Spybot S&D and Ad-Aware

[Inodoro Pereyra]

A few months ago, I was lucky ( ) enough to be attacked by about 1800 viruses at once, when I mistakenly opened an e-mail I was trying to delete.
At the time, I had the Norton Anti Virus installed, which did NOT detect any of them, did NOT stop them, and, once I scanned my computer, did also NOT recognize them, and, of course, did not disinfect them.
So I went to CompUSA, and bought an Internet Security Suite which proved to be an excellent tool every time I felt like crashing my computer, and a book: "Hacking Windows XP" by Steve Sinchak.
In that book he recommends these 2 anti virus softwares: Spybot S&D and Lavasoft Ad-Aware.
They're both very aggressive, they're both free, and they complement each other beautifully.
I ran Spybot first, and it detected, IIRC, something like 1680 viruses or so. It disinfected almost all of them, except 115 that I had to do manually. Then, after 2 weeks deleting those 115 by hand, i ran Ad-Aware, and it found and disinfected another 260.
Ever since, thanks to an immunization tool on Spybot, I'm completely virus free.

[Daninski]

Malwarebytes is a great program. I dumped Adaware for it and it's done an excellent job. If you ever have a virus/malware issue go to Trendmicro and do their FREE on line scan. I do it about once a month. No one single virus scan or malware scan gets everything IMO.

[Dark_Rider2k3]

On my laptop I run the following programs:

AdAware
Spybot: Search and Destroy
Spyware Blaster
MalwareBytes
Avast! Antivirus

I recommend all those FREE programs. They do a lot better then most "pay for" programs you can get.

This computer always run great, and as long as I do them once every week or 2, I usually never have any viruses/adware/spyware.

So yeah.. definitely use those!! You won't be disappointed.

[Flyer]

The new Adaware is a bit bloated...

[Mike Wakeham]

I use Spybot S&D and the Lavasoft adware and they are top notch so get a +1 from me.

Also +1 for Avast, seems to be the best FREE AV out there at the mo. Some people recomend AVG too, I've never used it but some say it can be a bit bloated.

I also use Comodo which is a FREE personal Firewall. Can be a bit of a PITA sometimes as it'll throw up warnings for everything if you try to run updates or download programs, but at least I know it's working and checking stuff.

Currently Virus free and have been for the last year using this set up

[onlytrueromeo]

For the slightly advanced user, hijackthis is also great. Novices can also use it, but you should post the log on a forum dedicated to the program so people can help you!

Never used antivirus, only had 1 virus in last 8years. I personally don't believe in anti virus software.

[mitmaks]

spybot and adaware are the best. I always use them. Week ago a computer at work got infected and I ran it in safe mode and installed spybot and ran it. Deleted spyware/trojans and computer runs great after that. Of course it wasn't my job (Im a painter) but I was able to do it so I did it.

[Custommx3]

IMO, each has its own ups and downs.

If I'm workigg on a PC and I suspect spyware...

I install spybot S&D and update it on a flash drive. I also load Hijackthis! on the USB as well. I boot into safemode, run Hijackthis! and remove anything I think could be a culprit. I then run spybot. That usually takes care of 99%. I then run Malwarebytes or adaware if I still suspect something.

If I can, I'd rather format then deal with spyware removal on an older PC. Its less time consuming, especially with a automated install disk. (Nlineos.com)

[Nd4SpdSe]

I totally agree!

There are time when Spyboy, Ad-Aware, Malwarebytes and HiJack this just isn't enough. Some are just that stubborn.