# Solved: Deciding which anti-spyware program to install...



## thisisausername (Nov 30, 2008)

Note: Running Windows XP Home w/ Service Pack 3

I currently have a Spyware Doctor as my anti-spyware program and Symantic as my anti-virus program. Unfortunately I've had some bad experiences (MEMORY HOG!) with Spyware Doctor and I'm planning to uninstall it. I've also tried and uninstalled Ad-Aware as well.

So...What Anti-Virus Program should I replace it with?
I've heard some good things about SUPERANTISPYWARE and it's at the top of my list but I'm sure there are many others who recomend a different one. I've put up a poll so you can post your opinion about which one I should choose.

Also! I forgot to mention, I've looking for a program that's light on resorces but has decent detetion rates (85%+) A fast scanning process is nice but it isn't at the top of my list. Tech Support is unnessary to me because I can usually find answers to all my problems via FAQ. Finally the program needs to be a free version. All votes help me a lot and a comment saying why is even more helpful. Thanks!


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## vicks (Jan 31, 2005)

I personally use:
Spy Bot Search and Destroy
Lava Soft's ad-aware
Windows defender.
have Zone Alarm firewall and AVG 8.0 antivirus.
Vicks


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## thisisausername (Nov 30, 2008)

vicks said:


> I personally use:
> Spy Bot Search and Destroy
> Lava Soft's ad-aware
> Windows defender.
> ...


Wow that's a lot. Do you have one you specifically recommend for me?


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## vicks (Jan 31, 2005)

I think you will find that many people here use either the AVG 8.0 or Avast anti virus. Both are free.
I have never had a trojan, or virus or other malware infect my computer, altho I have helped friends clean up their machines then installed the programs I use, and their machines have stayed clean. You must be sure to keep everything updated on a regular schedule.
Vicks


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

Watching where you go on the web will protect you.
Get behind a router.
Have a hosts file.
A good firewall
A good Anti Virus
A good Anti Malware

Plus keep them all updated.

You watch what you do and you should never get anything to clean up. 
I could also say don't use chat programs.

I have these.
a-squared Anti-Malware - paid
Online Armor - paid
WinPatrol Plus - paid
Avast - free
SUPERAntiSpyware Professional - paid
Spybot Search & Destroy - free
Ad-Aware - free
Hostsman - free - uses 4 hosts files and with some sites I added I block 100,921 website.
Adblock Plus - for firefox. 
Don't use IE

Don't know about a program then check it out here at the forum or ask because there is to much bad software out there and bad things added to it that get you in trouble.

Check out these sites
http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

Then if you ever get something post about it because it may be false and you don't want to go deleting something when nothing is wrong.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware or SUPERAntiSpyware are my picks.


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## thewonder (Oct 23, 2007)

I run windows XP pro with the McAfee suite by default which is supplied by my cable company, it's not the best and can seriously slow my system down if it begins updating while I am on the computer. In addition I run TreatFire and SpywareBlaster free versions. That is the extent of any anti virus that could be considered active in any way although the SpywareBlaster is a bit of a stretch as it does not scan but disallows known threats from it's database. 
I also have SuperantiSpyware, Malwarebytes and HighjackThis free versions that I use to run extra scans with. 
While it has been some time since it's come up, probably do to new updates McAfee, SuperAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes have all at one time or another caught a threat independent of each other, that two of the three didn't catch.
It sounds like a living hell but in reality I have not had any slow downs or problems with them working together or with any other non security programs I have installed and OUR SURFING HABITS ARE PROBABLY A PERFECT DESCRIPTION OF WHAT NOT TO DO.
I did not start out with that much security hardware but I had a few problems over the last year and a half IE... ContraVirus and decided that the ability to have some of these on my desktop and ready to scan with versus the cost to memory, which was not all that bad, made sense.
I update what I can automatically and stay on top of the rest. Considering the age, lack of memory (less than 1GB and 20 GB with 6.33 GB free space) and surfing habits described above I can pretty much surf with immunity.
My point is there is no single free anti virus that will protect you at all times and probably no paid for anti virus will do the trick as the threats faced are changing day by day and these programs do not all share the same data base of threats.


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## thisisausername (Nov 30, 2008)

Wow. That's quite a story!  Thanks for the advice!


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## thisisausername (Nov 30, 2008)

JohnWill said:


> Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware or SUPERAntiSpyware are my picks.


Sounds good to me.


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## thisisausername (Nov 30, 2008)

hewee said:


> Watching where you go on the web will protect you.
> Get behind a router.
> Have a hosts file.
> A good firewall
> ...


Only if I had heard some of your advice earlier...I had AIM installed for a few years but then GMail included the feature in their chat and I had a heck of a time trying to uninstall it. But I guess I've learned from that and now I'm a pretty aware person when browsing the internet (firefox w/ WOT, Site Advisor, NoScript, etc.) As for Anti-Virus stuff, I'm not quite sure but I think I'll probably end up installing SuperAntispyware and have that running with HijackThis and what not. So anyway thanks for your tips!


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

thisisausername said:


> Only if I had heard some of your advice earlier...I had AIM installed for a few years but then GMail included the feature in their chat and I had a heck of a time trying to uninstall it. But I guess I've learned from that and now I'm a pretty aware person when browsing the internet (firefox w/ WOT, Site Advisor, NoScript, etc.) As for Anti-Virus stuff, I'm not quite sure but I think I'll probably end up installing SuperAntispyware and have that running with HijackThis and what not. So anyway thanks for your tips!


Your still want a good Anti-Virus program. I got Avast and it works great.
Your ISP may have free AV also like comcast does but I do not like or want there software. They have the free McAfee. Down side of there software is if you change ISP's then you can not use the software so have to uninstall it and find something else. So there are only free as long as your paying them to be your ISP.

I have never used a chat program or want to and your find places on the web that say not to because they can be unsafe, Lots of people use them but you got to watch out.


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## rattlesnake18 (Jan 1, 1970)

i would recommend the software that vicks is using. i use to have that on my old system that ran on Windows 2000 NT. i got a new pc with Windows Vista and made the mistake of installing Norton products(which are excellent) and PC Tools products (also excellent) but saw a dramatic change in performance because of how much the resources were used by their programs. even though i paid the price in system performance i feel better knowing that my pc is secure.


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## thisisausername (Nov 30, 2008)

hewee said:


> Your still want a good Anti-Virus program. I got Avast and it works great.
> Your ISP may have free AV also like comcast does but I do not like or want there software. They have the free McAfee. Down side of there software is if you change ISP's then you can not use the software so have to uninstall it and find something else. So there are only free as long as your paying them to be your ISP.
> 
> I have never used a chat program or want to and your find places on the web that say not to because they can be unsafe, Lots of people use them but you got to watch out.


I actually have Symantec Anti-Virus so I'm good. But thanks for the advice.


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

thisisausername said:


> I actually have Symantec Anti-Virus so I'm good. But thanks for the advice.


OK that is good to hear. You had said _"As for Anti-Virus stuff, I'm not quite sure but I think I'll probably end up installing SuperAntispyware "
_ so I was thinking you did not have a Anti-Virus.
You can also have more then one Anti-Virus but you only want one to be running all the time. Have the 2nd Anti-Virus that only runs when you say so and keep it updated also. This can get to be a paid now days because just installing any Anti-Virus it wants to take over and some are really hard to keep something from loading at startup.
WinPatrol can help you on that but still I had SpyCatcher years ago and almost all there software I had won from them and some I won 2 or 3 copies of there programs. http://www.tenebril.com/index.php But the SpyCatcher even if I had it so nothing would load at startup each time I update it things keep getting put back into startup so after each update I have to disable things again. But I stopped using it after the one version came out because way to many thing was false and lots of others had the same trouble. I had the GhostSurf that was a real pain with all the pop-ups asking you this or that on sites so you could says yes or no. But worse part was it ate up all my memory even if I just booted up and had not even got online because ever 15 seconds it did something and take away some memory and after about 15 min's it had used up all my memory. Now they cam out with another version right after I got the one I won and some others said they did not have that trouble I had. But in the end I took all there software off my computer. 
StickyNote was cool but I don't need to go making notes to myself and the other cool thing on sending the notes to other only works if they have it installed so that was uninstalled also.


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## thisisausername (Nov 30, 2008)

hewee said:


> OK that is good to hear. You had said _"As for Anti-Virus stuff, I'm not quite sure but I think I'll probably end up installing SuperAntispyware "
> _ so I was thinking you did not have a Anti-Virus.
> You can also have more then one Anti-Virus but you only want one to be running all the time. Have the 2nd Anti-Virus that only runs when you say so and keep it updated also. This can get to be a paid now days because just installing any Anti-Virus it wants to take over and some are really hard to keep something from loading at startup.
> WinPatrol can help you on that but still I had SpyCatcher years ago and almost all there software I had won from them and some I won 2 or 3 copies of there programs. http://www.tenebril.com/index.php But the SpyCatcher even if I had it so nothing would load at startup each time I update it things keep getting put back into startup so after each update I have to disable things again. But I stopped using it after the one version came out because way to many thing was false and lots of others had the same trouble. I had the GhostSurf that was a real pain with all the pop-ups asking you this or that on sites so you could says yes or no. But worse part was it ate up all my memory even if I just booted up and had not even got online because ever 15 seconds it did something and take away some memory and after about 15 min's it had used up all my memory. Now they cam out with another version right after I got the one I won and some others said they did not have that trouble I had. But in the end I took all there software off my computer.
> StickyNote was cool but I don't need to go making notes to myself and the other cool thing on sending the notes to other only works if they have it installed so that was uninstalled also.


Sorry I wasn't clear the first time round. But yes I'll think of a second Anti-Virus program like the ones you mentioned or possibly Avira AntiVir.


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

thisisausername said:


> Sorry I wasn't clear the first time round. But yes I'll think of a second Anti-Virus program like the ones you mentioned or possibly Avira AntiVir.


That is ok, I just want to make sure you was no mixing up anti-virus with anti-malware. 
I would stay away from the www.tenebril.com software.

On old PC with 98SE I had AVG that ran all the time and Free Edition BitDefender. It was very easy to use but after one version upgrade I made where I had to uninstall and install the newer version it stopped working. Support and post on it I made go no where. I did everything just like you should but darn if I found out what happen. Bet some place in the registry was the trouble. But it only ran when I wanted it to run and was a great 2nd AV. http://www.bitdefender.com/media/html/trialpay.html
You want the one on the left that takes you here.
http://www.bitdefender.com/site/Downloads/browseEvaluationVersion/1/42/ and not the one on the right that you got to buy other things to get the software for free but have do go tru the scam.


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## R-C (Dec 5, 2008)

since you specifically asked for antispyware programs the top 2 I currently use are Malwarbytes antimalware and superantispyware.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

Should have been a multiple choice poll....but anyway

Avast
Superantispyware
Spybot S&D ( may drop it in the near future)
Rootkit Revealer
a squared

also use Online Armor firewall and it's 'Program Guard'


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

Online Armor firewall and it's 'Program Guard' works great.
I have seen it act buggy after upgrades of some software where a program has the rights but you still get a pop-up alert even after giving it rights. But I then delete it from the list and that ads it back with the pop-up alert asking you again. Seem to be programs you have but the versions changed that does this but the fix if you get the same thing going on to just delete it and it gets put back.

But it's a great program and I am waiting for Online Armor 3.x to get out of beta.


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## Fidelista (Jan 17, 2004)

Superantispyware :up::up:: >f


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## thisisausername (Nov 30, 2008)

Yup I just installed it and its awesome!


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## win2kpro (Jul 19, 2005)

Superantispyware and Malwarebytes.


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## fred2028 (Aug 26, 2006)

I personally use AVG Free as my anti-virus and anti-spyware. Windows Firewall is my firewall and my router is also. Lastly, common sense goes a long way.


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## thisisausername (Nov 30, 2008)

Thanks for all the advice! I've made up my mind now.


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