I have the free version, which doesn’t include Ad-Watch realtime protection. If I had the paid version, I would disable Ad-Watch. Ad-Aware is not a very powerful app. I run it once a week, more out of habit and/or nostalgia than for any substantive reason. I forgot to add it to the group of apps that I’ll toss when I switch to NOD32.
Hi Ed,
I endorse what afpj said about multiple anti-virus programs. It’s never a good idea to have two actively running at the same time, because the chances are they’ll conflict, resulting in system instability and performance problems. It’s also possible that the level of protection may actually be reduced, because neither may work properly due to mutual interference.
Just having two AV’s installed on the hard disk at the same time can be problematic, even if only one of them is active; it depends on which two. From my own experience, some will co-exist peacefully; others won’t. In any case the amount of additional protection you get by using more than one AV is fairly marginal. IMHO, it’s more effective to layer your defenses with a mix of products of different types. That way, hopefully, you’ve always got something in your bag of tricks that will do the job if the need arises.
As to which AV, my view is that so long as you pick one of the top-rated ones, with frequent signature updates and good heuristics, it doesn’t matter which one you go with. None of them are perfect, but the better ones will all give good solid protection. NOD32 and KAV, for example, are both highly-rated by independent testing labs and users alike. In the end, it comes down to what works well on your PC and your own preferences.
Exactly the same consideration applies to firewalls as to anti-virus. You don’t gain anything by using more than one, and can also encounter conflicts and system instability just by having more than one installed.
With anti-spyware, anti-trojan, and anti-rootkit technology, the situation is different and you can combine multiple products of the same type. Most security experts recommend using more than one anti-spyware program. Personally I only use them as additional on-demand scanners, not for active protection. These days a good anti-virus program should provide active protection against all kinds of malware, not just viruses.
If you decide you do want additional active protection in addition to Firewall and AV, adding HIPS is a good way to go. As you know, CFP 3.0 and Online Armor already have HIPS built in. If you’re going to use CFP 2.4, Threatfire would be a good choice: It is free, very quiet, and reported to perform well in tests. (PC Magazine’s Neil Rubenking recently tested ThreatFire and found it to be more effective at blocking malware than either Spy Sweeper or Spyware Doctor - PC Magazine’s two top picks amongst the current crop of anti-spyware programs.)
I have also found the www.techsupportalert.com website, run by Ian “Gizmo” Richards, to be a useful additional source of information about security matters. The information appears to be well researched and I tend to agree with most of the conclusions that he has reached. He too has a high regard for the COMODO and Online Armor firewalls, and also likes NOD32 Antivirus.
Best wishes
Peter
Thank you again, Peter.
I had similar problem. Turned out that Spybot had hidden deep within an option to block hosts; unchecking the option resolved the Outlook email problem.
I seem to recall that option having lots of unintended consequences. Spybot stopped being useful years ago.