[Pyrotex]

Hello dear friends,

The Pyroplex has been using this SW that came with his PC: Spy Sweeper. Now, I have no reason to believe that it does NOT work. Perhaps it works very well, I dunno. But this I DO know: it is a pain in the kaputknis.

I boot up. There's this minute long delay in which the START button will not work. Then the first of several S/S screens come up. Do you want to do a spy sweep right now? Are you aware you haven;t done a sweep in 5 days? Did you know that S/S can stop 173,302 varieties of spy ware? Would you like to schedule a sweep? Did you know that there are two updates of S/S available, and one of them is free? ...

... and so on for two minutes. Some of these windows continue to pop up at random times, putting whatever I'm doing in the background. Annoying.

Does anyone know of a good reliable anti-spyware app that costs less than $40 that I could download?

HELP!!

[LJP07]

Spyware Doctor is what I use and it seems to be very effective.

[Buffy]

Spy Sweeper is Spyware!

I use a combination of LavaSoft's Ad-Aware and SpyBot Search-and Destroy. Download.com (where these links go) sez that Ad-aware has been downloaded 266 MILLION times!

I use the free versions which are manual, but that's good enough for me.

I've also switched to Kaspersky which has both anti-virus and anti-spy, but costs you $60...it too can slow your startup with the default settings but has incredibly flexible options for moving the checks around...

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions,
Buffy

[LJP07]

Yes, I also use AdAware in combination with Spybot and I also have CCleaner and Firewall Zonealarm, never suffered from a virus or infection since I had all these going.

[alexander]

i use the darwin 9.1.0 anti spyware engine with some custom rules, its a bit pricey, at $100, but it like does everything for you too, and krenel 2.6.24 spyware killer with a custom set of rules and patches, grsec patches and stuff, equally powerful, and this one is freeware.... and either of them does such an awesome job keeping the spyware away, i mean one word, woooah, never a single piece of spyware!

[freeztar]

Pyrotex said:

Hello dear friends,

The Pyroplex has been using this SW that came with his PC: Spy Sweeper. Now, I have no reason to believe that it does NOT work. Perhaps it works very well, I dunno. But this I DO know: it is a pain in the kaputknis.

I boot up. There's this minute long delay in which the START button will not work. Then the first of several S/S screens come up. Do you want to do a spy sweep right now? Are you aware you haven;t done a sweep in 5 days? Did you know that S/S can stop 173,302 varieties of spy ware? Would you like to schedule a sweep? Did you know that there are two updates of S/S available, and one of them is free? ...

... and so on for two minutes. Some of these windows continue to pop up at random times, putting whatever I'm doing in the background. Annoying.

Does anyone know of a good reliable anti-spyware app that costs less than $40 that I could download?

HELP!!

That's odd Pyro. I've been running spy sweeper for the last 2-3 years and I never experience pop ups. I get a little lag on my boot time (nothing out of the ordinary for a spyware/virus program) and it will pop-up a small window above the time (WinXP), telling me that I haven't done a sweep in 14 days, stays up for two seconds, and then automatically goes away and that's the last I hear from it.

I used to do lots of computer repair a few years ago and I carried EVERY spyware/antivirus/etc. on a flash drive. One day I encountered a particularly stubborn infection on a clients computer. I finally installed the trial version of spy sweeper and it found tons of stuff (this is after running spybot, adaware, spyware doctor, etc.). The trial version showed me the locations of the offending files and registry entries so I was able to go into safe mode and delete them all. It was smooth sailing after that. I decided to buy it for my own computer and have gotten no major attacks since. On one of my comps, I even stopped using a firewall and have had no attacks in 2 years!! (not recommended though )

Have you updated the program pyro? Perhaps you have an older version that was prone to popups? There might even be an advanced setting, or some such...I'll check when I get home in about an hour.

And no Buffy, Spy Sweeper is not spyware.

[freeztar]

Oh yeah, also, there's no such thing as a "best" anti-spyware program. To have full protection you should use multiple programs, three is a good number. (but only use one for real-time protection and the other 2 to supplement scans)

[alexander]

Quote

And no Buffy, Spy Sweeper is not spyware.

well that depends on how technical you want to get, technically Windows XP is spyware!

[freeztar]

alexander said:

well that depends on how technical you want to get, technically Windows XP is spyware!

How so?
Do you mean stuff such as error reporting, system updates, etc...?
If so, I guess you're right, but I'm not counting spyware you intentionally install.

[Ego]

Hi, everyone,
Buffy, it's an obviuos fact that if something is popular with the majority it does not necessarily mean that it's the best, though I should say that in many situations the combination you advise is quite helpful. It's also well known that nothing can guarantee you absolute protection and that you can minimize the risk by running a firewall, an anti-virus and some anti-spyware. Everything is clear with anti-virus and firewall, every person has some preferances based either on experience or on other reasons and there's a great variety of choice. As to anti-spyware, from my point of view, it's better to have some software which uses behavioral principles of work. Despite those multiple pop ups Spy Sweeper was not the worst variant for you,Pyrotex, as generally it copes with fighting spyware pretty effectively. I prefer to run PrivacyKeyboard, though it's a bit limited in functionality, it's a reliable anti-keylogger, I compared several anti-spyware solutions, PrivacyKeyboard blocks keyloggers better than anything else. And as it was mentioned above Ad-aware may be helpful, I run it from time to time for scanning, it only proves the effectivness of PrivacyKeyboard. In this respect I agree with freeztar saying that it's worth having several anti-spyware programs, but running only one as real-time protection.

[alexander]

free, i mean all the data that XP sends back to microsoft, every time you update, stuff like your media player history, every piece of software installed on your systems, hardware specs, internet history, etc... It is further amplified in Vista, where the "support" functionality built into the OS and hard integraded with the AV manufacturers to allow to do whatever it is the software or techs on the other side want to do at any moment.....

Ego, your attempt at privacy is a noble one indeed, but if you indeed wanted to be secure, you are nowhere near where you should be.

Aside from the obvious firewall, av and as, you also would need to run:
at least another av and 2 as programs not related to each other, with different databases.

A hardware Firewall (with a drop all incoming for base rule)
A hardware IDS (with email alerts and constant updates, preferably snort-based)
A Hardware IPS (on a physically separate box from the FW)
A software IDS locally
Run all your internet communications and browsing over TOR
use software encryption (public/private key preferably) for messaging protocols and sensitive data over email
always visually inspect hardware for changes before operating your machine (especially all USB ports and the keyboard/mouse connectors
Run rootkit detection software
Need some sort of hashing software
check your system binaries once a week for changes, store summs on a hardware media outside your box

Oh and the attempt of the anti-keylogger is a noble one, though funny, if i had hardware access to a box, i wouldn't even bother with a software key logger therefore any such programs will simply not work (telling you as a security almost professional, like i consult and commonly add content to the security class at my college, it's taught by one of the head security guys for the state)

oh and also you should always run updates on windows, always check the md5 summ on everything you download, and never use wireless input devices, for that matter, never use anything bluetooth.

And if you want REAL security, switch from windows, it's a horrible platform that you will never be able to sucessfully fully secure! Look at Open BSD, or Linux , but you would need to further secure your kernel with stuff like grsec patches among other things...

[Pyrotex]

freeztar said:

That's odd Pyro. ...Have you updated the program pyro? Perhaps you have an older version that was prone to popups? There might even be an advanced setting, or some such...I'll check when I get home in about an hour....

Yes, I updated SpySweeper last November, on the anniversary of my purchase. And I keep its virus dBase updated on a monthly basis. I get 4 windows from S/S every boot. These windows take up to 30 seconds to load, and I cannot close them or mode to something else until they "complete". One of the windows reappears about 10 minutes after boot, interrupting "Ages of Empire", which really tics me off.

[Buffy]

Pyrotex said:

I get 4 windows from S/S every boot. These windows take up to 30 seconds to load, and I cannot close them or mode to something else until they "complete". One of the windows reappears about 10 minutes after boot, interrupting "Ages of Empire"...

See? Unwanted advertising that disrupts usage of your computer (and like alex sez, its probably downloads at least your "update" connections), is what I lump into the "spyware" bucket.

Obviously, YMMV, but the above behavior is exactly why I've dumped Norton and other mal-not-so-anti-virus software (McAfee is totally sucky too!)....

Do you think this anti-virus makes me look fat?
Buffy

[alexander]

buffy said:

Do you think this anti-virus makes me look fat?

not saying anything here, but viruses can help you loose weight. I mean like if you an otherwise overweight person, maybe getting your identity stolen and not having anything to eat for a few weeks is not such a bad prospect, no? So if you have a good anti-virus.... not saying you do, Buffy, but then again we have never even seen your picture or have we?