Anyone recommend good anti-spyware and anti-virus software?

[DebJ]

I was using Trend Micro but I can't get it to open on my computer anymore for some reason (I waited 2 hours...).
Guess it is time to fork out some dollars or I'm going to lose everything....starting to have some problems with speed and with Windows functioning oddly at times.
Thanks

[ghostsofgiants]

1. I use both Ad-aware and Spybot Search and Destroy

[KitchenWitch]

2. I use AVG antivirus

they have a free edition.

[sendero]

3. I'm a computer geek..

... and I don't believe in anti-virus software. It is more trouble than it is worth.

Take a few simple precautions and you will never get infected to begin with. (Note, I'm not talking about spyware which is different. You WILL get infected with spyware, but you can clean it up periodically with Ad-Aware and there is no big downside).

If you are on DSL or a cable-modem, you need a router-gateway device. They cost less than $50 and they will prevent 'bots on the net from finding your computer and installing crap on it.

You should already know not to open any email attachment that you are not absolutely sure is kosher. Just because it "appears" to come from a friend is not good enough, s/he might have an infection that is send you stuff.

Don't run any executable programs that didn't come from a trustworthy source.

I'm blasting on computers 24/7 since the dawn of the internet, I've never had a destructive virus infection, although I did get a nuisance infection once.

[CatholicEdHead]

4. I do the same policy but not everyone can do that

espically with family households. Not everyone surfs safely and many are taken into the latest "cool" thing which often opens the doors to everything.

[DebJ]

7. Yes my adult son has been the source of some problems from

time to time.

[sendero]

8. I agree..

... if you have kids its a whole different ballgame.

My kids do get infected, and basically every year or two I just "reimage" their computer - that is I save off their data files, wipe the disk and reinstall windoze.

I didn't ask the OP if s/he is the only user or not, my bad.

[DebJ]

6. Where would I get a router-gateway device? Are you saying

this would prevent some spyware from getting on my computer in the first place? Sounds good to me.

[sendero]

9. No...

... not spyware, but viruses, trojans, worms, that sort of thing YES. And remember, spyware is generally not destructive, that is it won't mess up your computer. It will just tie up resources sending data you don't want sent to places you don't want to send it :)

But spyware is easily managed with a program called Ad-Aware, which comes in a free personal version almost everyone should be using. That or Spyware Search and Destroy which is also a good program.

But spyware is fundamentally different from viruses/worms/trojans. If you are using DSL or cable modem and you don't have a router/gateway, you are a sitting duck. Hackers run "scanner" programs that just cycle through IP addresses looking for an unprotected computer. When they find one, they can easily install almost anything on your computer.

You can get one of these boxes online, I recommend the Linksys model which is easy to set up and use. Do a search on "linksys router gateway" or go to pricewatch.com and find it for the bottom dollar.....

[CatholicEdHead]

5. Windows Defender from Microsoft

is a good free anti-spyware.

You usually have to run 2 or 3 every so often as they tend to catch different types of spyware.

[RoyGBiv]

10. I beg to differ ...

To use the word of one reviewer, it's "abysmal," and this didn't come from someone who is generally anti-Microsoft.

A short list of the deficiencies:

1) It's a resource hog, and it's slow. Since it comes from MS, I probably don't even need to mention this since that's par-for-the-course, but it's notable here. Full system scans can take up to 3x as long as something like Spybot S&D, and since spyware scans tend to take awhile, this can be quite obnoxious. The conventional wisdom is that a longer scan means a deeper scan, but this is not the case.

2) It has poor detection schemes. Using six widely known keyloggers (iow, not obscure things that might easily be missed), PC Magazine found that Defender detected only one of them.

3) One might be tempted to suggest Defender misses some things on purpose. The default home page for IE in a fresh Windoze XP install is MSNBC. This page sets a tracking cookie that every major anti-spyware suite detects except, guess what, Defender.

4) It labels stuff as spyware that definitely is not spyware. It's been known to label necessary system files used by competitors' products as spyware and delete them, thus rendering that software non-functional. It will also do this to software packages it simply doesn't recognize as "valid" Windows software. (ZDNet review and personal experience.)

I could go on, but will simply end with my personal test. I ran Defender, Spybot S&D, and AdAware on a system I purposely infected with multiple kinds of spyware/adware. Spybot and AdAware found things the other didn't find. Neither had false-positives, unless one considers things like Weatherbug's adware component a false positive. (It is adware, and Spybot at least warns you that you might be disabling a program you want by removing it.) Defender didn't find a lot of things these two found, and it found nothing they didn't find.

Defender is, quite frankly, crap, imo.

[Ava]

11. avast

http://www.avast.com/

[TK421]

12. I'm not very computer-savvy, but it seems to me that the best ones are

programs you need to pay for...an excellent one is NOD32