I have thoroughly enjoyed your patronizing posts over the past few days. If
you have a life beyond the "Cybernetic", you must be taking a hiatus.

TPW
"D. Spencer Hines" wrote in message
...
Good Post.

Sound Advice.

We don't work on computers for a living -- and have lives beyond the
Cybernetic.

Shenan fails to understand that simple fact of life.

DSH

"Kerry Brown" *a*m wrote in message
...

D. Spencer Hines wrote:

Do you honestly expect folks to install at least FIVE different
Anti-Spyware programs, keep them updated, monitor them and constantly
tweak each one as required?

DSH


Thank you for the thought provoking question. It has been fun and
enlightening reading the responses. Like many here I make a living
working
on computers. I work on a wide range of systems: home, business,
networks,
Windows, Linux, Xenix, Novell, and more. I hate spyware. It has made my
work boring and repetitive. I used to see the odd virus once a month or
so. I now spend most of my day removing spyware, viruses, malware etc.. I
have removed malware from all versions of Windows, from well protected
machines to completely, hopelessly open machines. I have had irate
customers insist that their machine couldn't possibly be infected as they
use xyz and abc anti-spyware programs daily and nothing could possibly
get
in. I have seen well protected machines infected via the wmf exploit by
clicking on a link from a Google search. It was a hijacked site that was
fixed within a day but it can and does happen. Some of my personal
machines have been infected although rarely and I was pretty sure that
they would be infected but I knew I had a good backup and didn't care.
I've since switched to using Linux to visit anywhere I'm not sure of. I
regularly use multiple anti-spyware, anti-virus, rootkit finders, process
explorers and more. There isn't one of them that will find everything.
Even with a very large arsenal I still find about one or two systems a
month that can't be cleaned and need a complete rebuild.

All that said, for my customers I recommend they install a router, SP2,
any anti-virus (they all work well enough), Adaware, Spybot Search &
Destroy and scan their system weekly with all three. I also tell them
about MSAS but that it is technically a beta so it is up to them to
install it themselves as I can't support it. It does work well. I use it
on my main personal machine. If you want to pay for a program both
Spysweeper and Ewido seem worth the money. Either will find more than
Adaware and Spybot combined.

Like others have already said, I never click on tinyurl's, any url in an
email, and am very careful about surfing. I mostly use Firefox.

Did I mention I hate spyware?

Kerry