Keep yourself protected

h57xiucj2z946q

My recomendations

Anti-Virus:
ESET NOD32

http://www.eset.com/products/compare-NOD32-vs-competition.php
http://www.eset.com/products/compare.php
http://www.eset.com/products/compare_heuristic_detection.php

I find this a light non cpu hogging get to the point ruthless antivirus. STAY AWAY from bloatware like synmantec/norton, mcafee etc.. they require so much hdd space, ram and ride the cpu. and yet they miss so much new threats. Norton only gives auto-updates once a week, while NOD32 updates auto several times a day.

Firewall:
Zonealarm Pro
You must already know this

However it does require a bit of technical knowledge, so if you need a lightweight firewall with damn all configuration and still very effective, get Sygate Personal Firewall. It might be hard to find a copy of this but if you do, your lucky. as Sygate was took over by Synmantec. You dont need norton Personal Firewall, its a joke.

Anti-Spyware:
Im afraid the free ones just dont compare here
Spy Sweeper
Spyware Doctor
Much of a much-ness here. both excellent. Cleans up crap that anti-virus dont. antivirus like NOD32 will delete malicious spyware executables, however these will clean up the mess left after like fixing internet explorer homepage, tool bars etc.

If you need a free alternative Microsoft actually have a surprisingly ok solution called Windows Defender, they are using the GIANT antispyware engine.
Another is Ad-aware. I think the pro version is free now, however its not as good as windows defender.

Ruu_Old

Spybot Search and Destroy+AVG Anti-spyware work very well together for spyware/malware.
I have been using Comodo Firewall for a while because I hated every other one since Sygate was swallowed up. Works great.

Cabaal

I'd have to disagree with your remarks regarding free anti-spyware programs not comparing to pay one's, free one's are fine if not better, especially if you use the likes of Spybot and Adaware.

h57xiucj2z946q

Cabaal wrote:

I'd have to disagree with your remarks regarding free anti-spyware programs not comparing to pay one's, free one's are fine if not better, especially if you use the likes of Spybot and Adaware.

When cleaning out infected pc's i get more detections using spyware doctor.

ad-aware was pretty ok also but not as good and spy bot search and destroy still left the system pretty unstable. These free antispyware are usually only good at detecting known threats and never really find new or packed/encrypted/modified threats. They rely on known definitions, that why there free.

SouperComputer

IME the only Antispyware\Malware package worth paying for is AVG', formerly Ewido.. Of the professional ones it is by far the most comprehensive. No harm in using the free ones in conjunction with it though.

spy bot search and destroy still left the system pretty unstable.

Highly unlikely, in the process of malware\removal it may have caused issues, but those issues are due ot the presence of the malicaious code, rather than the application used to remove them. TBH its a bit like saying "I had Norton, I replaced it with NOD32 and it killed my computer" when in reality NOD32 has put infected files into quarantine that norton missed, resulting in a non-booting or unstable system.

NOD32 is the best professional AV alright have to agree there.

h57xiucj2z946q

what im saying is that spy-boy search and destroy didnt remove all infections while spyware doctor did. i said "STILL left" not saying it put the system unstable.

Cabaal

Ruth Sweet Toffee wrote:

what im saying is that spy-boy search and destroy didnt remove all infections while spyware doctor did. i said "STILL left" not saying it put the system unstable.

They can all be much of a muchness to be honest, I've seen stuff being removed by Adaware that Spybot didn't get, stuff being removed by Spybot that Adware didn't get, stuff being removed by Windows defender that the other two didn't get and visa versa.

Nothing gets 100% of items when it comes to spyware etc

h57xiucj2z946q

Source: http://ssupdater.com/modules/Forums/index.php?showtopic=995

Here is the one you (and us) have been waiting for, the first REAL Anti-Spyware test. This test was done to push the limits of all the Anti-Spyware programs that we currently offer to you. This test was difficult for all the Anti-Spyware programs since only severe and highly ranked spywares were used. The main reason for using difficult to remove spyware is that any program can remove tracking cookies or “Bad Sites”, but not all of them are equal in removing or catching difficult to remove spyware.

The tests were conducted using Windows XP Professinal SP2, emulated in a VMware engine. Our sample list contains 22,847 spywares, in many types such as:

Adwares
BHO's (browser helper object)
Browser Hijackers
Dialers
Downloaders 
Droopers
Exploits
Flooders
Keyloggers
Remote Administration Tools
Trackware
Rootkits
Trojans and Trojan based spywares
System Monitors
And more...

No tracking cookies or any of the Low rated spywares were used.

All programs tested had the latest updates and they were tested using their full scanning capabilities.

The Results
(Anti-Spyware Name / Detection Rate)

1)Sunbelt CounterSpy 2.1.0.917/ 81.13%
2)Spyware Doctor 4.0.0.2621 / 77.58%
3)Spy Sweeper 5.3.1.2344/ 75.89%
4)Ashampoo AntiSpyware 1.50 / 69.45%
5)Microsoft Windows Defender 1.1.1593.0/ 66.34%
6)Trend Micro Anti-Spyware 3.5.1041/ 65.91%
7)Zero Spyware 3.4/ 61.36%
8)Spy Emergency 3.0.315/ 60.73%
9)SUPER AntiSpyware Professional 3.5.0.1016/ 59.96
10)ParetoLogic Anti-Spyware 5.0.224/ 59.69%
11)Ad-Aware SE Professional 1.06/ 59.27%
12)Spyware Terminator 1.8.0.925/ 26.82%
13)Spybot - Search & Destroy 1.4/ 23.41%

Cake Fiend

Prevention is better than cure. If you really want to keep yourself protected, then take simple precautions such as not running your OS as an administrative user, keeping said OS patched, using a browser with sensible activex, javascript, etc settings (same with mail clients, which are turning into full-fledged web browsers these days), and keeping an eye out for new vulnerabilities in all of the above software.

If you follow these steps, along with running a firewall, you (hopefully) should never need to rely on anti-virus or anti-spyware software to clean up.