malwarebytes and adware

glowgirl_2

I am having a clear up on my pc could anyone tell me if I actually need ad-aware and ad-watch and also if malwarebytes is supposed to come on at start up or is it a scan program. I curently have Avast, Spybot and PC tools threatfire running, any comments or suggestions are welome.

[Deleted User]

I use:

Anti-Virus - AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic (scanning all the time)
Anti-Spyware - SUPERAntiSpyware (on demain scanning)
Anti-Malware - Malwarebytes (on demain scanning)
Firewall - Windows XP SP3 inbound firewall

There are a few people around here that vouch for PC Tools Firewall instead of Windows XP / Vista's inbuilt one. Also if you require email scanning from your AV I'd go for avast! Home Edition.

If you're clearing out your PC I can recommend CCleaner and doing a defrag.

glowgirl_2

Thank you davidmt83, do you think it would be best to get rid of ad-aware and ad-watch, I'm not even sure what these do.

dredwing

You could also have a look at Tune Up, not really a Malware/Adaware type tool but great for dealing with other PC issues once you're cleared any nasties off. It's not free but you get a 30 day.

http://www.tuneup-software.co.uk/products/tuneup-utilities/

Spybot is also great for Spyware so stick with that (and it's free).
http://www.spybot.com/index2.html

davidmt83 list is a good one, I use pretty well exactly the same but with a hardware firewall on the router as well.

HTH

Dred

aliEnRIK

Keep Malwarebytes. Its a cracking scanner (only)
Ad Watch is useless. Ad Aware can be kept if you want as a backup scanner (But doesnt seem much use these days)
Make sure you use the IMMUNISE feature in spybot (Stops nasties at the source)

[Deleted User]

glowgirl wrote: »

Thank you davidmt83, do you think it would be best to get rid of ad-aware and ad-watch, I'm not even sure what these do.

I would. I don't really think anything else is needed other than what I've wrote. But there's different horses for different courses

glowgirl_2

Thanks for the replies - all been a great help:T

aliEnRIK

Deleted_User wrote: »

I would. I don't really think anything else is needed other than what I've wrote. But there's different horses for different courses

Well if you went on a website that was infected with JUST what you have their, and none of your programs recognised it as such, youd be infected.
Spybots IMMUNISE feature prevents certain pages from being loaded (Among other things), to try to counter them

Persoanlly I use NOSCRIPT to completely stop all scripts and redirects

glowgirl_2

Thanks, think I'll put noscript on as well, I guess you cant be too careful.

aliEnRIK

glowgirl wrote: »

Thanks, think I'll put noscript on as well, I guess you cant be too careful.

You need FIREFOX first
http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/firefox/

THEN noscript for it
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722

And whatever addons youll need (Flash etc)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:7

Noscript works by blocking ALL webpages. So youll need to UNLOCK them for them to work (Only need to unlock them the once)

tweeter

I downloaded Malwarebytes and A-Squared to help a friend out. Ran both and only A-Squared found anything : trojan and some lesser stuff. I suppose you have to take a blunderbus approach as Malwarebytes has such a good reputation.