[WMCoolmon]

Thunderbird, Firefox+NoScript, good firewall protection and careful choice in installed applications is apparently really good for a computer.

[Vasudan Admiral]

Well after approximately 12 months using IE7, AntiVir, no firewall and not terribly careful application installation, I get exactly two tracking cookies under the most up to date spybot, having not run it or anything else since I first installed it back then.

As such, I've never really understood the browser wars.

[Jeff Vader]

As such, I've never really understood the browser wars.

Dunno about wars, but an inconvenient truth is that whenever a new and useful feaure is presented in a web browser, it appears on IE roughly 3-4 years later. And to be honest, I can no longer view any sites with IE without crying. The ads, they're everywhere. They must be stopped.

As a side note, a combination of Comodo Firewall and avast! Home Edition. Works like a charm.

[Nuclear1]

Bah, I run registry checks and two different virus scans every Sunday.  As a result I'm always 100% clean.

[achtung]

I use Linux.

Can I get a prize or something now?

[karajorma]

No.

Since you run Linux you must compile your own prize.

[Ghostavo]

Well, there must be one in his distributions repository...

[WMCoolmon]

Well, there must be one in his distributions repository...

There is, but it's missing one of the dependencies.

[nubbles526]

Ummm...WMCoolmen, experts always tell the public that one anti-spyware program couldn't catch everything. Make sure you run another one....just to make sure.

[colecampbell666]

[Mr. Vega]

Yeah, I don't particularly trust Spybot these days, as much as I used to like it. I'd recommend scanning with SUPERAntiSpyware before you start bragging.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

I try to do full maintenance and scanning about every 3 months.  Start with an image of the machine just in case followed by all patches.  Then full antivrus sweep, 2 different spyware checkers, and finally hijackthis just to be sure.  In the past 10 years I've gotten 1 virus and that was from an email with an .exe disguised as a .fs2 file attachment that turned out to be one of those send junk and the virus to everyone in your address book things.  I don't use an address book so no real problem on my end it just took about 2 hours to find the patch and clean it.   Would have never opened it without scanning it first if I could have read it but it was from one of the Drunks and in German so I figured he just forgot to translate it.   Never ran a resident anti virus program until about a year or so ago.  I usually end up with the same short list of tracking cookies.  Been using Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox since I started using windows.  Scan all files I download before I open them and after if it's a compressed file. 

[Snail]

Ummm...WMCoolmen, experts always tell the public that one anti-spyware program couldn't catch everything. Make sure you run another one....just to make sure.

You know quite a few of those anti-spyware programs are actually spyware themselves.

[WMCoolmon]

Yeah, I took a look at Adaware and was rather put off by all the commercialism, ads, and cookies I had to sort through in order to get to the download link.

SUPERAntiSpyware...what kind of a name is that? That alone makes me suspicious. It's also not in wikipedia, never a good sign, I prefer something that enough people have used that some power-users have gone over it with a critical eye and made sure it isn't doing something itself.

[jr2]

AVG 8.0 free has anti-spyware built in. 

[nubbles526]

Yeah, I took a look at Adaware and was rather put off by all the commercialism, ads, and cookies I had to sort through in order to get to the download link.

SUPERAntiSpyware...what kind of a name is that? That alone makes me suspicious. It's also not in wikipedia, never a good sign, I prefer something that enough people have used that some power-users have gone over it with a critical eye and made sure it isn't doing something itself.

You can't trust anbody these days 

Try this:
http://www.hitmanpro.nl/hitmanpro/index.php?lang=en

It's a compilation of anti-spyware programs - which most of them are free.

[TopAce]

AVG 8.0 free has anti-spyware built in. 

I wonder how effective that is. AVG is primarily an anti-virus program, so even if it has such a feature, the creators spent less time with it. If I used any anti-spyware, I would use a program that does only that.

Besides, I also think being careful in what I download is the best way to keep my comp safe.

[NGTM-1R]

I wonder how effective that is. AVG is primarily an anti-virus program, so even if it has such a feature, the creators spent less time with it. If I used any anti-spyware, I would use a program that does only that.

Pretty effective, considering that spyware and virii do similar things. Most serious antivirus programs these days include spyware protection as a matter of course.

[Polpolion]

I've had no spyware protection either for about the same time length. No spyware at all. Of course, having a busted internet helps.

[Nemesis6]

I trust firefox, too. But just in case, I'm running NOD32, and Threatfire. Threatfire is a kind of heuristics program. For example, if an executable does something suspect, like copying itself to multiple places, tries to inject code into other applications, etc, I will be told about it, and given the choice to deny, accept, etc. It has 5 levels that you can use, 5 being paranoid, 3 being default. It doesn't question **** around with every exe you run, because normal exe files won't exhibit these traits that it scans for. It takes virtually no memory, and it can scan for rootkits, too. A nice addition to a dedicated anti virus program.