You can only have 4 Anti-Malware apps: What would you run?

Kis6.0
superantispyware
A Squared
spyware blaster

lodore

 

Hi everybody,

NOD32 2.7
OAFW 2 beta
BoClean
Linkscanner Pro

 

lodore's still in beta, isn't it?

 

i always put my username at the bottom of all my posts

 

NOD32
AVG 7.5
SpywareBlaster
Ad-Aware

 

as of today:

Core Force .95.x.x (hips/firewall) still tinkering
NOD 32 2.5 though looking at Dr Web or Avira
Buzzer Zone Pro
Cyberhawk 1.2.0.39...but only because i cannot make Prevx1 phone home?!?

and intrestingly enough these guys so far play well together!


Mike

 

I think I just need three to have the perfect setup:

Nod32
Look'n'Stop
System Safety Monitor Full

Well I could had a forth just to do some ocasional scans
Trend Micro Anti-Spyware

 

I think the reason for more than one anti-malware app is in case you suspect you're infected and your main app didn't pick it up. Then you could run scans on your back up anti-malware apps hoping one of them will catch it. That has worked for me.

 

By use of the expression "anti-malware app," I am interpreting that to mean, for purposes of this repy, "second level" security app which, under my construction, includes the following: anti-virus app (AV), anti-spyware app (AS), anti-trojan app (AT) and anti-keylogger (AK).

Under that construction, my first choices at this time are:

1) AV (Kaspersky Antivirus 6.0)
2) AS (SuperAntiSpyware Pro)
3) AT (A-Squared)
4) AK (PrivacyKeyBoard)*

*Antikeyloggers that load at the kernel level are, according to the argument, the best at what they do (namely spot out and prohibit the operation of keylogger programs) and, for my money, "PrivacyKeyBoard" by Raytown is the best of the lot at this point in time, given my study of antikeyloggers, cursory though that research be -- and, admittedly, suspect, given my lay status. Be that as it may, I have found that kernel level antikeyloggers do not get along well with third level security "HIPS" apps. Having tried, at one time or another a few on my machine, I have found that they either do not work properly, if at all, assuming I can install them at all, or they create tremendous stability problems. Therefore, since I am not going to forego a good "HIPS" app such as "ProcessGuard" or "System Safety Monitor" for a straightforward "AK" security app, but, as I see the usefulness of having a security app that hunts specifically for keyloggers, I would go with "Spy Cop" as my sole and special AK tool as I have not had a problem integreting "Spy Cop" into my overall computer security network.

 

1. NOD32
2. AVG Anti-Spyware (Paid)
3. A-Squared (Paid)
4. SUPERAntiSpyware Professional

 

whoa you paid for avg antispyware and asquared antimalware?
and sas pro?
lodore

 

I paid for AVG so I can run it live because it doesn't use resources, and the defs update frequently, but I use the SUPERantispyware free to do on demand scans because I like the way it scans. You don't have to pay for both.

 

the post i refered to said they paid for both a squared antimalware and av antispyware.
and they have got superantispyware pro which is paid as well.
thats alot of money that one paid would be fine and the rest could be free versions.
lodore

 

I use SAS the same way, but I find it is incredibly slow - almost a half hour for a full scan. Norton NIS takes that long, but it is doing AS and AV scans.

And I don't necessarily buy the notion that longer scan times corrrespond to 'deeper' or better scans.

One point I will make is that if you have several AS apps offering active protection, it's a good idea to shut the others down when you are running a scan, in order to reduce scan time. I have found that Spy Sweeper often doesn't like the actions of other AS when they start scanning; it springs to life so to speak, a compatability issue in essence. The same is true of Spyware Doctor.

When I run a scan, I have Process Explorer on the screen as well to monitor the activity of any other AS that is running concurrently. It's a great free tool, even though I admit I don't begin to understand all the data presented.

 

dcdc - I haven't had SAS more than a week, and haven't done a deep scan yet because I know I'm clean. A short scan takes 9 minutes. I know what you mean about SS and the need to shut down other antispyware apps during a scan. I learned that when I did a scan while AVG AS was running. SS dumped. I just got rid of it to install SAS. Too much of a pig.
From experience with other AVs and AS's, I don't think a half hour for a full scan is out of the ordinary.

 

Well, it's difficult to compare applications to begin with, but Spy Sweeper takes about half that time for a full sweep. It does have the option of allowing you with a slider to adjust how much CPU resources you devote to a scan. Since I don't run anything else during a scan, I let SS use it all.

Ad-Aware and Spybot take about 15 minutes or a little less each, but neither is a top AS app anymore in my opinion. Windows Defender takes about 20 minutes. Both AVG and a-squared take about a half hour.

 

dcdc - So you're saying SS does a full scan in 15 minutes? If I did a quick scan it took 15 minutes. A full scan took 35 minutes. I have a 80 gb hard drive with 74% free space.

 

its not about speed.
i would rather a slower scan and better detection rate and more through.
windows defender doesnt have a great detection rate where spysweeper and sas do.
spysweeper 5.2 is way to buggy now so i normaly do scans with sas instead.
64gb used out of 160gb
25minutes quick scan
spysweeper scans take about 20minutes.
lodore

 

I just checked the session log for the last sweep a couple of days ago. "Custom Sweep has completed. Elapsed time 00:16:44" So technically I guess I lied.

I have 149 gig , 136 free.

A few things you can do to speed up the sweeps, some applicable to any AS app.

First, defrag your hard drive regularly. I use the basic Windows XP Disc Defragmenter. Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disc Defragmenter. I pinned it to the Start menu so I don't have to go clicking for it all the time. For those who don't know, this application gets the various pieces of files that may be scattered all over your hard drive into one contiguous place, so that the drive can read them faster, in one sweep rather than hunting here, there, and everywhere. Defragmenting will make everything go faster.

Last month I ran this for the office secretary whose computer is used almost exclusively for Quick Books and was now so slow that it took over 15 minutes just to load. Everything seemed slower than hell. The disc had not been defragged since she arrived a couple of years ago, and it took over an hour for the app to run just once. When it was through and we rebooted, Quick Books came up instantly. It was really amazing. (Meanwhile I was thinking malware.)

Computer experts will tell you there are better disc utilities than Disc Defragmenter, and they are probably right (true of everything Microsoft makes), but for me it's good enough. If you update a lot, or download a lot, you should run it a lot. Your AS app(s) will be in one place, and so will each file it scans. If you do it regularly, it only takes a couple of minutes. Just hit Defragment, rather than Analyze; if you do that and then decide to Defragment, it will analyze all over again for nothing. Kind of interesting to watch, especially if you have never done it and the bar looks like a crazy quilt of colors.

Second, speed up Spy Sweeper if you have 5.0 or higher (I have the current 5.2). Unfortunately SS makes some things hard to find. Go to Options>Sweep tab>Custom Sweep>Change settings>Advanced options>on the Sweep speed vs. processor usage, slide the pointer all the way to the right (Sweep faster)>OK.

One of the oddities of SS is that you can't do this with a full sweep or quick sweep, only the custom sweep. (Reason?) But you can just check everything to sweep on the custom sweep and it's the same thing. Webroot said that not sweeping for rootkits saves some time, but I still sweep for them.

Third, clean up all the junk before you sweep to save scanning time. I use Webroot's Window Washer 6.0, which I think is OK for a cleanup utility. Again, experts probably know of better apps. WW cleans out Temporary Internet files and cookies and so on. You might as well get this stuff off your system anyway, especially tracking cookies if your AS doesn't remove them. Why scan temporary files if you are going to delete them? Kill two birds with one stone. Use the WW Cookie Keeper feature to save the cookies you want for things like automatic login, or else WW will delete them, and if you have forgotten your login name and password, you're out of luck for the moment.

Actually, you should run Window Washer or the like before defragmenting, and get the junk out of the way.

Fourth, get out of your browser. No point being on the internet when scanning for malware. I think some AS apps will prompt you to close IE or whatever if it's open.

Fifth, use Process Explorer, a free download from sysinternals.com to monitor sweep activity, regardless of what AS you are using. If not much is happening until you start the sweep, and then suddenly your other AS starts rolling, then shut them down. I found that Spyware Doctor really kicks in when Spy Sweeper was scanning, and vice versa; shutting them down (by right clicking their icon in the system tray and selecting 'shut down' or whatever) can cut the scan times in half, and that's no joke.

This may sound like a lot, but it isn't. Most of it is basic more or less daily computer maintenance, like updating itself.

 

True enough, but I don't necessarily find a high correlation between the length of time of a scan and the results, although AS vendors with long scan times will tell you their scans are time consuming because of the thoroughness of the scans. Maybe so, but not necessarily. It's partly a matter of how efficient your algorithms are. Note that some AS and AV vendors when they issue an upgrade will specifically comment that they have cut the scan times in response to customer feedback; hopefully they did not do so by reducing the detection rate, but rather by examining the scan process.

I myself am happy with Spy Sweeper. Some features are hard to locate, and there are some quirks, but in about three years since I have had my machine (I bought SS soon after the purchase based on a computer savvy friend's recommendation), I think I have had one false positive that Webroot quickly corrected, and to my knowledge I have never had a piece of malware installed, and early on I did a little dubious surfing.

I have added quite a bit of AS since, so I cannot give full credit to SS for a clean machine, but I look at the SS session logs and see that it has blocked a lot of stuff silently, and warned me of anything suspicious.

There are many road to Rome, and if whatever you use works for you, then that's good enough.

 

i agree if it works for you then its fine.
i used to use spysweeper in realtime with version 4.5 but with 5.2 it really slows down my system so i use it for on demand only now.
i still think superantispyware pro is better for realtime antispyware since it updates more and is alot lighter on the system.
lodore

 

dcdc - I see you only have 13 gb used space, so i think that will cut down a little on scan time, but on your 16 minute scan how much time did it take in preparation with WW and Process explorer, and the defrag? Just a note, every time I check the defrag it says my hd doesn't need it right now. Just as an experiment, I installed Diskeeper which defrags in the background once every day. My initial defrag defragmented almost 9,000 fragments, and every day it defrags between about 400 and 1,500 fragments. I've used it since 12/16 and I think I'll keep it.

 

i use diskeeper 10 pro which defrags daily.
but i might get diskeeper 2007 pro since it has less impact of the system due to the realtime defrag and automatic folder and files consolation.
lodore

 

lodore - Before you upgrade you should see how much your hd can be compacted. Mine only would be compacted 1%. Not worth it. I assume you mean compacted, not consolated.

 

hardware firewall

AVAST antivirus

Shadowuser (installed today)

That's all I'm running

If Shadowuser works as described and my pc becomes infected, a reboot and they're gone. Since I turn the pc off every night anyway, everything picked up during the day should disappear.