[mankey522]

Whats the best free spyware program to use?

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Hi mankey522 & welcome to Geeks2Go!

It's best to use two anti-spyware products. Unlike AntiVirus applications you can have two or even three spyware scanners installed at the same time since they don't conflict with each other like AV scanners do -- another point is there's no single anti-spyware product which finds all known spyware, so what one misses the other probably won't. So working together they can collectively provide a very effective detection rate.

The free ones almost always work by searching your system for spyware that's already on your PC, which is fair enough since, unlike viruses, spyware doesn't usually cause any 'damage' to your system, whereas in many cases if a virus has already infected your PC it's too late and the damage has been done. Nevertheless, many people would rather stop spyware getting on to their PC in the first place, so they install a 'real time' spyware scanner which works similar to real time antivirus utilities. Most of these however are not free. I have to say I find the free 'scan for spyware which is already on your machine' products more than adequate.

Of the free ones, I would say the 'must haves' are 'Spybot Search & Destroy': http://www.safer-net...otsd/index.html
SpywareBlaster: http://www.javacools...areblaster.html, and AVG Anti-Spyware: http://free.grisoft....e-anti-spyware/

[pip22]

Hi mankey522 & welcome to Geeks2Go!

It's best to use two anti-spyware products. Unlike AntiVirus applications you can have two or even three spyware scanners installed at the same time since they don't conflict with each other like AV scanners do -- another point is there's no single anti-spyware product which finds all known spyware, so what one misses the other probably won't. So working together they can collectively provide a very effective detection rate.

The free ones almost always work by searching your system for spyware that's already on your PC, which is fair enough since, unlike viruses, spyware doesn't usually cause any 'damage' to your system, whereas in many cases if a virus has already infected your PC it's too late and the damage has been done. Nevertheless, many people would rather stop spyware getting on to their PC in the first place, so they install a 'real time' spyware scanner which works similar to real time antivirus utilities. Most of these however are not free. I have to say I find the free 'scan for spyware which is already on your machine' products more than adequate.

Of the free ones, I would say the 'must haves' are 'Spybot Search & Destroy': http://www.safer-net...otsd/index.html
SpywareBlaster: http://www.javacools...areblaster.html, and AVG Anti-Spyware: http://free.grisoft....e-anti-spyware/

[Will_00]

I support Spybot Search and Destroy and AVG Anti-Virus as well. Might I also add Windows Defender?

[The Skeptic]

I agree with the suggestions brought up so far. For real time protection I use Spyware Terminator. Sometime ago they had serious problems with one of their older versions but that has been rectified. It's not a commonly used program but I consider it as a very good (and free) product.

If you plan to use it please note:

1: Do not enable the Clam antivirus option as this may conflict with your present antivirus.

2: Do not enable the Web Security Guard as this will install a toolbar in your browser.

3: If you install Spybot Search and Destroy (which I highly recommend), do not enable the Tea Timer option as this may conflict with the real time protection of Spyware Terminator.

[ZetaByte]

i used...

*SpyBot Search+Destroy
*AVG

their excellent programs to have!