Got a quick question for the anti-virus/malware people:

I've got Windows 7 Pro, but I dual boot w/ Ubuntu and spend the majority of my time there. After hearing good things about MSE, I installed it and things are going well so far. I've been using Spybot for about 5 years and Spywareblaster for 4. Do I need to keep these programs on my computer since I have MSE? or can I delete them? Really, I just use Win7 for occasional MS Office things, iTunes, browsing, and StarCraft 2. I'm trying to thin down my list of processes to speed up my system in general, and to devote more processing power to StarCraft 2 when I play.

9/26/2010 1:30:57 PM

if you feel pretty confident in your ability to avoid spyware in general, definitely get rid of them. if you spend a lot of time on shady sites or have a history of managing to get infected with something, keep em

9/26/2010 1:59:38 PM

Turn off SDHelper and TeaTimer (Tools menu in Advanced Mode), and just use Spybot for its passive immunization powers; in fact you can just use the Updater and then if you put this special Immunizer from the upcoming Spybot 2 in the Spybot program folder (and also make a shortcut and put that in the Start Menu folder for Spybot) the whole process will be faster because you won't be loading the shitty and outdated scanner, which takes too long and misses too much: http://www.spybotupdates.com/updates/files/temp/SDImmunize.zip

As for SpywareBlaster, it doesn't slow your computer down because it only runs when you're using it to fortify your computer; update it to Version 4.4 if you haven't yet, and use this Custom Blocking List for more protection: http://koti.mbnet.fi/pattaya1/customblocking.txt

In both cases, you may want to actually remove the Restricted Sites protection, because IE8 has trouble dealing with huge Restricted Sites zones; to do that, select all instances of "Domains" and "Secure Domains" for IE in Spybot, and nothing else, and Undo immunization, and then in SpywareBlaster remove the Restricted Sites protection (go in, Deselect All, then Remove Protection for Unchecked Items) and then disable that.
The Spybot Restricted Sites protection is duplicated in its HOSTS file immunization; also the most important parts of Spybot and SpywareBlaster immunization are actually the ActiveX killbits (including a neat feature of SpywareBlaster that keeps Flash off your system and keeps sites from trying to install it, if you're into that sort of thing).

MSE is an excellent and relatively lightweight virus and malware scanner, but the best of the bunch is probably MalwareBytes; Spybot isn't good at scanning, just at immunization, and SpywareBlaster doesn't scan at all, but if you're running into some serious trouble that MSE isn't catching, there's a good chance MalwareBytes will. It may even be worth it to find a keygen pay for it so you get the Protection module, which among other things blocks access to even more suspicious sites.


Even if you just used Win7 for nothing but browsing, these security measures would be important, because a great deal of malware enters via the browser.

9/26/2010 2:11:03 PM

is SC2 MSE really that processor intensive?

For the longest time I didn't run anything, but now that my PC is more powerful than I have any need for I run 2 at a time (AVG and malwarebytes) just to be safe

if you wanted to get tricky, you could always setup a batch file on your desktop which would shut down your AV/malware processes, then started SC2

I assume you've already been through your MSCONFIG to trim down your startups right? Have you disabled a bunch of services?

9/26/2010 2:12:18 PM

If you have a massive HOSTS file (Spybot makes a big one by default) you should consider disabling the DNS Client, after running "ipconfig /flushdns" one last time in a command prompt; then your computer won't slow down re-parsing that HOSTS file to re-populate that DNS cache.

9/26/2010 2:15:11 PM

you don't want to run more than one real time AV/Malware protection at a time, or else they step on each other....

9/27/2010 11:31:28 PM

I think the problem is just virus scanners

I run MSE and Malwarebytes' protection module together with no probs

9/28/2010 12:21:29 AM

^ ditto. lately i've been running AVG/Malwarebytes or MSE/Adaware with no issues.

Hell I've got one machine I only use for virus scans and it has 6-7 active scanners running at once with no issues

9/28/2010 10:39:47 AM