Can I get your opinions?

[BobT]

I know the title is a loaded question.

I have been using Spybot S&D (free version) for quite a few years. One of the features I like about it is the immunization function. This Christmas I bought my daughter a netbook and I loaded Spybot onto her PC. She uses it at school quite a bit and the school networking administrator was helping her configure her netbook so she could access the internet through the school's wireless system. In the process he noticed that we were using Spybot and suggested to her that I should uninstall that software. I asked her why he said that and she didn't have an answer. What are your opinions of this software? It seems when I search online I get some rather mixed reviews.

Just so you know here is a list of other security software that I use.

Ad-Aware Free from Lavasoft. This software does include some real-time protection and I find it is less of a resource hog than the Windows Defender that I have installed so I disabled Defender.

AVG Free This is my virus protection software. I have it scheduled to run a full scan once a week.

Malwarebytes I'm using the free version so I have to manually initiate a scan periodically. I usually run a full scan once per month and that seems okay as it has never found anything yet.

Hijack This from Trend Micro. I run this once a month too just to check my registry for suspicious junk. Rare that it finds anything but it has turned up a couple things in the past and actually got me out of a situation once.

CCleaner I'm using the free version and run a scan and the registry cleaner once a month.

Knock on wood it has been rare that anything is ever found except tracking cookies so with that said, I figure I'm getting the success I need. Anything you all would do different?

[spearchucker]

I wouldn't use it either. I would recommend running the free Microsoft Security Essentials. It will catch anything that Spybot will. It is all you need. Run Malwarebytes manually once a week or when you think something is wrong and you will be good to go.

[LMITOUT]

I have both Malwarebytes and SpyBot. I can run a Malwarebytes scan and get nothing but then run SpyBot and get a list of junk.

When my PC starts to get sluggish I use CCleaner and SpyBot and that seems to do the trick.

[spearchucker]

A lot of the stuff that Spybot catches isn't really harmful though. Just because it catches more stuff doesn't mean that it is really helping more. Most are just tracking cookies and stuff like that.

I have never had good luck with the always running Spybot or Malwarebytes type programs. To many autoscan things running at once is not good. I just run a manual scan every once in a while. Make sure you run the "Full Scan" in Malwarebytes. Any current virus scanner like Microsoft Security Essentials, Avast, Avira, etc with catch the really bad stuff.

[LMITOUT]

I don't run them in auto or allow them to start up with Windows either.

[upnorth]

Malwarebytes does a better job of removing harmful apps etc than spybot. Like it was posted earlier just cuz it picks up a cookie doesn't make it better. Get a good Anti Virus app with a anti spyware feature. Another one that does a good job of picking up and removing some nasties is combo fix.

Everytime you install an AV or anti malware/spyware real time scanner you will slow things down. They look at every file and what it does and compares it against a definitions list. That all takes time and system resources.

I only run that stuff when I am suspicious of having something I don't want.

[MARINERMAGNUM]

I don't run any spyware on the recommendation of the IT at our ISP. He said if their servers didn't catch the junk that nothing would. I found what he said hard to believe,but in 15 years we've never had a virus or a crash on any of the puters thru the years.

I've loaded and ran a few of the free spyware sweepers and they found nothing so I un-installed them.

[pureinsanity]

Spybot is fine, I found spy bot finds things ad ware wont, ect ect ect.

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