Sorry, yes I should have mentioned STs problems with the Crawler Toolbar bad behaviour - I did recommend not to install that option of ST, AFAIK its OK without it, but I should have emphasized that point, although I don’t think it was as bad as IObit AIUI.
Thanks for abusing all my crap, I’ve had this convo before and yes some may be old, others not perfect but since none are that’s why I have several in each category except FW. My be I remember SAS when I had ST shield running or TF (I stopped using TF about the time I started using Avast!5 as my resident AV, but I don’t remember a conflict between them) and there could have been a conflicting reason why SAS was malefying, since so many people use it successfully with Avast I might try it again. I’m just trying out Webroot Spy Sweeper for free, but I’ve read that it doesn’t remove items until you pay like Stopzilla so I might drop that but my 3 extra AVs are on-demand scanners, not resident as are most of the Anti-Malware/Anti-Spyware programs. Its like having dozens of games on your system, but only playing one at a time even if many are of the same genre, similar or just old and badly supported. (I’d drop anything that became non-updateable & unsupported.)
I know most people have one each of AV, FW and A-M/A-S, but many like the OP want more than one of the last category to be sure and a few like me go a bit further and have more than one AV, but only one as resident. Each of the 3 free A’s AVs easily can be configured or installed as non-resident, so why not, each are highly effective and set up as such I don’t have problems, choked resources or horribly long system or browser lags - which do occur with other free AVs and with many paid only AVs and security suites. So yes for the OP Avast with SS&D and Ad-Aware will work, but isn’t probably best, personally I think ST is better then SS&D as an old scan only A-S program if one must have an old one, although both that way is fine IME. AD-Aware is still pretty good, but it could be a better program, but it works very well, at least better than SS&D and ST IMHO. One could forgo those two oldies though for sure but I do recommend Emsisoft Anti-Malware (formaly A2/a-squared) Free and as a lot here MBAM free and I’m willing to concede that SAS free might be good too.
Oh, in regard to the protection of paid MBAM I have read a bit and have it in 3 links below, that’s not to say that paying for it isn’t a completely bad idea because it does purchase auto updates and schedule scans, even if its running protection is lower than its detection performance, but as to whether it is better than Ad-Aware I don’t know.
Poor MBAM protection against compressed packages:
http://www.brighthub.com/computing/smb-security/reviews/63922.aspx?p=2
Poor MBAM protection in the comparison charts of this article, esp against keyloggers:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2372369,00.asp
Comments about MBAM, mostly positive as they should be but I’ll quote a post from this immediately below:
http://fileforum.betanews.com/review/1186760019/1/view
Quote:
“This program is more a malware removal tool, not a full Anti-Malware product.”
That sums up MBAM nicely while the opposite could be said of Comodo, which is their philosophical approach, but I’m not bashing MBAM, its kind of a backhanded compliment. As a malware remover it is the best, but you still need not only an AV and a FW but also more A-M/A-S programs than it alone IMHO. (Check out the charts in the middle link.)
Finally here is a review of Glary’s Utilities with other system tune ups including a link for CCleaner, but check out the discussion part below the article, in it they really bash IObit and Advanced System Care. I’ve always been weary of system tune up programs, especially free except for CCleaner of course. I tried GU briefly but I’m thinking about doing so again even though I use CCleaner, do I really need too?
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-pc-tune-up-utility.htm
@ Daris, I agree with YoKenny, upgrade from IE7 to IE8, it has better protection and why do you really care since you are using Opera 100% of the time, although I think the Windows OS still uses IE for updates even when it is not set as default, same with some other programs too.