Windows XP adaware/spybot - are they the same?

[ngalbrai]

should I use both (currently use spybot on techie friends recommendation), is one better than the other?

I also have NAV running with auto liveupdates and do full scan every couple of weeks. Also have a firewall in my broadband router, is this sufficient protection? I don't open dubious spam e-mails but am I vulnerable using hotmail?

 

[floppybootstomp]

No, they're not the same, although they both purport to do the same job.

One will usually catch what the other has missed.

At the moment AdAware is doing a much better job than Spybot, there seems to be an update every other day lately whereas Spybot hasn't been updated since March.

However, expect a new version of Spybot to be released very shortly. In fact I do believe if you search around you can already download a beta version that is supposed to be very very close to what the final version will be.

Both, imo, are essentials.

 

[muckshifter]

... and neither program are a substitute for Norton.

You’re vulnerable just connecting to the Net these days, so insure all "protection" is up-to-date, and that includes your OS.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Here we are, Spybot V1.3, final: Spybot 1.3

 

[Greenking]

A few weeks ago i installed Spyware Blaster and since then, both spybot and adaware have detected no spyware It seems to do as it says it does, stops it from getting to you in the first place

Its free and can be downloaded from http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

 

[ngalbrai]

Will investigate that, downloaded adaware last night. Does spywareblaster offer protection if you use opera it says it does for mozilla/firefox and explorer?

 

[Greenking]

Found this on the Spyware Blaster forum, ngalbrai, hope it helps:

"SpywareBlaster is certainly most useful when used with Internet Explorer v6, however it does have some value when the primary browser is something other than IE6.

The SpywareBlaster cookie protections only work for IE6. As for the primary protection, that being the "killing" of known spyware related ActiveX controls, this is not actually done within IE but is made through global settings stored in the Windows registry.

ActiveX controls can be run by means other than calls from IE, though IE is clearly the most ActiveX integrated application. If you have any of the SB protected ActiveX controls on your system, or if these get called (to be either downloaded or executed) through any other means than IE, they will still be killed by the protections from SpywareBlaster.

Using SpywareBlaster has almost no downside. It doesn't take system resources because it doesn't run in the background. It doesn't seem to conflict with any Windows applications. It takes very little disk space and updating it is at most a two-minute job, once every week or two. Yes, it is best with IE6, but it is still of some value with any other browser running on your system."

So, what it seems to be saying is that Opera is not directly supported, but having SB certainly won't do any harm, and could help with ActiveX controls. That is a fairly old post though, and SB has since been updated. It definitely now supports Mozilla, but not Opera as far as I am aware.

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=16799&highlight=Opera+browser