Summary: While there are no "best" pop-up blockers or other anti-virus/spyware software, having something reputable in place is better than nothing at all.
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What's the best Pop-Up Blocker? Anti-Virus Software? Anti-Spyware Software? |
As Ask Leo! has grown, and I've seen the types of problems that people are facing every day, one thing has become very clear: viruses, spyware, popups and other kinds of internet vermin (for lack of a more polite term) are serious problems. And they're problems that aren't going away any time soon.
Many of my recommendations boil down to this: run a current spyware checker or run updated anti-virus software. Regularly. And make sure they're up to date. Regularly.
But what's the best package to run?
You won't like my answer.
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One of the other things that had become excruciatingly clear, especially in the Anti-Virus arena and in the Anti-Spyware arena is that there is no clear winner. There is not one software package I can point you at - or for that matter use myself - that will catch everything.
I see this situation all the time: a person who's running a name-brand respected anti-whatever package is infected. Simply running another, different name-brand anti-whatever package catches the infection and corrects it. Or not, and a third one does. Or the infection is reported, but not fixed - but is fixed by another tool or package.
It's unfortunate, and confusing for the average user. And most certainly frustrating.
So what's a poor user to do? What package should you use?
I'm now of the opinion that, within reason, it doesn't matter. All of the major brands are about the same; they all probably catch 99% of what you'll ever care about. Popups. Spyware. Viruses. Use the one that came with your machine, or the one that you can afford, or the one that was rated highly by a magazine, or the one that your techie friend uses and can help you with.
But when it comes to spyware and viruses, use something. Just about anything is better than nothing at all.
And for the 1% that you choice doesn't catch - have a plan. Have a second or even a third product that you know you'll run to if you suspect a problem wasn't caught.
And for the 0.1% that the double scan doesn't catch? Have a plan. Have a resource to turn to - an online forum or a Q&A site like Ask Leo! or a tech friend you can turn to. You may never need them, but if you do you'll be glad you were prepared.
Related:
Article C2099 - July 5, 2004
I use Avast! antivirus and have just purchased Uniblue Spyeraser. Avast! has an antispyware provider as well but when I ran Spyeraser it did find some adware as well as a couple of Trojans. Can I leave both programs running at the same time or should I disable the Avast! antispyware provider and let Spyeraser do that job?
Posted by: J. Y. at September 14, 2008 8:34 AMI too use Avast Anti-Virus and am pretty happy with it - after all, it's FREE. In addition I use Comodo BoClean, Malwarebytes Free, a2Free, and finally Doctor Spyware Free. All of these are free utilities and have kept my computer free from cyber nasties. As for a firewall I use the in-built XP firewall as all other firewalls that I've tried cause havoc with Microsoft Updates and connection to the internet. Ashampoo free was the only firewall not to mess up with my computer, but, too often it would simply breakdown - its hide feature would invariably return errors in the events viewer.
Posted by: Ziggy at January 13, 2009 3:18 AMMost of these popup blockers can disrupt the web programs you run and the latest version of popup is java script which they dont work against. Try this one i found here http://www.pageoptimiser.com/blog_popups.htm its seems to work and not slow everything down
Posted by: Meryl at March 2, 2009 1:30 PMAntispyware that works very well
Posted by: JD M at March 21, 2009 10:25 PMSuper Antispyware catches the stuff others can't and it's free.
Anti-virus, I swear by AVG free and it is also free
i'm currently using spyzooka antispyware software and it's been working very fine ever since i bought mine.
Posted by: lathrop at April 12, 2009 7:10 AMWith my exp....I came to conclusion there is not antivirus or product till now which can save you 100%....Only one best solution is to avoid going to sites which are harmful to you....But we are human we still will going to sites which creates these issue and we all knows that...
At last do a regular virus scanning...backup your data...and format your machine time to time...
Posted by: Amit at May 7, 2009 10:48 AMAs for me,I now use Spyware Doctor Antispyware Software. It is undoubtedly the best antispyware software that I've came accross.
Posted by: Eddie at July 1, 2009 12:42 PMI also use spyware doctor antispyware software and I will agree with you that it is the best antispyware software
Posted by: Nani at July 9, 2009 11:13 PMMy security setup keeps me safe, Note: I do not use similar tools in succesion unless a problem persists. Most used get a "*".
*Comodo Firewall
Comodo System Cleaner (one a week)
*Avast! Anti-Virus
*Spyware Blaster
Ad-Aware SE Personal (free) -will die soon
*Free Super Anti-Spyware
*Ccleaner
*CleanUp!
Spybot S+D
ALL ARE FREE!
That's just security / cleanup. I have alot more lol!
BLooDSHoT_56
Posted by: john n at July 17, 2009 2:42 AMAnother level of protection is WOT (Web of Trust) a plug in for Firefox which is gives you a user rating of web sites by putting a rating icon on every link and warns you of dangerous and untrustworthy sites if you try to access a suspicious site. Unfortunately I've come across a few false positives especially due to targeting of certain religious and political web sites. Since it is user rated, sites can be given a bad rating if enough people who disagree with the views get together and target that site. So if I get a warning about a political or religious site I usually ignore it.
Posted by: Mark at September 1, 2009 11:18 AM