Completely unrelated to the usual topics of this site however I recently had a trojan on my computer that just forced me to do things in safe mode. Tried many different things such as Norton Antivirus among various other programs however the trojan just kept on regenerating.

Found out about avast! and it scans your computer before windows even pops up. Definitely one of the best programs out there so if anybody else is having any problems or wants to check if they do, download it from the link below.

http://www.avast.com/

avast is total junk... thas why it is freeware

kaspersky is #1, i got cracked keys if anyone needs them

also run lava-soft ad-aware

and spy-bot search and destroy

I agree with you 5.  I run adaware and spybot.  They are very good for cleaning.  I also run Malwarebytes.  This gets rid of some of the really nasty worms and trojans that the others can't.  

There seems to be more spyware and nasty shit on the web these days.

Nasties is it? See what happens when you put your nose where isn't doesn't belong!   Didn't daddy tell you NEVER to go into that room?! And how many times do I have to tell you to STOP TOUCHING YOURSELf?!

Trojan Remover is great for getting rid of nasties. It does a scan of your computer on each startup. Free trail available here:

http://www.simplysup.com/tremover/download.html

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware is also excellent. Free trail available here:

http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

In my experience, the best overall security suite is Avira Premium Security Suite. Free 30-day trail (was 90 days until last week) can be had here:

http://www.avira.com/en/products/test_license_2.html

SRI, a big name in computer security, tests the various anti-virus/malware apps available to the consumer, and they have compiled a list ranking the effectiveness of each; see the results here:

http://mtc.sri.com/live_data/av_rankings/.

Note that Avira takes the top spot, Avast places 5th, Kaspersky12th place, and Nod32 comes in 30th. Also note that even the top-ranked Avira ONLY manages to catch 95% of all the bad stuff!

Avira is the only anti-malware app that has ever warned me that a web page I'm about to open has bad shit encoded in its HTML.

(However, I've noticed that Avira can interfere with some torrent downloads, tho I'm still looking into it)

See SRI's home page  http://mtc.sri.com/ for some interesting info on what the user is currently up against.

SRI also makes the free-ware BotHunter for those of you curious to know if you are an unwitting cog in a huge bot net. Get it here:

http://www.bothunter.net/

If your security app is not testing for rootkits, you might want to try this free anti-rootkit app, RootkitRevealer:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897445.aspx (download at botom of page)

[ Last edited by  Marsupial at 17-12-2008 05:05 ]

Try using Internet Security Suite from Zone Alarm. The application got good reviewsfor software firewall and anti-virus. Doesn't hog your computer memory like other brands. Plus it's free to use for two weeks with updates. Can still run the application when free demo expires.

http://www.zonealarm.com

Btw - this is not an ad :-)

[ Last edited by  asia-play at 15-12-2008 08:47 ]

ZoneAlarm is notoriously quirky. If it works, it works great; if it doesn't, it fucks up your computer. Unfortunately, I was never able to get the latest version of ZoneAlarm to work properly on my puter. Its True Vector Service would crash every couple minutes (and then restart itself), and did not like torrent apps.

interesting. how do you guys rate spyware doctor?

Strange got my version to work like a charm. This includes BT downloads and all.

I've tried most anti-virus and anti-spyware programs as a matter of curiosity (almost all of them have trial versions). IMHO I think NOD32 is the best. It's really invisible as it does not use much resources. The one I dislike the most is Norton as it sometimes slows down the computer to a crawl. I don't use an anti-spyware now as I don't surf questionable websites that much and NOD32 is able to block any unpleasant programs I've come across. I like to do away with all unnecessary programs at boot up so that the computer can feel snappier.

gabrieldesoto: I've used spyware doctor for a few months and find I can live without it.

I think avast! rocks! I tried using Malwarebytes as well but the trojan just had a regenerating code to it. Thought all was lost but tried avast!. Worked perfectly! I jguess you could just download all of them if you wanted to and feel extra safe then!

I had the exact opposite where Mawarebytes fixed the recurring trojon.  I think that it is a hit and miss situation.  Some software works better on some occasions then others.  You can never have too much protection!

one question:

If I have several these softwares. Since they all seem to auto loaded when computer starts. would these software conflict with each others ?

I've found that some of them don't like other applications being there at the same time in the past.  I think it is a trial and error type situation.  Load one and see how it goes, load another later and see how that goes etc.

Yeah I think this post has compiled quite a few effective programs for people to use.

Computer and mongering situations. Keep safe bros!

thanks bro!