Best anti-spyware

G

Guest

I periodically scan with Spybot and, now that I have Vista, with Windows
Defender. Should I be using another anti-spyware program?
 
R

Robert Firth

Go ahead and scan with another anti-spyware program, but Windows Defender
does an excellent job. I've tried scanning for spyware with defender and
others, but nothing has appear yet.

--
/* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* Robert Firth *
* Windows Vista x86 RTM *
* http://www.WinVistaInfo.org *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * */
 
M

Mr. Freeze

I have a brand new computer that came with Windows Vista Home Basic. I also
purchased Windows Live One Care "Which I am told from a tech. that comes
with Windows Defender built in". One thing I really don't understand is in
the two weeks that I have had this computer I keep scanning and scanning and
scanning and nothing comes up "Nothing at all, no Qaurantine's, no problems
reported, no spyware/addware etc....". I used to have Windows Xp Sp2 and
have all kinda spyware programs to check for spyware and there are sites
that I could go to and everytime would get spyware. Here's the thing I can
go to those sites now and scan my computer afterward's with Live One Care
and still nothing shows up. I haven't installed any of my other spyware
protection programs because I wanted to give Live One Care a chance. I have
Spycatcher/F-secure/Norton and many others but I am kinda concerned untill
they are announced as being 100% comptible to run them because I don't want
to run anything that is going to misread a program that might be important.

I think this either means Vista and Live One care are preventing the spyware
and addware from being installed and just not telling me that it is blocking
it or my computer is infested with the stuff.

Could it be that a lot of the addware stuff just isn't Vista compatible yet?
Ideas anyone?
 
G

Guest

Norton Internet Security 2007 is now compatible. I'm running under Vista
Ultimate and it works great.

Dan
Sudbury, Canada
 
C

cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)

On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 10:18:30 -0500, "Mr. Freeze"
I have a brand new computer that came with Windows Vista Home Basic. I also
purchased Windows Live One Care "Which I am told from a tech. that comes
with Windows Defender built in".

Vista has Defender built in; dunno if One Care enhances it. One Care
brings the av to the party, tho.
I keep scanning and scanning and scanning and nothing comes up
"Nothing at all, no Qaurantine's, no problems reported

Could be good news. But I always wonder if it's worth using the same
tool that was supposed to block things on entry, to look and see if
these things have got into the same system.

I suspect you have the same misgivings and want to install and use
additional non-resident tools for on-denmand scanning?
I haven't installed any of my other spyware protection programs because
I wanted to give Live One Care a chance. I have Spycatcher/F-secure/Norton
and many others but I am kinda concerned untill they are announced as
being 100% comptible to run them because I don't want to run anything
that is going to misread a program that might be important.

You know the rules; never install more than one resident tool type at
a time - i.e. use only one resident av, one resident firewall, 0 or 1
resident antispyware, etc. So what you want to do is add tools that
are either on-denmad only, or can be constrained to work as on-demand
tools only. I would flee screaming from Norton anything (much as I
loved Peter Norton in the DOS days, those days are gone, and Peter
left the playing field ages ago anyway).
I think this either means Vista and Live One care are preventing the spyware
and addware from being installed and just not telling me that it is blocking
it or my computer is infested with the stuff.
Could it be that a lot of the addware stuff just isn't Vista compatible yet?

:)

I use AdAware, Spybot scanners and Spyware Blaster as "vaccinator" in
Vista32. I could use A Squared and AVG Antispyware (ex-Ewido) as
well; these two may be resident in the sense that they update
themselves, but require the paid versions to be active as resident
scanners (which you don't want right now).

Of these, AVG may be the best. A Squared's good, too, though a bit
less stable perhaps, and more prone to false-positives. Both tend to
find things that the first two missed.

On pure on-demand av, I'd suggest Trend SysClean (download afresh when
you need to use it, both engine and sigs) and Bit Defender, if they
still offer their free on-demand-only scanner. Like AVG AS, that will
update itself from a SysTray icon, but not scan on access.

If you're OK with CLI scanners, then you can build a tier of on-demand
CLI scanners that are properly serialized and parameterized via a
batch file. You'd then integrate that into the UI in various ways
(rt-click action for directories and drives, SendTo target for
arbitrary files, overnight Task to scan subtree of incoming material,
etc.) to more easily wield as an on-demand "Fist of Death [TM]"

Suitable Win32 (as opposed to DOS) CLI av can be found, and may
include those from McAfee, Sophos, F-Prot, Kaspersky, etc. The update
process for these will be severely manual ;-)


--------------- ---- --- -- - - - -
Saws are too hard to use.
Be easier to use!
 
M

Mr. Freeze

Yes, I know only one firewall and one antivirus at a time, I was only
stating that I have those programs. I still haven't found the first
addware/spyware/malware, nothing using vista and am now using Windows Live
One Care, I guess that's a good thing. Also I know IE7 has a protected mode,
I'm just surprised that I'm not getting any kinda report that that spyware
etc..... has been blocked or qaurantened. You'd think I would be able to
find that information somewhere on this computer with Vista/LiveOneCare if
it was doing the job. It just leaves you with a vulnerable feeling not being
able to find out what's been blocked or if it's working when you go to some
sites you know will give you addware and don't even get any kinda report or
warning saying that's it's been blocked etc.....

cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user) said:
On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 10:18:30 -0500, "Mr. Freeze"
I have a brand new computer that came with Windows Vista Home Basic. I
also
purchased Windows Live One Care "Which I am told from a tech. that comes
with Windows Defender built in".

Vista has Defender built in; dunno if One Care enhances it. One Care
brings the av to the party, tho.
I keep scanning and scanning and scanning and nothing comes up
"Nothing at all, no Qaurantine's, no problems reported

Could be good news. But I always wonder if it's worth using the same
tool that was supposed to block things on entry, to look and see if
these things have got into the same system.

I suspect you have the same misgivings and want to install and use
additional non-resident tools for on-denmand scanning?
I haven't installed any of my other spyware protection programs because
I wanted to give Live One Care a chance. I have Spycatcher/F-secure/Norton
and many others but I am kinda concerned untill they are announced as
being 100% comptible to run them because I don't want to run anything
that is going to misread a program that might be important.

You know the rules; never install more than one resident tool type at
a time - i.e. use only one resident av, one resident firewall, 0 or 1
resident antispyware, etc. So what you want to do is add tools that
are either on-denmad only, or can be constrained to work as on-demand
tools only. I would flee screaming from Norton anything (much as I
loved Peter Norton in the DOS days, those days are gone, and Peter
left the playing field ages ago anyway).
I think this either means Vista and Live One care are preventing the
spyware
and addware from being installed and just not telling me that it is
blocking
it or my computer is infested with the stuff.
Could it be that a lot of the addware stuff just isn't Vista compatible
yet?

:)

I use AdAware, Spybot scanners and Spyware Blaster as "vaccinator" in
Vista32. I could use A Squared and AVG Antispyware (ex-Ewido) as
well; these two may be resident in the sense that they update
themselves, but require the paid versions to be active as resident
scanners (which you don't want right now).

Of these, AVG may be the best. A Squared's good, too, though a bit
less stable perhaps, and more prone to false-positives. Both tend to
find things that the first two missed.

On pure on-demand av, I'd suggest Trend SysClean (download afresh when
you need to use it, both engine and sigs) and Bit Defender, if they
still offer their free on-demand-only scanner. Like AVG AS, that will
update itself from a SysTray icon, but not scan on access.

If you're OK with CLI scanners, then you can build a tier of on-demand
CLI scanners that are properly serialized and parameterized via a
batch file. You'd then integrate that into the UI in various ways
(rt-click action for directories and drives, SendTo target for
arbitrary files, overnight Task to scan subtree of incoming material,
etc.) to more easily wield as an on-demand "Fist of Death [TM]"

Suitable Win32 (as opposed to DOS) CLI av can be found, and may
include those from McAfee, Sophos, F-Prot, Kaspersky, etc. The update
process for these will be severely manual ;-)


--------------- ---- --- -- - - - -
Saws are too hard to use.
Be easier to use!
--------------- ---- --- -- - - - -
 
H

hermes

Mr. Freeze said:
Yes, I know only one firewall and one antivirus at a time, I was only
stating that I have those programs. I still haven't found the first
addware/spyware/malware, nothing using vista and am now using Windows
Live One Care, I guess that's a good thing. Also I know IE7 has a
protected mode, I'm just surprised that I'm not getting any kinda report
that that spyware etc..... has been blocked or qaurantened. You'd think
I would be able to find that information somewhere on this computer with
Vista/LiveOneCare if it was doing the job. It just leaves you with a
vulnerable feeling not being able to find out what's been blocked or if
it's working when you go to some sites you know will give you addware
and don't even get any kinda report or warning saying that's it's been
blocked etc.....

cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user) said:
On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 10:18:30 -0500, "Mr. Freeze"
I have a brand new computer that came with Windows Vista Home Basic.
I also
purchased Windows Live One Care "Which I am told from a tech. that comes
with Windows Defender built in".

Vista has Defender built in; dunno if One Care enhances it. One Care
brings the av to the party, tho.
I keep scanning and scanning and scanning and nothing comes up
"Nothing at all, no Qaurantine's, no problems reported

Could be good news. But I always wonder if it's worth using the same
tool that was supposed to block things on entry, to look and see if
these things have got into the same system.

I suspect you have the same misgivings and want to install and use
additional non-resident tools for on-denmand scanning?
I haven't installed any of my other spyware protection programs because
I wanted to give Live One Care a chance. I have
Spycatcher/F-secure/Norton
and many others but I am kinda concerned untill they are announced as
being 100% comptible to run them because I don't want to run anything
that is going to misread a program that might be important.

You know the rules; never install more than one resident tool type at
a time - i.e. use only one resident av, one resident firewall, 0 or 1
resident antispyware, etc. So what you want to do is add tools that
are either on-denmad only, or can be constrained to work as on-demand
tools only. I would flee screaming from Norton anything (much as I
loved Peter Norton in the DOS days, those days are gone, and Peter
left the playing field ages ago anyway).
I think this either means Vista and Live One care are preventing the
spyware
and addware from being installed and just not telling me that it is
blocking
it or my computer is infested with the stuff.
Could it be that a lot of the addware stuff just isn't Vista
compatible yet?

:)

I use AdAware, Spybot scanners and Spyware Blaster as "vaccinator" in
Vista32. I could use A Squared and AVG Antispyware (ex-Ewido) as
well; these two may be resident in the sense that they update
themselves, but require the paid versions to be active as resident
scanners (which you don't want right now).

Of these, AVG may be the best. A Squared's good, too, though a bit
less stable perhaps, and more prone to false-positives. Both tend to
find things that the first two missed.

On pure on-demand av, I'd suggest Trend SysClean (download afresh when
you need to use it, both engine and sigs) and Bit Defender, if they
still offer their free on-demand-only scanner. Like AVG AS, that will
update itself from a SysTray icon, but not scan on access.

If you're OK with CLI scanners, then you can build a tier of on-demand
CLI scanners that are properly serialized and parameterized via a
batch file. You'd then integrate that into the UI in various ways
(rt-click action for directories and drives, SendTo target for
arbitrary files, overnight Task to scan subtree of incoming material,
etc.) to more easily wield as an on-demand "Fist of Death [TM]"

Suitable Win32 (as opposed to DOS) CLI av can be found, and may
include those from McAfee, Sophos, F-Prot, Kaspersky, etc. The update
process for these will be severely manual ;-)


--------------- ---- --- -- - - - -
Saws are too hard to use.
Be easier to use!
--------------- ---- --- -- - - - -

From - Sat

from what I have tried so far under Vista, all my old anti-spyware
programs are compatible. Just AVG anti-spyware needs to be run under XP
compatibility mode, otherwise it wouldn't start. As resident you might
also wanna try Spyware Terminator that works perfectly well in Vista.
You might then want to disable UAC, cause Spyware Terminator integrates
a HIPS that might conflict with it, although I haven't noticed it. Now
that MS thing: Windows Defender. If your system is well protected (with
Spyware Blaster or Spybot S&D for instance) there's no reason why
Defender would detect anything. It deliberately ignores cookies anyway,
and MS makes no secret about that. I just would have wished that
Defender had not lost many of the nice feaures formerly integrated into
MS anti-spy beta. I've also noticed that when I modify the host file
with Spybot S&D (adding a list of bad sites), Defender detects
absolutely nothing (lol), when other third party security products do.
BTW, OneCare brings Defender to XP, if defender is not already
installed, and obviously doesn't have to in Vista: it doesn't either
enhance it. If you're looking for a good resident program, with reports
and everything (including frequent updates), I'd definitely advise AVG
anti-spyware. It's got really many nice features. The custom scan
interface is great. The scan parameters are exhaustive.Well, that's it
for now.
 
P

Puppy Breath

I've just been using Defender, which is in Vista already and free. I never
get any malware.


Mr. Freeze said:
Yes, I know only one firewall and one antivirus at a time, I was only
stating that I have those programs. I still haven't found the first
addware/spyware/malware, nothing using vista and am now using Windows Live
One Care, I guess that's a good thing. Also I know IE7 has a protected
mode, I'm just surprised that I'm not getting any kinda report that that
spyware etc..... has been blocked or qaurantened. You'd think I would be
able to find that information somewhere on this computer with
Vista/LiveOneCare if it was doing the job. It just leaves you with a
vulnerable feeling not being able to find out what's been blocked or if
it's working when you go to some sites you know will give you addware and
don't even get any kinda report or warning saying that's it's been blocked
etc.....

cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user) said:
On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 10:18:30 -0500, "Mr. Freeze"
I have a brand new computer that came with Windows Vista Home Basic. I
also
purchased Windows Live One Care "Which I am told from a tech. that comes
with Windows Defender built in".

Vista has Defender built in; dunno if One Care enhances it. One Care
brings the av to the party, tho.
I keep scanning and scanning and scanning and nothing comes up
"Nothing at all, no Qaurantine's, no problems reported

Could be good news. But I always wonder if it's worth using the same
tool that was supposed to block things on entry, to look and see if
these things have got into the same system.

I suspect you have the same misgivings and want to install and use
additional non-resident tools for on-denmand scanning?
I haven't installed any of my other spyware protection programs because
I wanted to give Live One Care a chance. I have
Spycatcher/F-secure/Norton
and many others but I am kinda concerned untill they are announced as
being 100% comptible to run them because I don't want to run anything
that is going to misread a program that might be important.

You know the rules; never install more than one resident tool type at
a time - i.e. use only one resident av, one resident firewall, 0 or 1
resident antispyware, etc. So what you want to do is add tools that
are either on-denmad only, or can be constrained to work as on-demand
tools only. I would flee screaming from Norton anything (much as I
loved Peter Norton in the DOS days, those days are gone, and Peter
left the playing field ages ago anyway).
I think this either means Vista and Live One care are preventing the
spyware
and addware from being installed and just not telling me that it is
blocking
it or my computer is infested with the stuff.
Could it be that a lot of the addware stuff just isn't Vista compatible
yet?

:)

I use AdAware, Spybot scanners and Spyware Blaster as "vaccinator" in
Vista32. I could use A Squared and AVG Antispyware (ex-Ewido) as
well; these two may be resident in the sense that they update
themselves, but require the paid versions to be active as resident
scanners (which you don't want right now).

Of these, AVG may be the best. A Squared's good, too, though a bit
less stable perhaps, and more prone to false-positives. Both tend to
find things that the first two missed.

On pure on-demand av, I'd suggest Trend SysClean (download afresh when
you need to use it, both engine and sigs) and Bit Defender, if they
still offer their free on-demand-only scanner. Like AVG AS, that will
update itself from a SysTray icon, but not scan on access.

If you're OK with CLI scanners, then you can build a tier of on-demand
CLI scanners that are properly serialized and parameterized via a
batch file. You'd then integrate that into the UI in various ways
(rt-click action for directories and drives, SendTo target for
arbitrary files, overnight Task to scan subtree of incoming material,
etc.) to more easily wield as an on-demand "Fist of Death [TM]"

Suitable Win32 (as opposed to DOS) CLI av can be found, and may
include those from McAfee, Sophos, F-Prot, Kaspersky, etc. The update
process for these will be severely manual ;-)


--------------- ---- --- -- - - - -
Saws are too hard to use.
Be easier to use!
--------------- ---- --- -- - - - -
 

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