Discussion:
Any feelings on Windows Defender (sic!) beta 2?
Skiwi
2006-04-10 06:42:16 UTC
Permalink
Any feelings on Windows Defender (sic!) beta 2?

Any advantage to installing it alongside Spybot, Teatimer, Adaware and
Spywareblaster?

TIA!
Mike Easter
2006-04-10 12:47:59 UTC
Permalink
Post by Skiwi
Any feelings on Windows Defender (sic!) beta 2?
Altho' windows defender isn't on the list of apps at spywareinfo, if you
search for it in the forum discussions, nothing bad is being said about
it. I've seen some articles which were favorable to it. At SWI, the
advice is to disable it prior to running some programs like hijack this.
Post by Skiwi
Any advantage to installing it alongside Spybot, Teatimer, Adaware and
Spywareblaster?
How did you go about choosing your 'collection'? Why not have more? or
less? Why those instead of others? There are a lot of them.

I don't use any. Some people should use a really lot of them, I guess.
--
Mike Easter
kibitzer, not SC admin
POP
2006-04-10 13:12:58 UTC
Permalink
Post by Mike Easter
Post by Skiwi
Any feelings on Windows Defender (sic!) beta 2?
Altho' windows defender isn't on the list of apps at
spywareinfo, if you
search for it in the forum discussions, nothing bad is being
said about
it. I've seen some articles which were favorable to it. At
SWI, the
advice is to disable it prior to running some programs like
hijack this.
Actually, if you check the newsgroup MS set up for it, I think
there are some fairly telling problems with it that keep showing
up. I say "I think" because in reality they are flooding
microsoft.public.security and ... .security.homeusers rathen than
using the right newsgroups. I think part of the problem is the
expertise of the users, but other problems seem to be, well,
relevant.
Remember, you wont' see many pros there, only cons; the people
wiht no problems don't post <g>.
Post by Mike Easter
Post by Skiwi
Any advantage to installing it alongside Spybot, Teatimer,
Adaware and
Spywareblaster?
I use those too except for teatimer; Instead I use Winpatrol for
real time monitoring and the system control it provides me.
Pretty handy but a little obtrusive until you get it trained. I
used to use Sygate's personal firewall but switched to ZoneAlarm
when Sygate stopped supporting the freebie version. Turned out
ZA had surpassed it anyway, so ... IMO at least.
Post by Mike Easter
How did you go about choosing your 'collection'? Why not have
more? or
less? Why those instead of others? There are a lot of them.
In my case, mostly word of mouth and "test" installing them,
throwing out the ones I didn't get along with or that seemed to
be stagnant. I used to apply them in different orders to see who
caught what, and kept a mental scorecard of which ones caught the
most hits and the least, moving the good ones to my "keep"
status. Winpatrol is my favorite, I think, becuase of all the
other features it has. It's overkill of you only want cookie
management, but it does make it convenient and gives a sensible
control over them.
Post by Mike Easter
I don't use any. Some people should use a really lot of them,
I guess.
Interesting. I only say this because I know you're experienced
enough to not panic about it, but I'll bet if you download and
run Adaware (lavasoft.com) or Sypbot Search & Destroy
(spybot.com, I think), that they will find about 25 "hits" for
varying degrees of imortance on your system. Unless you surf to
a lot of new places often, in which case it might find a lot of
them. You don't sound like the kind that will have much actual
malware, but I'll bet it finds a lot of trackers, maybe some info
senders if nothing else.
IMO Adaware and Spybot are the two better ones, but there are
some newer ones out there that I've never tried that people speak
well of. As always, ymmv on any of them, of course.

Cheers,

Pop
Post by Mike Easter
--
Mike Easter
kibitzer, not SC admin
Mike Easter
2006-04-10 13:18:59 UTC
Permalink
Post by POP
Interesting. I only say this because I know you're experienced
enough to not panic about it, but I'll bet if you download and
run Adaware (lavasoft.com) or Sypbot Search & Destroy
(spybot.com, I think), that they will find about 25 "hits" for
varying degrees of imortance on your system.
Cookie management is an entirely different subject than spyware.
--
Mike Easter
kibitzer, not SC admin
POP
2006-04-10 14:34:38 UTC
Permalink
Post by Mike Easter
Post by POP
Interesting. I only say this because I know you're
experienced
enough to not panic about it, but I'll bet if you download and
run Adaware (lavasoft.com) or Sypbot Search & Destroy
(spybot.com, I think), that they will find about 25 "hits" for
varying degrees of imortance on your system.
Cookie management is an entirely different subject than
spyware.
Basically true, but ... some malware use AND create cookies
besides finding cookies placed there by other sites. Wider info
dispersal that way.
But, I only meant that in conjunction with Winpatrol anyway.

Pop
Post by Mike Easter
--
Mike Easter
kibitzer, not SC admin
Porpoise
2006-04-10 15:15:00 UTC
Permalink
Post by POP
Post by Mike Easter
I don't use any. Some people should use a really lot of them, I guess.
Interesting. I only say this because I know you're experienced
enough to not panic about it, but I'll bet if you download and
run Adaware (lavasoft.com) or Sypbot Search & Destroy
(spybot.com, I think), that they will find about 25 "hits" for
varying degrees of imortance on your system. Unless you surf to
a lot of new places often, in which case it might find a lot of
them. You don't sound like the kind that will have much actual
malware, but I'll bet it finds a lot of trackers, maybe some info
senders if nothing else.
IMO Adaware and Spybot are the two better ones, but there are
some newer ones out there that I've never tried that people speak
well of. As always, ymmv on any of them, of course.
I'm with Mike on this one. I *do* have anti-spyware installed but I can't
remember the last time it actually found anything - basically, because my
system is so locked down and I don't click links "blindly", so there is very
little opportunity for any malware to get onto my system. I'm not saying
it's impossible but it's extremely unlikely. Anyone who's getting "25
'hits'" is browsing the internet *very* insecurely - IMVHO.
Mike Easter
2006-04-10 15:23:38 UTC
Permalink
Post by Porpoise
"Mike Easter"
Post by Mike Easter
I don't use any. Some people should use a really lot of them, I guess.
I'm with Mike on this one. I *do* have anti-spyware installed but I
can't remember the last time it actually found anything - basically,
because my system is so locked down and I don't click links
"blindly", so there is very little opportunity for any malware to get
onto my system. I'm not saying it's impossible but it's extremely
unlikely. Anyone who's getting "25 'hits'" is browsing the internet
*very* insecurely - IMVHO.
This goes back to my post earlier news://news.spamcop.net/e16p4c$l61$***@news.spamcop.net in the java and
activex problems thread, where I was talking about browser security
issues.

I can also turn off my realtime antivirus scanner -- and I do turn off
email scanning. I use other defenses against email virms.
--
Mike Easter
kibitzer, not SC admin
"Joe Gill" @prodigy.net>
2006-04-10 12:56:28 UTC
Permalink
Post by Skiwi
Any feelings on Windows Defender (sic!) beta 2?
Any advantage to installing it alongside Spybot, Teatimer, Adaware and
Spywareblaster?
TIA!
It's predecessor product, Microsoft Anti-Spyware Beta 1, found 9 trojans
that the following combo of software was oblivious to:
Norton Antivirus 2005
Spybot 1.5
Ad-Aware
The trojans at the time had combined to hijack the home pack with a porn
page after a delay of a about 1 minute after startup.
Skiwi
2006-04-12 06:12:45 UTC
Permalink
Post by Skiwi
Any feelings on Windows Defender (sic!) beta 2?
Any advantage to installing it alongside Spybot, Teatimer, Adaware and
Spywareblaster?
TIA!
thanks for all the feedback and avenues to explore...

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