Do I need to keep Spybot-Search & Destroy minimized to be protected.????

Off the top of my head I cannot think of any software that you have to keep minimized in order to still be protected.

Thanks for your quick response. I will no longer keep it minimized.!!

It only runs when you choose to run it.
Always check for updates first however

I think what you want to know ksfinn is if software has "real time" protection. I'm sure your probably using an AV, so you notice that it added a icon in your system tray(bottom right corner). That is one way to know if your software is offering real time protection(most programs do this, not all). The other way of course would be to bring up the task manager and see if it has any services running in the back ground.(alt ctrl del of course. )

There are only 3 free real time scanners that I know of:
Spybot(its called tea timer)
MS Defender(crap, don't use this)
Spyware Terminator(some like it, I don't)

To be honest though I think your better off just scanning every now and then with your programs and not using resident/real time protection. The reason for that is they can slow down your system especially if you use multiple ones on top of your AV and firewall.

Spyware Blaster is great because it will add some sites to be blocked without needing to be running all the time. So it will not slow down your pc at all.

Thanks to all. Question answered!!!!!!!!!!

As will Spybot of course with its immunise function

PLEASE NO MORE REPLYS. QUESTION ANSWERED.!! THANKS AGAIN TO EVERYONE FOR THEIR SUPPRORT.

Yeah, but even they say not to use it and use spyware blaster instead.
I saw somewhere a while ago people complaining that using both was causing problems, but I did it for years without any. I don't use spybot hardly anymore though.

VERY INTERESTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Honestly, I'm running Ad-Aware, AVG Anti-Spyware, and Windows Defender. Plus Norton Internet Security. I had SpyBot installed, but I figured it was too much/redundant with that much protection. Also, I need to upgrade my RAM before I have anymore background processes running.

AJ

I think most of us here will go "Ewwww!" when we see Norton. If I were you, I'd go give BitDefender 10 Free Version a whirl. It's *really* nice.

Why even bother with BitDefender Free. Out of the free av's it doesn't even have resident protection when others such as AVG Antivirus Free Edition, Avast Home Edition, AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic, and PC Tools Antivirus Free Edition all have resident protection.

I think I may try pc tools AV later. The opinions I've read on it haven't been good though.

My main complaint about it is it's resource usage which last time I used it was something like 50 MB or 60 MB for just the resident protection. However I'm going to try it again in just a few minutes as I see a new version was released since I last gave it a whirl.

I just tried out PC Tools AntiVirus Free Edition again, and they've fixed the resource usage problems of that earlier version. Now it runs rather lite and was only using between 600 KB to 1.6 MB for the resident processes.

If I were to compare it against another free antivirus it would have to be AVG Free since they're both using about the same resources, and are within 5 minutes of each other when doing a full system scan on my PC. All in all it wasn't that bad in my views and people that don't like AVG Free, AntiVir or Avast may like it. Although I don't know how it stacks up against AVG, AntiVir, and Avast in the detection process.

Thanks for the info. I got caught up in something else so I still havent tried it yet.
I will for sure later though.

Some users have been to complain about a false positive in PC Tools AntiVirus: "winlogon.exe" file, with a dangerous repercussion if deleted by AV.

The same to "Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 5.0".

It didn't give me any false positives when I tested it, it didn't find any malware either. Any antivirus scanner can give a false positive detection.

I like pc tools av.
Its really light like avg and it has a nice interface. Scanning is sufficient speed wise as well.
Spyware Doctor is a good product if you don't mind paying, so I somewhat trust this AV as having sufficient virus databases.

It has a file guard, email guard, and web guard. It has scheduled scanning and updating as well.
If you like to have AV/Firewall products from the same company, you could run this and pctools firewall with almost a zero hit in system performance since they are both so light.

I'm going to leave this installed for a while and I may try it on the next computer I clean up. I just hope they keep this free version available.

The uninstaller will leave the resident shield startup in the Run section of the registry should you uninstall it - well at least it did on my PC. Of course an install watcher like ZSoft Uninstaller can get rid of it, or if you didn't monitor the installation CCleaner will also detect it in an Issues scan - other than that I have zero complaints about PC Tools AntiVirus Free Edition.

Thanks for letting me know. I didn't monitor the install, but I don't plan to uninstall it right away.
So far its using under 1mb for resident protection.(if you look at the task manager you will see it spike to like 5mb for litterally under a second and then it goes right back down.) Pretty impressive considering what some of the other use.