I have spybot resident, it's supposed to stop stuff from adding itself to the startup menu but it doesn't do a good job of that and it's too bloated.
Any other good free alternatives?

I have Spyware Terminator that makes a very good job with startup shield'feature. Their Real Time-Protection is excellent.

A soft alternative is Arovax Shield that works well with startup items (the file extensions shield don't works).

I second SpywareTerminator. Since installing and using it I've turned Spybot's teatimer off, they were warning of the same things. But ST warns of much more besides. Their aren't too many freeware realtime antispy programs around, either.
another option is Winpatrol. Warns of startup changes and a few other things,(BHO's, "bad" cookies,etc) quite a few handy tools. Not quite realtime, though...it scans the various parameters every one to eleven minutes (or more), these time intervals can be changed by the user down to a minimum of one minute.

We aren't talking here about Spyware Terminator from invender.nl ?

Because if we are: it is on the SpywareWarrior list which lists rogue anti-spywareprograms.

http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/spywareterminator.com
Is that the one your talking about?
I'm not sure if I'd trust it, it's on Mcafee's yellow list.

From "Spyware Warrior" here:



They are talking from Spyware Terminator.

Don't confuse with Spyware Terminator from invender.nl or Spyware X-terminator from Stompsoft.

I am going to ask McAfee SiteAdvisor to remove the detection flag as Spyware Terminator has been proven that its OK.

Edit: There have been many requests for Spyware Terminator to be re-rated as Good but McAfee is slow in doing it.

I already suggested that to Siteadvisor. No response. Uninstalled it. (siteadvisor). WOT.

Thanks everyone for the input
It seems to be doing a awesome job at keeping stuff from starting up!
thanks
-aaron