Antivir and Ad-Aware Good?

[NotebookNeophyte]

I need your opinions on my selections. If I put Antivir and Ad-Aware on my computer...will this be sufficient to protect against viruses and spyware? How good is Ad-Aware? Would you reccomend anything additional or different than the aforementioned? Thanks!

[mario666]

I use AVG free and Windows Defender on my XP PC, and have never had any problems. I also use Spyware Blaster, which is a pre-emptive solution. Finally, I use Firefox, which cuts down on risks.

Occasionally, I run Spybot and a rootkit detector, but I've never encountered anything nasty.

I've only ever run freeware.

[Calvin]

Antivir is the best choice for anti-virus, but Ad-aware is topped by Spybot Search&Destroy, and A-squared free. Get one of those instead of Ad-aware.

[coolguy]

I need your opinions on my selections. If I put Antivir and Ad-Aware on my computer...will this be sufficient to protect against viruses and spyware? How good is Ad-Aware? Would you reccomend anything additional or different than the aforementioned? Thanks!

Ad-Aware free doesn't have real time spyware protection, which is pretty much useless in the real world.

Antivir is good according to some reviews but haven't tried it personally.
It's only disadvantages are high false positives, a pop up screen daily to upgrade to premium version.

[mario666]

I just remembered why I stopped using the free version of Avira's Antivir: the nag screens. But if you can live with them, It's fine. I have read that it over-reports problems though, but as long as you are not a noobie, it's better than under-reporting.

[mario666]

Spyware Blaster only blocks sites known for spyware/malware.
If you use ThreatFire, a real-time behavioural scanner, you can add an extra layer of protection.

True, but real-time behavioural scanners are often quite resource intensive. As long as you've got a decent, up-to-date computer though, it should be okay. I haven't heard of ThreatFire before. I'll have to check it out.

Also, Spybot has some real-time protection built in (the 'TeaTimer' app).

[crash]

Ad-Aware free doesn't have real time spyware protection, which is pretty much useless in the real world.

Antivir is good according to some reviews but haven't tried it personally.
It's only disadvantages are high false positives, a pop up screen daily to upgrade to premium version.

The once-a-day advertisement pop-up is a really small price to pay for a better antivirus engine. It doesn't bother me, but I suppose it could bother others.

As for the high false positives, I would rather it have some false positives than under-detect viruses for fear of detecting false positives. Also, the number of false positives that Antivir detects has gone down significantly over the past year.