 2008 are available. I've read that they are slow and sometimes cause various problems. I'm sure they are more complex in order to detect malware because adware/malware is more complex nowadays.

With XP Pro, using mostly Microsoft programs, what have you found to be the the best, or at least very good, ad-ware program?

Thanks for your opinions. John

 

[xit]

Microsoft itself has a good program in Windows Defender & it is free. Ad-aware is good also Spyware Terminator, again both are free. The only program I will spend money on is Counter-Spy by Sunbelt. In my opinion this program is better than most. There are many good adware sypware programs out there, usually takes more than one to keep all problems away.

xit

 

[2ffat]

In addition to what xit suggests, I also run Spybot. It's been much maligned lately (see thread760-1463111) but it still works.

I run a different anti-spyware program every day in addition to my McAfee.


James P. Cottingham
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[JohnBates]

Thanks for the feedback xit and 2ffat.

So it seems like the new 2007/2008 versions of Ad-aware are alright.

Yes I already run SpyBot.

In my opinion, the speed being slow is not a big deal. it would be if they ran continuously in the background but they are only ran on-demand and I trigger them late at night once per week or so.

I appreciate your time.

John Memphis TN USA

 

[SimonDavies]

In all honesty if you're surfing sites that could potentially infect your pc then you need to be running a sandbox environment instead. For any surfing that is likely to infect my machine I power up a linux VM (Ubuntu) and use that instead (also means that should the wife jump onto my workstation to use the browser I don't need to worry about any pron sites ).

For my normal everyday surfing I just rely on eset Nod32 and Defender, in all my years of surfing I have never had to worry about infection.

SimonD.

The real world is not about exam scores, it's about ability.

 

[wahnula]

...in all my years of surfing I have never had to worry about infection

Yes, but have you had to deal with the average family PC? Power users don't have to worry about spyware/malware (unless accidentally triggered by opening an email attachment ).

The average family PC, on the other hand, tends to be bloated with malware due to cursor downloads, smiley downloads, fake PC Security downloads, it's a slime pit out there.

Best results for these PCs is imaging to a spare drive with the clean install after repair, then recovering when the system returns for repair (which it will). I've a closetful of old 4-10GB HDDs that still work, barely. I put the friend's name and date of loading on it, and Ghost away.

One of my friends (my boss really) has a network of four PCs that I see at least once a year. When asked why he doesn't clean up his act, he says it's easier to "just take it to Tony and get it fixed". It's nice to be needed, and this is my hobby after all, so in this case I don't mind. It's when his brother-in-law calls me at 9:00 pm wanting me to come by and fix his PC that I get peeved and send them to the Geek Squad .

Sometimes you need to fire your customers...

But, to answer the OP, I agree that Sunbelt makes the best paid-for program. Those folks are passionate about their work.

My freebie suite includes, along with Windows Defender, Adaware and Spybot:

AVG A/S
A-Squared Free
Spyware Blaster (prophylactic)

I also set Firefox as the default browser on every machine I'm responsible for working on. Its lack of ActiveX saves a lot of headaches. I bury the shortcut to Internet Explorer, it's still there, just not as easy to find.


Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[JohnBates]

I am a power user. Over the years, I've had just 1 infection (a trojan) that I eventually removed. I take great care to prevent problems.

Simon says "In all honesty if you're surfing sites that could potentially infect your pc then you need to be running a sandbox environment instead". Naive. Do you really think porn sites are the only kind of sites that can infect your PC? As soon as you plug that cable from the wall into your computer, you are "swimming in a dirty pool".

Thanks xit - I'm going to give MS Defender a go. Hope it's compatible with the Firefox browser.

John

 

[BadBigBen]

I too, used to like Sunbelt's software (Kerio Firewall) until it did not like some of my software I had installed...

this is my setup as it is running now:

first line of defense, a hardware firewall (e.g. built into the DSL Router or a seperate linux box), second line of defense Comodo Firewall (with build in Registry change detection (it has a build in Malware scanner aswell, which detected my WINLOGON.EXE as a trojan and when it quarantined it, my fault, my PC would not boot)), AntiVir as AntiViral solution, and then on demand scanning with SpyBot (immunization and scanning), Ad-Aware, HiJackThis, and SpywareBlaster (prophylactic)...

I used to use ewido (and swore by it, as it saved my humble behind twice 3 to 5 yrs ago) until AVG bought it...

since then I've not been hit by any Malware at all...

hope this has been helpful...


Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."