Webroot shifting their focus from Spy Sweeper???

[HAN]

Their premier home product is now called Webroot AntiVirus with AntiSpyware & Firewall.

We're all going to be "suite"ed to death by these companies. And IMO, the truth is that no one company makes the best program for each of the duties a suite needs to perform. So we may well be left with poorer protection, overall...

[SuperSparks]

I agree. I use NOD32 for AV, and went and bought a serious SPI hardware firewall, plu the built-in Vista one as an extra layer. I haven't been impresed with any suites that I've tried

[Raymond William]

Hello. I've been impressed with KIS 7.0, after years of suffering Norton, McAfee, Trend Micro, Computer Associates, and Zone Labs (Vector crashes). I've used KIS 7.0 for two years, and I'm satisfied with the protection and features. I agree there is no single product that will provide 100 percent protection against everything. We can only try to get as much protection as possible, unique to our individual systems. I also use SpywareBlaster and Ad-Aware SE. You can reference a recent PC Mag review of KIS 7.0, (http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/index....90908123;pf;1). I think the top rated anti-virus and anti-spyware products will become "suites" geared to "a relatively light resource footprint."

[HAN]

I absolutely agree that the anti-malware world is going suite. At least for the home user. But at this point, I'm not happy with the idea for my reasoning above...

[Raymond William]

Yeah, but the power drain and wait during bootup is frustrating with active monitors. Also, I had five or more security applications fighting to download updates after the bootup. Here's my situation: I have a slow computer Dell 1.8G. Previously, I used eight security (hacker, anti-virus, and anti-spyware) protection software, including those with active monitors (Anti-virus, Firewall, CounterSpy, Spyware Doctor, and SpySweeper). These applications slowed my computer's performance when I used other applications, especially Spyware Doctor. It's frustrating and irritating during realtime activities (online games). "Sorry for the computer lag folks!" Sometimes a glitch would occur, and I'd get booted from online games. My point is the move to a security suite with less demand on resources is very much welcomed. I do plan to buy a new computer in two years, after major VISTA patches. (Dell 1.8G, 1G RAM, XP Home SP2, Cable, KIS 7.0, SpywareBlaster, AD-Aware SE, TuneUP Utilities, CCleaner, and PerfectDisk)

[HAN]

CounterSpy, Spyware Doctor, and SpySweeper

Ahhhh! That explains a lot! For the slowdown, bring a PC to it's knees reasons you mention, I no longer use or recommend the last two (I do have another reason or two beyond that too.)

I know PC Mag has reviewed them from time to time and nearly always bragged about SS and SWD. But IMO, they just don't test these programs like they should. They should use less than state-of-the-art PCs, run CPU and RAM intensive apps along with the programs they are testing and so forth. I'm convinced that the results would show up as far less than the glowing reviews we now read about. As you've noted, there is more to an anti-malware program than just catching malware...

(FWIW, I have yet to test CounterSpy but would like to sometime in the future.)

[usil]

I've read some absolutely positive things about the Nod32 Suite (ESS) thats set to be released in about a month from now. It supposedly continues ESET's tradition of having a small footprint. I'll be installing right when it is released and let you know.