Spyware

[CoM_Solaufein]

What is a good spyware software to use? I decided to let my expensive game computerthat I built myself have access to the internet. Usually this computer is just for games but the one I use for online stuff decided to die. I already have a pop up blocker and anti virus software installed now I just need a good spyware software.

[Echon]

Lavasoft's Ad-Aware also provides some protection against spyware I believe.

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

-Echon

[Caswallon]

Spybot.
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html

[melora]

ive used both lavasoft's adaware and spybot search and destroy.  adaware picked up alot of things spybot missed.   also had some problems with spybot identifying some things as spyware that really werent.  i would recommend adaware.

[Reverendratbastard]

 
  however, spybot is more worthy of donations (right up there with The {Hunger et al.} Site{s}).  even if you don't use it [anymore].

[glain]

Actually, they (meaning the USAF) recommends that you use a combination of a couple different programs.  Spybot and Ad-aware are two that are fairly good programs combined together.  It's like a fail-safe in some ways, one picks up what another might miss. 

But no spyware program is good unless you constantly check for definition updates, so make sure whatever program you choose to do that at least once a week. =)

[jcompton]

And basically never open IE if you can help it.

[Kanain]

And basically never open IE if you can help it.

I highly recommend Mozilla Firefox.  I haven't received a single piece of spyware since I started using it.

[SimDing0™]

I find Mozilla itself far better than Firefox. Firefox seems to lack the ability to load itself to the tray, which actually means it's way slower to fire up than Mozilla.

[Echon]

If you have a good firewall and antivirus program (which I would never surf the web without anyway), it really makes no difference what browser you use. And if loading speed matters to you, Internet Explorer is the fastest.

I recently went from IE to Firefox because I was having some problems with my email in IE that Firefox apparently did not have... until after a few days, of course.

-Echon

[SimDing0™]

Internet Explorer's actually fractionally slower than Mozilla here. On top of that, Internet Explorer has a tendency to lock up when it's first loading, unless the homepage is set to "about:blank", which really is pretty terrible.

[Kanain]

I find Mozilla itself far better than Firefox. Firefox seems to lack the ability to load itself to the tray, which actually means it's way slower to fire up than Mozilla.

I don't like programs to stay resident in the system tray unless its absolutely necessary for them to do so.  Firefox loads in about 2 to 3 seconds on my system anyway.  Either way we're talking about single-digit seconds.  I'd better stop before I start lamenting how aggravating it is to explain to an AOL refugee why having to click just one more time so that their browser will appear (instead of it popping up on its own after connecting to the internet) really isn't such a big deal.  Not many folks have any patience anymore....

If you have a good firewall and antivirus program (which I would never surf the web without anyway), it really makes no difference what browser you use. And if loading speed matters to you, Internet Explorer is the fastest.

I recently went from IE to Firefox because I was having some problems with my email in IE that Firefox apparently did not have... until after a few days, of course.

-Echon

The best anti-virus / firewall combo isn't going to stop you from getting spyware.  You can be behind a router doing NAT, running Zonealarm and XP SP2 Firewalls, with NAV and AVG running at the same time (I actually had a customer once who was doing all of this -- paranoid much?) and IE will still give you spyware.  That is if your system will browse at all.

I haven't tried Mozilla in years.  I never liked it or its Netscape cousin.  I used IE until Firefox 1.0 was recently released.  I love Firefox.  I'll never go back to IE I can tell you that.  I haven't gotten a single piece of spyware since I switched, and I love tabbed browsing and built in RSS.  That's enough for me to sing its praises.

[underdog]

use firefox, or mozilla, they are both very resistant to spyware, if you must use IE, lock it down with
enough is enough, it's a batch file that will lock down the trusted sites settings, active X, one of the biggestsecurity holes in IE
and several other things.
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ehowes/www/resource6.htm

Spyware blaster is another good one, can use it free, but you have to update it manually, paid version is supposed to update
automatically, it sets kill bits for known spyware classid's, so if they try to install/run they are immediatly killed, and removed.
http://javacoolsoftware.com/

Spybot S&D has an immunize feature that soesn't seem to hurt, but have still seen some get through that , but it may have been up dated though.
I work on fixing computers, and spyware malware is the biggest problem I've seen lately, hardly any virus/worms any more.

We use Kaspersky antivirus, to do the initial scan of a computer, it finds 90+% of the spyware, trojans, virus' and worms, the rest gets weeded out by hand, so maybe check out kaspersky for an AV, I will admit I haven't installed it on my computer yet, so I can't comment much on it's compatibility, or lack there of,with games.

http://kaspersky.com/

[irenicus]

i find adaware is good i lost the link though, its also free

[Tinuviel]

I went a little further and not only replaced IE with Firefox but replaced the Explorer shell with litestep. Adaware detects it as spyware and has the comment "Shell Possibly Compromised."

[melora]

i find adaware is good i lost the link though, its also free

i got it from downloads.com

[underdog]

I went a little further and not only replaced IE with Firefox but replaced the Explorer shell with litestep. Adaware detects it as spyware and has the comment "Shell Possibly Compromised."

That would make sense, it knows it's not the stock MS explorer, so it assumes it has been replaced
surreptitiously.

[jd_malachi]

I have to agree with melora. I was using spybot s & d for a while, but my brother turned me to adaware, I was shocked how much spyware was still on my drive. Vile stuff!!

[Veloxyll]

I use both! My hard drive is probably clean now