I run virus scans several days a week, usually alternating between Malware Malbytes, Ad-Adware and now Avast, which I got to replace McAfee. How often do I need to engage the boot scan? Like, once a week maybe? And the temp files cleaner by Oldtimer, how often should it be run?
I’m a person who just uses the laptop for email,IMing and a number of forums, plus some online photoediting…I do my best to avoid dangerous sites with a little help from WebofTrust and LinkExtend. I’m rather strict about what I download (mostly pics from Photobucket or LJ that I’m sure aren’t infected with anything) and once they’re in my rotator, they’re gone.)…I’ve head viruses on my old laptop and do not want my new one screwy. NoScripts helps too, I love it and AdBlocker for keeping me from annoying popups and potential scareware. I will admit to having a couple Kingdoms of Camelot gamer scripts on my Greasemonkey, but I’ve made sure they’re safe as well.
The boot-time scan isn’t something to run on a specific time frame, its purpose is to deal with detection/malware problems that otherwise can’t be dealt with in normal mode, e.g. file in use or otherwise protected.
You can use the likes of CCleaner to remove temp files, etc. which doesn’t require a reboot after running it. Essentially the temp files cleaner by Oldtimer is another specialist tool used to remove stubborn files in temp locations. The frequency is much up to the user weekly, fortnightly, monthly.
With a resident antivirus with on-access scanners the need for on-demand scans is much depreciated. I just run a a scheduled avast Quick scan every week and a Full scan monthly.
Does Avast catch adware? AKA tracking cookies…McAfee, junk that it was, never did, hence my having Ad-Adware to fill in the gaps. (and Malwarebytes too, that was a extra layer when I had to live with NOrton thanks to Comcast. I never got Norton on here though, and got rid of McAfee after several times being told it’s junk.)
The main issue with cookies are third party cookies, those that aren’t for a site that you are viewing, they can track your browser usage and activity for that site other site (shopping, etc.). Depending on your browser (?) you should be able to block third party cookies, you can also set your browser to clear your cookies when you close it.
Since I use Firefox 4.0, I also have the cookie monster add-on and by default that only allows session cookies; they are only valid for the time you have your browser is running. The cookie monster add-on also allows you to accept cookies (normal time limited ones) for a site, like forum.avast.com as cookies are used so you don’t have to logon all the time, etc.
All of the above helps remove the need for you to manually manage cookies.
Personally I wouldn't give AdAware hard disk space, malware has advanced and it just doesn't appear to have kept pace, there are better options MBAM (which doesn't look for cookies either) and SAS, if you already have MBAM then you definitely don't need adaware.
I do think I’m going to pull it, just 'cause I’m getting fed up with the conflict with Firefox that causes it to crash unexpectedly. Others have reported it too, on other forums.
Oh, no it isn’t Firefox that crashes, Ad-adware would crash. And it also apparently affected the speed of the Malwarebytes scans. I just did a full scan and it finished in 27minutes, compared to the 90min to two hours it used to take when I had McAfee and Ad-Adware. Nice.
I run CCleaner and Advanced System Care daily and I highly recommend those. I also use regularly scheduled Avast quick and full-system scans. It doesn’t seem to be enough though (see other thread on this page).
Does anyone recommend any other scanner that I am not running? Ad-Aware, Malaware, etc?
CCleaner allows you to choose which cookies you want to keep. If you run it once a day, it will remove all tracking cookies with no need for an anti-malware application to bother with them.
To me, the boot scan is like a last resort to try and remove something that has managed to get in and it, or remnants of it, can’t be removed after the Operating System has loaded.
This is what we call over-kill. Running CCleaner is fine along with Avast and MBAM. Running an Avast Quick scan weekly and a Full scan monthly is more reasonable. Adaware is now obsolete and has been replaced by MBAM, so I would uninstall it and not give it the time of day. There have been many reported problems with ASC, and since it is owned by IOBit, which is a company that has done some shady business in the past, most have also uninstalled ASC as well; you do not need it with everything else you have listed above and it’s a memory hog.