Are there any good new anti-spyware/anti-malware programs I should know about?

General Topics
1

I’m always trying to keep up with the latest and greatest anti-spyware and anti-malware programs. I use Avast as my anti-virus program and for my main anti-spyware/anti-malware programs I use:

Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware
Spybot - Search & Destroy
SpywareBlaster
SUPERAntiSpyware

I also sometimes use:

Ad-Aware
a-squared
RogueRemover

Are there any other good programs I should know about? I figure the more the better!

Thanks!

2

You can most certainly get too much of a good thing and become a slave to security applications, serving them rather than them serving you.

Whilst the top group are fine, I would tend to stick with two MBAM and SAS unless you are after the resident functionality of S&D. SpywareBlaster isn’t an anti-spyware but a passive immunisation device.

The sometimes group, I would remove completely as adaware IMHO is a waste of hard disk space and a-squared not far behind. RogueRemover is a specific tool that to all intents and purposed MBAM covers that area well enough.

All the anti-virus and or anti-spyware tools should be secondary to pre-emptive measures, using a more secure browser, firefox with the noscript add-on, reduces the possibility. Running from either a limited user account or running internet facing applications (email, browsers, etc) under something like dropmyrights really cramps the style of malware.

Then you have exercising a high degree of common sense and practicing safe hex.

Then you have your security applications, not forgetting your firewall.

Then you have your back-up and recovery strategy in case even with all of the above, the dark and dirty stuff still hits the fan you have a plan and a fall-back.

3

Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware: good on-demand.
Spybot - Search & Destroy: outdated… few updates, lack of detection.
SpywareBlaster: only for immunization.
SUPERAntiSpyware: good on-demand.
Ad-Aware: not effective as it was years ago.
a-squared: bad experience with false positives.
RogueRemover: not being updated anymore. Use MBAM.

Like David said, a firewall will be good, at least, use Windows one :wink:

4

Are there any other good ones that I should have?

5

Personally i don’t use anything else than avast!.

6

I don’t think you need more…

7

There are exceptions to every rule, I’m sure you are well covered in other respects, pro-active measures and have a robust recovery strategy. I also don’t think that you would advice this (only avast) for your average user, without them taking a number of other steps to ensure they are protected.