Is this excessive?!?

I'm paranoid when it comes to security (It doesn't help that certain programs don't find certain things while others do)

An example of the above: Just installed counterspy and within minutes it found four items detected and nine files that nothing else found.

Back to the point... would appreciate some feedback about whether this is 'too much' security.

Kaspersky 6.0
Zone Alarm Pro
Trojan Hunter
Ewido
CounterSpy
SuperAntiSpyware
A Squared Free
Spyware Blaster
WinPatrol
Windows Defender (To one surprise this one's not yet found anything the others left behind, still giving ole Billy Gates the benefit of the doubt though... for now anyway)
AdAware (this too has not found anything for sometime.... anything major anyway, to be fair it has found the ocassional tracking cookie the others have left behind)
SpyBot Search and Destroy

I also had SpySweeper for quite sometime and it was among my favorites. It expired over a year ago though and I kept on seeing other programs to try and because of that never renewed it.... considering adding it again also, though would for certain be it.

Again is this excessive? I often think it is.... yet there's those times where program....after program missed a trace here, or worse yet a full fledged malware program, while something else finds it...so I'm really not sure.

 

I think running KAV, ZA, and Ewido is really enough. You ought to check if whatever else is found by other apps are false positives.

You could also add a HIPS, and/or get into virtualization: This combination has completely stopped spyware on my machine.

 

I absolutely agree.

 

Short answer - yes.

Longer answer - first focus only on what you have running realtime and minimize that to a reasonable level, ignore any of your pure on-demand pieces. They take up disk space, but that's plentiful and cheap. Of all the programs listed, which have running processes after a restart? Sometimes that running process is just an updater (which can be readily set to manual if you position the product as a demand scanner - just update manually prior to a scan).

When you say Counterspy found four items, was that on a system scan or with the active guard? In terms of what to run, focus on function, breadth of coverage, and where you may feel you need a bit of backup. I notice you haven't listed a router - if you don't have one consider it. If nothing else it will take some load off Zone Alarm and off your PC.

KAV, due to comprehensiveness of coverage, and ZA, for controlling outbound communications, seem an obvious starting point as your base. Beyond this, I'd be very parsimonious in making additions. Try to get a sense of the specific issue each added tool addresses as it is added. Remember, only focus on the active applications, and keep the demand scanners if you wish.

If you don't have a utility like CCleaner to quickly sweep away temporary stuff, get it (or the equivalent) and use it periodically. It will help keep things tidy as well.

Blue

 

Ditto.

@colt45allstar - theres several antispyware/trojan you can remove and still have a good configuration.

 

Not that I doubt you.... but is just seems weird that counterspy would find so much that others left behind.

In fact I jumped the gun saying it found what it found.... it actually wasn't done yet and ended up finding 18 items. Including some heavy hitters I thought I was long done with.

My Search Bar and a couple hijackers to name a a few.... even media-motor which is says is a trojan downloader. (going to quarantine all these obviously instead of simply deleting... in case they are indeed false alarms)

I guess I'll limit the real time protection to just a few programs... don't feel comfortable not having alot of on demand programs though..... have just seen too many instances of programs missing things and while again some might be false alarms, just don't see all of them being that way.

To answer a couple questions Blue..... it was during the on demand scan that CounterSpy found these things and in truth that's what it typically is with all the programs. They very rarely find anything with the real time protection.

Also at this point in time, I'm by no means an expert on processes (though I'm soon going to go back to school and hope to be an IT Professional someday and thus become more knowledable)

From taking a quick look I do know that a good 7 or 8 of them have active processes for sure.

 

That's a reasonable path forward. In terms of active realtime applications, I tend to think of 3-4 well chosen ones as armed to the gills. KAV is very good cornerstone on which to base things, there isn't much that gets by a maxed out install of KAV.

Blue

 

Yes,that is excessive.

For real-time I would choose one of the antimalware programs in addition to KAV and Zone Alarm Pro.Maybe CounterSpy or Ewido.
Windows Defender would be the first program I would dump.
On-demand scanners-I'd keep a few from that list.
And I'd keep Spyware Blaster.

 

Ok made some changes.... only have a few programs running real time (though must admit kept almost all of them as on demand scanners... can't help it... too much rampant paranoia)

I also just for the heck of it went into msconfig and stopped various unwanted processes from starting automatically. A few were related to the anti malware programs, though most were not.

It's made a huge difference, can't believe how much quicker my computer seems to be running.

All in all I'm down to 36 processes. Was up at near 50 before

 

As I noted above, a program simply installed and kept back for a demand scan is irrelevant. Keep as many of these are you desire.

This can create unintended secondary problems, so be cautious.

Blue

 

Let me add in here: MRU-Blaster for those index-dat files that CCleaner does not really remove.

Cheers.

 

Index.dat Suite does a good job on index.dat files too.
It's also freeware.

http://support.it-mate.co.uk/?mode=Products&p=index.datsuite

 

Don't worry Blue.... I looked into each process that got killed to make sure it was safe.

The majority of which were startup processes and none of which were system processes.

This is truly awesome.... forgot this is what broadband was 'supposed' to be like.

It was quick enough before, but this is a night and day difference.

Truly smoking fast now

 

Pretty excessive.

I'd definetly without a doubt remove Counterspy, probably Ad-Aware, Spybot and Windows Defender too.

Spyware is a problem but it's not usually "death to the computer" dangerous - so don't overprotect against it.

You don't need more then 2-3 of them. Don't be too paranoid, a lesson I've learned over time. Your computer's resources need to be used for PROGRAMS, not just SECURITY!

 

This was very well put, with a lot of meaning to it. I think we are over excessive when it comes to security. We really arent trying to protect Fort Knox.

 

I know. And even when/if spyware gets onto your machine, okay, usually it just annoys you and such - nothing totally devastating.

Even with a virus, okay, yes, that's not good, but as long as you keep backups, then reformatting isn't the end of the world, even when it's a pain (assuming your AV couldn't kill the virus)

 

Eleven security softwares is too much for me. So it sounds excessive to me and quite expensive (time/money) too.
I count at least 8 scanners. How much time do you need to run all of them ?

 

Not to hijack this thread colt45, but CCleaner does not delete index.dat files

 

CCleaner does clean index.dat files, however, it cannot delete them immediately and instead marks them for deletion.

 

Yep, and if you dont do back-ups, can screw your operating system up to. Prefer Disk Cleaner any day.