[schnaz]

Hi all,
A few weeks ago I tied to download a program called frutiloops from a Russian site. And that was the last thing my computer was able to try to do until I took it to the shop where the nice man got it working again. As he handed it back to me he said that he had removed a bunch of spyware, adware, etc.Well this sad episode had made me mad and more security conscious. I've now got Ad-Aware Personal and use it regularly. A friend told me to use it but he added that I should not put on a bunch more programs of this type because they would "fight each other" . This goes contrary to the advise I see here where it seems to me that Spyware Blaster,Spybot S&D, as well as Ad-Aware are recommended.Any and All recommendations will be appreciated.
john

Few minds wear out; more rust out.
--Christian Nestell Bovee




















futt

 

[Byteman]

Hi, Half the world is using that combination plus...at least the people that stop here at Security do, and that should be about half the computer users in the world by last count. Some need more, but rarely is anyone without at least those apps safe at all. Windows Updates help to patch the holes in things like Internet Explorer, Media Player...and other programs like firewalls help, if you don't have Windows Xp SP2....it is advised to use one or the other when you have XP. Not advisable to run two antivirus programs actively, but you can have two installed as long as you have one kept from active background scannin, or kept from starting up when Windows does/computer does.
What happens quite frequently with protective parts of antispyware programs....is that people do not realize they have to allow or block things intelligently, so as to allow good changes to take place when fixing things. We see this with SpyBot's TeaTimer, a feature that is not set active by default, you have to enable it, it does block changes. As long as you realize just what the programs are doing, such as SpyBot AND Spywareblaster that you have to also update the protections for, and run the protection enabling part after updating, things usually go OK no matter how many antispyware apps you use.
I use one that many others do, called IE_SpyAd, this blocks what bad sites do to you, not you from using any sites...here is a preview of it, it is simple to use, install once and update it when a new build comes out:

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ehowes/www/target-policy.htm

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ehowes/www/resource.htm#IESPYAD

I would say that last would make a good addition to what you have.

 

[schnaz]

Thanks Byteman, I'll get busy and download a few more. john