I have been reading the forums about malware and I am trying to get my security software to work in a good combo. All seem to remove spyware. I am not sure I am getting any antivirus.

To start, I have ClamWin as a back-up, of course and Spybot S&D.

To get a real time virus and primary antivirus, I thought ThreatFire sounded like a good idea. Maybe in combo with Avira Antivir-Personal. Now I think I have overdone it and these programs will interfere with each other.

I had Adaware before and it did a good job of blocking those dumb dancing ads. Will this interfere as well?

The descriptions given for these various softwares don't given newbies like me enough info. to make a decision. Please help me!

Hello,

I guess you have installed too much security apps at once so it may happen they interfere each other. Personally I use Clamwin as backup scanner together with Threatfire. As an antispyware Spybot S&D does its job quite good (it does not interfere with the previous apps). in alternative you may think to use Spyware Terminator (which has real time protection.
I think with such a set you should be protected enough (a further protection layer is given by a firewall; if you have none except the defaults supplied by Windows you may try Commodo Personal Firewall or PC Tools firewall; both of them are good and free for personal use).

Make sure you run periodic scans of your machine (for this you can set scheduled scan on Clamwin's preferences) and keep yr. secutiry app up to date.

Hope this helps,
Antonio

Thank you so much. I didn't think about a firewall since the Windows one is on my computer. I take it that it is not good enough, so I will check out your suggestions. Thanks again. Have a good day.

The Windows firewall is decent, but it only protects against inbound attacks coming in to your computer, and it's not "hardened" as well as many other firewalls. I use it, however because it is simple to use and doesn't intrude upon my use of the computer. If your antivirus and antispyware protection is good enough, no malware should be outbound calling home from your computer. I also use an additional security monitor (WinPatrol). For a real-time antivirus, I recommend Threatfire or Avast. I like Avast because it's free and it has web protection features. I quit using Threatfire because it has become bloated. It now comes with an on demand scanner like ClamWin but the database isn't as good. Threatfire's behavior blocking is very good however.

Regards,

sygate is another good but very stiff firewall and free for personal use. I have also found malwarebites a very good scanning tool and can be found for free.

Most of the commercial antiviruses now have some minimal behavior blocking capability included in their real time scanner, so I am not sure that you need a dedicated behavior blocking program. Most AVs (including ClamWin via Clam AV's signatures) also have some anti-spyware capability. I would not trust antispyware to them completely, however, because antispyware and antimalware software monitors somewhat differently than AVs. They look at registry entries and malware "traces" that many AVs (including Clam/ClamWin) don't even consider. Some AVs also offer script protection, and they are now beginning to expand this. AVG and Avast have some web surfing protection included in their free scanners, and I am sure the big AVs (McAfee, Symantec), also have it.

Regards,