Discussion on:

#10: NoScript for Firefox (Ten free security utilities you should already be using)

Think I've wasted enough time on windows and software solutions. All this 'spyware and virus' paranoia is digging into productivity. Better off with *nix and an appliance solution.
How about 10 productivity apps we should already be using?

I personally switched to Linux for my desktop years ago, but I still use Microsoft products on a daily basis because it's my bread and butter. And the faster you resolve the problems, the more you are valued. So you must use the products to become any good with them. Same for any industry.

But, in the real world, one must adapt to what is in use, or perish.

As an anology, though an auto mechanic may have a strong personal preference for a particular make/model/year/etc. vehicle, he must, if he wishes to succeed in his chosen craft, learn to service a wide variety of vehicles.

If you happen to be running Webroot SpySweeper, it is apparently incompatible with HauteSecure. I installed the latter on my system, and it caused SpySweeper's resident portion (ssu.exe) to take up all the cpu cycles, rendering it impossible to run anything else.

I had several browser add-ons installed. After installing Haute Secure I noticed that if IE was full screen and I clicked the X to close the window, my pc hard rebooted. Didn't happen if IE was windowed. Given that the PC was two years old and had recently developed a problem with "Remote Desktops" I elected to reinstall XP. Haven't added Haute back though.

I installed the Haute Secure and it killed part of the functionality of my Banks online web site. As soon as I unistalled it and rebooted, all was back to normal. I tried just to disable the browser-addon and no help. Only a complete uninstall cured my problems.

I installed HauteSecure and after restarting, my PC became erratic. Boot-up is painfully slow, applications doesn't work anymore, errors keeps popping-up. I have uninstalled it already, yet I am still having problems in my PC. Before the installation, my PC's running smoothly. Now, I may have to re-format it again if these problems doesn't go away. Two-thumbs down. Waste of time only.

Nice list - But don't overlook:

SpyBot Search & Destroy
http://www.safer-networking.org

HiJackThis
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/programs.php

SpywareBlaster 3.5.1, SpywareGuard 2.2, MRU-Blaster 1.5
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/downloads.html

& AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 7.5
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/us/frt/0

-- Enjoy!

Belarc Advisor
http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html
(I've found the fact that it will give the serial key's of software a great help.)

Belarc's EULA specifically prohibits its use in a commercial environment.

System Information for Windows (SIW) has no such restriction. It shows as much or more information including serial numbers, product keys, CD keys, etc., but without having to install it. That's right, you can run it from a USB flash drive, from a floppy, from a network drive or from a domain login script!

Also, SIW can create a report file in CSV, HTML, TXT or XML and is able to run in batch mode for those of us that need to generate reports.

Check it out!

"Belarc's EULA specifically prohibits its use in a commercial environment.

System Information for Windows (SIW) has no such restriction."

Wrong. Both are free for personal use but neither can be used legally in a business environment. Both companies offer commercial licenses and the related programs are more comprehensive. The free version of SIW is HTML report format only. To get the other report formats you must either purchase the Technicians version for $69 (unlimited use and standalone) or the Business version which for businesses starts from a flat rate for small shops under a certain number of computers and evolves to a per computer fee when you pass the defined flat rate number. Full information is readily available on the SIW web site referenced in the previous post.

According to their site the free version besides only giving you the html report it also doesn't give you the license info and won't do the LCD test.

Don't forget AdAware.
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/

Check out my line of defence I replied to another article:
http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=102&threadID=227446&messageID=2265430

I agree with @mbjoyce plus I don't trust AOL in any way on my PC same with Yahoo and MSN for softwares control.

1:AVG Antivirus (http://www.download-it-free.com/avg/)
2: Adaware Personal (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/)
3: Spybot Search and Destroy (http://www.safer-networking.org/)
4 :Hijackthis (http://www.hijackthis.de/en)
5 :CCleaner (http://www.ccleaner.com/)
6 : AVG Antirootkit (http://free.grisoft.com/doc/avg-anti-rootkit-free/lng/us/tpl/v5)
7 :ZoneAlarm Fire Wall, Anti Spyware, Popup blocker, Programs Control, Privacy Adviser (Not Anti-Virus)(http://www.zonealarm.com/store/content/home.jsp)

Not Free:
8 : AVG Anti-Virus Professional Edition (http://www6.grisoft.com/doc/products-avg-anti-virus/us/crp/2)

The Anti-Spyware, Pop-up Blocker & Cookie Blocker components are far from being "best of breed;" they are:

1) Overly aggressive:
2) Yield too many false positives;
3) Lack sufficient & easily effected granular control;
4) Do not get along well with other security apps; and,
5) Exact a severe performance penalty.

Better to use the Firewall component only, and use the other suggested apps for the other functions.

Also, note that AdAware is likewise overly-aggressive & yielding of a great number of false positives, and must therefore be used with great care.

I wouldn't trust AOL eitehr, but a few months ago I was overcome by the chance to get Kaspersky free, so I went ahead and researched and tried it.

It it just Kaspersky with the AOL logo in the corner, literally. I guess AOL is trying to garner some goodwill or something.

I have been very happy with it, and would highly recommend it. Just use something like pookmail to get a key (the "catch" is that they want an email to spam), and also turn off the klogon.dll startup entry which puts the ugly little logo in the corner of XP's logon screen.

Have just been to the site linked above, the product seems to have has been withdrawn
(AOL/Kaspersky Antivirus)

AOL stopped offering this some time ago.
Your QA program is not working.
R/ DER

Excellent Post, very useful. I would like to add IOBit Defrag or Auslogics Disk and Registry Defragmenter, Process Explorer which allows you to see exactly what processes are running on your PC and Spyware Blaster/Spyware Terminator. Advance Windows care - IOBit to sort out general PC issues (i.e. startup, registry etc).

I installed GMER on my computer running Vista Ultimate and ran it. After closint the program, I received a message that it may not have installed properly, so I accepted the prompt to reinstall, and accepted a User Account Control prompt. A split second later, the computer rebooted spontaneously, and after I logged on, I accessed Event Viewer and found that an 0x00000050 error had been logged (this should have displayed a blue screen of death but it didn't). Has anyone else had this problem?

Just an FYI - Active Virus Shield is not available from AOhelL anymore.