spyware questions

[biswhisk]

I got a couple of viruses the other day that apparantly ended up being bugs from spyware. I deleted the suspected programs and ran adaware twice along with another scanner from auhma. Being I haven't downloaded anything, where'd these bugs come from.

I've heard people on the board mention spybot search and destroy and spywareblaster. Might these be things I want to install. Is one of these programs similar to adaware, why didn't adaware catch the bugs, does it not run in the background. Does spybot and spywareblaster run in the background to detect them before they get on my system. Thanks.

[Crockett]

If you have Ad-Aware....keep it.
SpyBot S&D is a program, like Ad-Aware, that checks for spyware.
They are both good to have though, as it has been proven that they find different things.
Both programs are manually run and are not prtograms that run constantly.
They do not prevent spyware, they get rid of it one you already have it. This is done through a manually scan.

SpywareBlaster prevents spyware from being installed in the first place and is great for stopping these at the door.
It is a great program to have and will work without any user intervention. It doesn't have to be running to work. Just install it, keep it updated.

[biswhisk]

Being my Adaware is acting up since I updated it today, I'm seriously thinking of switching to spybot and spywareblaster instead. Now to find links to download them.

[Crockett]

SpyBot 1.3 beta 6 (http://www.majorgeeks.com/download2471.html)

SpywareBlaster 3.1 (http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/sbdownload.html)