USING TWO ANTISPYWARE APPS TOGETHER IN REALTIME

[SPEEDY6128]

Hi there,

This is my first post, sorry if ive posted this in the wrong section of the forums wasnt quite sure in which section this belongs to. First off though I would like to congratulate you lot at Wilders forum for a excellent job. I'd be lost without you lot!!. My question is, do you recommend using two antispyware apps together runing in realtime. I cant seem to find the proper answer to this question except some people saying they do. But is it recommended , as its clear that you should not run two antivirus or two firewall's together in realtime as they can fight againt one another, does this aply to antispyware apps ? I'am currently running spysweeper in realtime. Also below is my current security setup on my PC, which took me a while to find the right apps that work together nicly with hardly no drain on system resources. Is there anything else you guys that you could think off that i could add to my security arsenal, along as it doesnt overlap any of the security measures that i already have in place. Also id be most gratefull if you could give me your verdict on my current setup, it would be nice to hear a professional opinon. Many thanks in advance you guys and keep up the great work.

RUNNING IN REALTIME

WINDOWS XP PRO SP2

NOD32 2.13
OUTPOST FIREWALL PRO 2.6
GHOSTSURF 2005
PEERGUARDIAN
AD MUNCHER
PROCESS GUARD
REGRUN SECURITY GOLD
SAFE N SEC
SPYSWEEPER
TROJAN HUNTER 4.1
UNHACKME
WORMGUARD
DRIVECRYPT - OPERATING SYSTEM IS ENCRYPTED
IMSECURE
REGDEFEND
FIRETRUST BENIGN

ONDEMAND+INSTALLED

MICROSOFT ANTISPYWARE
AD-ADWARE PRO
BIT DEFENDER FREE
THE CLEANER PRO
PORT EXPLORER
SCRIPT DEFENDER
SECURITY TASK MANAGER
SPYBOT SEARCH AND DESTROY
SPYWARE BLASTER
SPYWARE DOCTOR 3.0
TDS-3 TROJAN SUITE
SPYBUDDY
FOLDER LOCK
WEBROOT WINDOW WASHER
BUGOFF
DSO STOP
IE-SPY AD
WMP SCRIPTING FIX
MOZILLA FIREFOX
AVANT BROWSER

ALL BEHIDE A DLINK FIREWALL ROUNTER

Best Regards Kev

[meneer]

Welcome at Wilders' :)

One reason for not running twe firewalls at the same time is that the would both embrace the Windows tcpip stack. You can imagine both struggling to get to the real data.
Two AV's will share the same address space, as would two AS tools. Real time protection means that it must intercept system calls. The problem arises as with firewalls, who gets to intercept the system call. First.

Do you really need all that defensive power on your system? What are you protecting and in what context? Wouldn't it be easier to do away with vulnerabilities?

[no13]

and here's the opinion from the guy who did do this for 2 months...

2 AS RTMs will slow down the PC needlessly and consume precious CPU percentage
Examples :::
Spysweeper takes 35% CPU on an average
Giant/MSAS and Lavasoft AdWatch have shown to have "vague" problems with many misc apps in my neighbourhood's PCs [MSAS nearly tanked my PC]
Spybot TeaTimer just slows the PC reaction down - even tho' it's light on RAM/CPU stats!

[richrf]

I believe that you are very well protected.

For myself, ever since I added KAV 4.5 and ProcessGuard, I have taken down my real-time anti-spyware (Giant) since it seemed superfluous. I only run it once every week or so on-demand. If I were you, I would leave your configuration alone (it could even be trimmed a bit if you find that your resource usage is spiking) and just run on-demand apps now and then to see if there is any security breach. This is what I do.

Rich

[Robyn]

Re: Giant (MSAS now) does the real time activity use a lot of resources as this was one I have been considering adding to my layers - perhaps without the spynet thing but the actual monitor?

[SPEEDY6128]

Hi again, thanks for the quick reply you guys. I think ill stick to just running one antispyware in realtime then. Meneer, what do you mean when you say "easier to do away with vulnerabilities" surly having the stuff i have installed is about gettting rid of vulnerabilities ? Admittly I think I might of gone abit of a overkill on the on demand stuff, but i dont see the harm in it, as none of it drains any resources same goes to the patches i.e DSO Stop, Script Defender etc, I find it nice to be able right click something and ive got the option to scan it with a few different apps if i need to. Even some of the stuff i have running in the background i.e Wormguard, Regdefend, Safe n sec,unhackme, have a zero impact on resources. They all do there own job. Maybe having regdefend is abit of a overlap, but couldnt resist having it as its meant to have the fastest detection rate. NO13, Spysweeper 35% CPU ? Do you mean when your doing a scan, because that tends to be the average when doing a scan. But just letting it run in the background, it works from 0-1% of the cpu. for me. Maybe something was conflicting with it to make it do that, as when i tried Prevx Pro, it caused my Spysweeper to suddely shoot up to 30-40% every 10 seconds or so. I use Safe n Sec now instead of Prevx, I found Prevx Pro to be to much of a burden on system resources. Safe n sec has zero impact on my PC, its great. You should try it, if you havnt. Believe me i might be abit of a paraniod freak, but system resources always comes first with me. Meneer, going back to what you asked before, "what i was trying to protect". I' currently have 1800 GIGS worth of stuff to protect and growing!! Thank the lord for Bittorrent thats all i can say. So anyways, i suppose thats it then, in regards to what additional secuirty apps i could add to my current security arsenal. Unless you guys know of any at all that might fill in any gaps that any of my software apps might of missed. Once again, many thanks for your quick reply.
best regards kev

[tuatara]

A very good list,Congratulations! don't forget your system and software updates!

[SPEEDY6128]

Thanks tuatara. Just discovered another security app within the last few minutes. Its called "AntiHook" it says on there website "Complimentary to existing firewalls and virus protection - AntiHook is complimentary with all other computer protection systems including anti-virus, firewall and anti-spyware systems" My question is would it be worth running this alongside my "Unhackme" app ? Or do they have different jobs to do? If they do, do the same as one another, which one you recommend I keep on Antihook or Unhackme ? Many thanks again

[SPEEDY6128]

Hi again guys. Going back to my original question, "using two antspyware apps in realtime" Does the answer also apply to "SpywareGuard" ? I ask because i notice that it doesnt have a ondemand scanner feature, so just wondered if SpywareGuard worked different to the other antispyware apps. Thanks again

[SPEEDY6128]

Forgot to include this in my last reply sorry. I sometimes use Microsofts Antispyware app to do ondemand scanning. And it comes up with false postives sometimes. So my question is, would it be still safe to delete these false postives along with any true postives, or should i untick the false postives before finalizing the scan. Many thanks again!!!

[no13]

-{ Quote: "NO13, Spysweeper 35% CPU ? Do you mean when your doing a scan, because that tends to be the average when doing a scan. But just letting it run in the background, it works from 0-1% of the cpu. for me. Maybe something was conflicting with it to make it do that, as when i tried Prevx Pro, it caused my Spysweeper to suddely shoot up to 30-40% every 10 seconds or so. I use Safe n Sec now instead of Prevx, I found Prevx Pro to be to much of a burden on system resources. Safe n sec has zero impact on my PC, its great. You should try it, if you havnt. Believe me i might be abit of a paraniod freak, but system resources always comes first with me" }-

hmm... it WAS a conflict with something... I don't remember now, but spysweeper was always ugly that way, and I don't have funds to obtain a program that I'll be troubleshooting for weeks on end, so i didn't purchase it.
Don't like PrevX for the same reason.
Safe'n'Sec didn't work for me. Just like "Principal Antivirus". Both a bunch of gas as far as I'm concerned.

and speedy... PLEASE use some kind of formatting.. my head hurts.. ow!

[SPEEDY6128]

Hi NO13, I also tried that Principal Antivirus, utter rubish. That Safe n Sec is well more advanced than that. They also just released safe n sec version 1.1. There's quite abit of discussion on it here in wilders forum. Alot of people think its top notch. Always intercepts the most littleist of things, when set on high settings. By the way what do you mean when you say "different format" ?

[no13]

use the <enter> key, try some "formatting" of text... you know... bold, italics...just to make your post easier to read :)

[SPEEDY6128]

Can you make donations to this forum like you can on castlecops ?

[no13]

-{ Quote: "Can you make donations to this forum like you can on castlecops ?" }-
I dunno. Ask Paul. send a PM.

[meneer]

-{ Quote: "Hi again, thanks for the quick reply you guys. I think ill stick to just running one antispyware in realtime then. Meneer, what do you mean when you say "easier to do away with vulnerabilities" surly having the stuff i have installed is about gettting rid of vulnerabilities ? " }-In fact you're not getting rid of vulnerabilities, you are compensating... I mean this: risks are only real risks that you should worry about when there are certain vulnerabilities that can be exploited. If there is no real threat, don't take extra measures, since you're not insecure, concerning this particular risk.
Example: if you're afraid of browser hijacks: either you drop IE (no more vulnerable) or you compensate by using several tools. You can still use IE, you're still vulnerable, but the risks are mitigated by using dedicated tools.

Same: if you do a lot of file sharing, the risk of trojan infections is high. Either you do your p2p with secure sources only, or you compensate the leaks by using adequate tooling.

So I not saying you use too many tools, you just choose what defense you need based on your computer use. It's just a matter of risk analysis.

[richrf]

Hi Robyn,

Giant AS is one of the more resource-intensive apps that I have run, which is why I took it down. If I felt it gave me added protection, I would probably live with it in real-time, but with KAV 4.5, ProcessGuard, ReDefend, and Prevx Home on the front-lines, Giant has become pretty much superfluous. Depending upon yoru AV, AT and what other apps you are running, you might find Giant useful - it does somewhat guard the registry and adds some spyware protection if you have none right now. Otherwise, I think running it on-demand is good enough. It hasn't found anything in several months and I will probably not renew. CounterSpy is an option I am considering if I feel I need a backup AS to KAV.

Rich

[SPEEDY6128]

Meneer mate, I understand now. Well in my case them i have no option but to use those defensives. I'am a filesharing hollick IRC,Bittorent,edonkey,usenext, etc etc. I do use Mozilla firefox along side Avant browser. Mozilla just isnt as fast at surfing the net. Plus I find Avant so much more comfortable to use, they really have made a great improvement on it over the last year or so. Just bought a software app called GetAnonymous Pro, and hooked it up to my Ghostsurf 2005, to create a proxy chain. I know, but i cant help my self!!!! :o , I was quite surprised when i trialied GetAnonymous with ghostsurf i was expecting surfing to be to slow,to even warrent me buying GetAnonymous and using it. But surfing is still quite fast when i have them both set to hide my IP, it only tends to slow down abit if I set my connection to 1024 bit encyption. I just set and forget GetAnonymous at a certain level. And then I do all the controlling within Ghostsurf by just using a slider bar, you dont even have to close down your browser or anything while you slide your connection to and from encyption all the way down to standard connection. Its really is that easy to work once set up. Anyway I'am gona post a couple of those questions before in there own threads, see if anyone else out there might have the answers. Laterzz dude

[no13]

umm...

alternate browser ::: opera. A bit too fast if you surf things you wanna hide from your mum.

IP hiding via proxies... well too much for me... can't surf at 32 kbit/s now that I have 128 kbit ADSL connection.

And... ummm... about your posts... err... use the <enter> key to separate paragraphs of different context, and use the tags sparingly...
example(with TOO much formatting I think)-{ Quote: "Meneer mate, I understand now.
Well in my case them i have no option but to use those defensives. I'am a filesharing hollick IRC,Bittorent,edonkey,usenext, etc etc. I do use Mozilla firefox along side Avant browser. Mozilla just isnt as fast at surfing the net. Plus I find Avant so much more comfortable to use[/i], they really have made a great improvement on it over the last year or so.
Just bought a software app called GetAnonymous Pro, and hooked it up to my Ghostsurf 2005, to create a proxy chain. I know, but i cant help my self!!!! , I was quite surprised when i trialied GetAnonymous with ghostsurf i was expecting surfing to be to slow,to even warrent me buying GetAnonymous and using it.
But surfing is still quite fast when i have them both set to hide my IP, it only tends to slow down abit if I set my connection to 1024 bit encyption.
I just set and forget GetAnonymous at a certain level. And then I do all the controlling within Ghostsurf by just using a slider bar, you dont even have to close down your browser or anything while you slide your connection to and from encyption all the way down to standard connection. Its really is that easy to work once set up.
Anyway I'am gona post a couple of those questions before in there own threads, see if anyone else out there might have the answers.
Laterzz dude" }-

[SPEEDY6128]

Meneer,

Try checking out "OnSpeed", they claim, and many other review sites who gave it 4-5 stars. Say it can speed up your connection from Dial Up - 5x Faster, Broadband - 3x & GPRS - 8x Faster. Its not one of those speed net optimizers melarkes. But this uses a compression method for when you retrieve stuff from the net resulting in faster surfing. The higher the compression rate you select the faster you meant to go. Ive never tried this me self as i have a 3mb connection. But my fathers mate uses it as he is on 56k dial up. I think they offer a free trial. Just google it, keyword "Onspeed".[/I]