Additional Anti-Malware Categories
Malware protection comes in many forms. The two primary types are Real-Time Scanners & On-Demand Scanners. Real-Time protection is always running, watching & protecting your system. On-Demand protection only runs when you tell it to do so & it's primary purpose is to scan your system for active infections & risks & remove them, after the fact.
Often, you need to use On-Demand Scanners once you know you're infected. Think of the Real-Time protection as your local Police force, trying to keep you safe. Sometimes however, despite their best efforts, things go awry. When that happens, they often have to call in the SWAT team. In this case, that would be the On-Demand Scanners.
Finally, there are the tools designed to help more advanced users manually identify, remove & repair malware sources & the results they create. I have those also listed here.
My personal recommendation is to use Spybot SD for your real-time protection, MBAM as well as SAS for your On-Demand Scanners & finally a Hosts file to block the known sources before they ever reach you. That will take care of just about everything you need need to worry about. You'll only need to use the other utilities on this page, for the specific situations that call for them.
Real-Time Protection
| www.LavaSoft.com | Ad-Aware Free |
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Ad-Aware is second only to Spybot SD for real-time protection. I haven't used this program for a while, but it remains one of the top performers in malware protection, focusing mostly on adware and spyware. |
| www.SpyBot.com | Spybot SD (Search & Destroy) |
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This is the only Real-Time Malware Scanner I use to protect my system. It's primary focus is adware and spyware. I strongly recommend you use this program in conjunction with any anti-virus program, such as Avast! or AVG. |
| www.Microsoft.com | Windows Defender |
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I'm not a big fan of Microsoft's original anti-malware protection, but in the spirit of completeness, I've included it. Their Microsoft Security Essentials works much better. However, this anti-malware program is at the very least, a weak addition to a stand alone anti-virus program like AVG or others. This is one of Microsoft's minimalist offerings. Find out more about them from Microsoft. |
On-Demand Scanners
| www.MalwareBytes.org | Malwarebytes Anti-Malware |
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Over the past few years, this On-Demand scanner has become one of the most effective "after I'm already infected" programs to clean up even the most difficult of malware infections. Between this & SuperAntiSpyware (SAS) you can remove just about any infection "after the fact." |
| www.SuperAntiSpyware.com | SuperAntiSpyware |
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This is a great On-Demand scanner that will remove infections from systems. This one catches some that MalwareBytes Anti-Malware (MBAM) doesn't and vice-versa. |