Spy Sweeper, McAfee, and SLOOOW Computer

[Helmut]

I have both McAfee (all protections) and Spy Sweeper (with Anti Virus, v.5.3)
loaded on my Dell computer. Start up is VERY SLOW. I have done de-frag,
general housekeeping (emptying unused files, programs, etc.) nothing seems to
help much. Any suggestions? Will I be safe if I remove McAfee and just leave
Spy Sweeper?

[Earl Grey]

Helmut:

By themselves, McAfee Total Protection and Spy Sweeper w/Antivirus will
cause your computer to start and operate slowly. You have both.

Moreover, you should never have two anti-virus programs installed on a
computer. The same is becoming increasingly true for anti-spyware
programs, too.

Choose the program you want and uninstall the other.

Earl Grey

Post by Helmut
I have both McAfee (all protections) and Spy Sweeper (with Anti Virus, v.5.3)
loaded on my Dell computer. Start up is VERY SLOW. I have done de-frag,
general housekeeping (emptying unused files, programs, etc.) nothing seems to
help much. Any suggestions? Will I be safe if I remove McAfee and just leave
Spy Sweeper?

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Post by Earl Grey
By themselves, McAfee Total Protection and Spy Sweeper w/Antivirus
will cause your computer to start and operate slowly. You have both.
Moreover, you should never have two anti-virus programs installed on a
computer.

I don't agree. There is nothing wrong with having two or more installed at
once. But there is a lot wrong with having two or more *running* at once.

Post by Earl Grey
The same is becoming increasingly true for anti-spyware
programs, too.

I disagree vehemently with that statement. One anti-spyware program is
simply not enough. Note that Eric Howes, who has done extensive testing on
Anti-Spyware products, states:

"No single anti-spyware scanner removes everything. Even the best-performing
anti-spyware scanner in these tests missed fully one quarter of the
"critical" files and Registry entries" See
http://spywarewarrior.com/asw-test-guide.htm

[Earl Grey]

Hi Ken:

I'm glad we can disagree and still be respectful of each other's points
of view.

As the threats facing users become more and more complex, which they
unfortunately are, security software has to sink deeper hooks into a
system. Also, malware is becoming more of a blended threat, so the
distinctions between viruses and spyware, for example, are beginning to
blur.

Consequently: Whereas in the past it might have been fine to have two AV
applications installed if only one was active, that is fast becoming no
longer true. And whereas in the past it was not only fine, but
recommended practice to have several 'anti-spyware' applications running
at the same time, that advice is also starting to fall by the wayside.

Nowadays, many AV and/or AS apps won't even install if they detect the
presence of similar apps, whether running or not. And the newest version
of Zone Alarm Security Suite is not the only application that will crash
under different circumstances in the presence of other AV's and AS's.

(In my particular case, on-demand disk scans crashed vsmon until I
uninstalled Spy Sweeper, even though it wasn't active at the time.
Interestingly enough, there are other anti-spyware applications that
cause no trouble for ZASS.)

It's still possible to combine security software from different vendors,
but you have to keep on top of what is still compatible with what. I
have not read any recent advice saying that it's still OK to have to AVs
on the same computer.

For better or worse, suite solutions are gaining traction over a
best-of-breed approach, even where a suite combines products from two
vendors (SS w/AV and ZASS are examples). It comes down to compatibility.

Earl Grey

Post by Ken Blake, MVP

Post by Earl Grey
By themselves, McAfee Total Protection and Spy Sweeper w/Antivirus
will cause your computer to start and operate slowly. You have both.
Moreover, you should never have two anti-virus programs installed on a
computer.

I don't agree. There is nothing wrong with having two or more installed at
once. But there is a lot wrong with having two or more *running* at once.

Post by Earl Grey
The same is becoming increasingly true for anti-spyware
programs, too.

I disagree vehemently with that statement. One anti-spyware program is
simply not enough. Note that Eric Howes, who has done extensive testing on
"No single anti-spyware scanner removes everything. Even the best-performing
anti-spyware scanner in these tests missed fully one quarter of the
"critical" files and Registry entries" See
http://spywarewarrior.com/asw-test-guide.htm

[Helmut]

thanks to both of you for sharing your expertise, this is an interesting
back-and-forth! A further note on my situation: I actually tried uninstalling
McAfee (after reading some posts that said McAfee hogs resources) and left
Spy Sweeper on. My computer was soon after infected with something (Spydawn?)
that just took over every time I tried to connect to the internet. I was able
to fix this (at least, I THINK I fixed it) by doing a system restore to
before I removed McAfee.

I think this experience means that Spy Sweeper alone doesn't protect my
computer. Ken, if your opinion is not to run more than one at a time, do you
have a recommendation about one protection program that really works?

Earl Grey, if your opinion is more than one is needed, do you have any
recommendations about fixing the REALLY SLOW start up?

Any other opinions out there?

Thanks.
--
Helmut

Post by Earl Grey
I'm glad we can disagree and still be respectful of each other's points
of view.
As the threats facing users become more and more complex, which they
unfortunately are, security software has to sink deeper hooks into a
system. Also, malware is becoming more of a blended threat, so the
distinctions between viruses and spyware, for example, are beginning to
blur.
Consequently: Whereas in the past it might have been fine to have two AV
applications installed if only one was active, that is fast becoming no
longer true. And whereas in the past it was not only fine, but
recommended practice to have several 'anti-spyware' applications running
at the same time, that advice is also starting to fall by the wayside.
Nowadays, many AV and/or AS apps won't even install if they detect the
presence of similar apps, whether running or not. And the newest version
of Zone Alarm Security Suite is not the only application that will crash
under different circumstances in the presence of other AV's and AS's.
(In my particular case, on-demand disk scans crashed vsmon until I
uninstalled Spy Sweeper, even though it wasn't active at the time.
Interestingly enough, there are other anti-spyware applications that
cause no trouble for ZASS.)
It's still possible to combine security software from different vendors,
but you have to keep on top of what is still compatible with what. I
have not read any recent advice saying that it's still OK to have to AVs
on the same computer.
For better or worse, suite solutions are gaining traction over a
best-of-breed approach, even where a suite combines products from two
vendors (SS w/AV and ZASS are examples). It comes down to compatibility.
Earl Grey

Post by Ken Blake, MVP

Post by Earl Grey
By themselves, McAfee Total Protection and Spy Sweeper w/Antivirus
will cause your computer to start and operate slowly. You have both.
Moreover, you should never have two anti-virus programs installed on a
computer.

I don't agree. There is nothing wrong with having two or more installed at
once. But there is a lot wrong with having two or more *running* at once.

Post by Earl Grey
The same is becoming increasingly true for anti-spyware
programs, too.

I disagree vehemently with that statement. One anti-spyware program is
simply not enough. Note that Eric Howes, who has done extensive testing on
"No single anti-spyware scanner removes everything. Even the best-performing
anti-spyware scanner in these tests missed fully one quarter of the
"critical" files and Registry entries" See
http://spywarewarrior.com/asw-test-guide.htm

[Earl Grey]

Hi Helmut:

I won't address your questions to Ken, for whose knowledge and
experience I have great respect, but I will make the following points:

One of the reasons many experienced users love to hate McAfee and
'Norton' products is that they can be difficult to uninstall. I have not
had the (dis)pleasure of using McAfee software, so I suggest you get
advice on how to uninstall it completely.

If in fact you have a malware infection it may be due to the fact that
you had two AV products active on your system at the same time. Each AV
program can view the other program as malicious software, so neither can
do their job properly.

System Restore does NOT fix a malware infection. You need to remove the
malware. That will go a long way toward speeding your startup.

Earl Grey

Post by Helmut
thanks to both of you for sharing your expertise, this is an interesting
back-and-forth! A further note on my situation: I actually tried uninstalling
McAfee (after reading some posts that said McAfee hogs resources) and left
Spy Sweeper on. My computer was soon after infected with something (Spydawn?)
that just took over every time I tried to connect to the internet. I was able
to fix this (at least, I THINK I fixed it) by doing a system restore to
before I removed McAfee.
I think this experience means that Spy Sweeper alone doesn't protect my
computer. Ken, if your opinion is not to run more than one at a time, do you
have a recommendation about one protection program that really works?
Earl Grey, if your opinion is more than one is needed, do you have any
recommendations about fixing the REALLY SLOW start up?
Any other opinions out there?
Thanks.

[Gerry Cornell]

Earl

A UK computer magazine conducted tests on the latest versions of 12
leading anti-virus prpgrammes. Symantec was 8th, McAfee 10th and Trend
Micro was 11th. These are the three market leaders. Alwil Avast was
12th. Kapersky Lab was 1 and Steganos 2.
--
Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Post by Earl Grey
I won't address your questions to Ken, for whose knowledge and
experience I have great respect, but I will make the following
One of the reasons many experienced users love to hate McAfee and
'Norton' products is that they can be difficult to uninstall. I
have not had the (dis)pleasure of using McAfee software, so I
suggest you get advice on how to uninstall it completely.
If in fact you have a malware infection it may be due to the fact
that you had two AV products active on your system at the same
time. Each AV program can view the other program as malicious
software, so neither can do their job properly.
System Restore does NOT fix a malware infection. You need to
remove the malware. That will go a long way toward speeding your
startup.
Earl Grey

Post by Helmut
thanks to both of you for sharing your expertise, this is an
interesting back-and-forth! A further note on my situation: I
actually tried uninstalling McAfee (after reading some posts
that said McAfee hogs resources) and left Spy Sweeper on. My
computer was soon after infected with something (Spydawn?) that
just took over every time I tried to connect to the internet. I
was able to fix this (at least, I THINK I fixed it) by doing a
system restore to before I removed McAfee. I think this experience
means that Spy Sweeper alone doesn't
protect my computer. Ken, if your opinion is not to run more
than one at a time, do you have a recommendation about one
protection program that really works? Earl Grey, if your opinion is
more than one is needed, do you
have any recommendations about fixing the REALLY SLOW start up?
Any other opinions out there?
Thanks.

[Earl Grey]

Gerry:

You didn't say what the ranking means: Speed? Effectiveness (at doing
what?) Something else?

Earl Grey

Post by Gerry Cornell
Earl
A UK computer magazine conducted tests on the latest versions of 12
leading anti-virus prpgrammes. Symantec was 8th, McAfee 10th and Trend
Micro was 11th. These are the three market leaders. Alwil Avast was
12th. Kapersky Lab was 1 and Steganos 2.

[Gerry Cornell]

Detection rates.
--
Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Post by Earl Grey
You didn't say what the ranking means: Speed? Effectiveness (at
doing what?) Something else?
Earl Grey

Post by Gerry Cornell
Earl
A UK computer magazine conducted tests on the latest versions of
12 leading anti-virus prpgrammes. Symantec was 8th, McAfee 10th
and Trend Micro was 11th. These are the three market leaders.
Alwil Avast was 12th. Kapersky Lab was 1 and Steganos 2.

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Post by Gerry Cornell
Earl
A UK computer magazine conducted tests on the latest versions of 12
leading anti-virus prpgrammes. Symantec was 8th, McAfee 10th and Trend
Micro was 11th. These are the three market leaders. Alwil Avast was
12th. Kapersky Lab was 1 and Steganos 2.

I am personally very suspicious of comparison and reviews done by computer
magazines. These are companies that derive much of their income from
advertisements, and I therefore don't trust them to be even-handed.

I also have personal experience with reviewers in such magazines. A number
of years ago, I had a young woman working for me as a technical writer. Her
previous job was writing product reviews for PC Magazine. She wasn't a bad
writer, but she could barely spell *PC*, and I certainly wouldn't trust her
opinions on anything technical.
--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

Post by Gerry Cornell

Post by Earl Grey
I won't address your questions to Ken, for whose knowledge and
One of the reasons many experienced users love to hate McAfee and
'Norton' products is that they can be difficult to uninstall. I
have not had the (dis)pleasure of using McAfee software, so I
suggest you get advice on how to uninstall it completely.
If in fact you have a malware infection it may be due to the fact
that you had two AV products active on your system at the same
time. Each AV program can view the other program as malicious
software, so neither can do their job properly.
System Restore does NOT fix a malware infection. You need to
remove the malware. That will go a long way toward speeding your
startup.
Earl Grey

Post by Helmut
thanks to both of you for sharing your expertise, this is an
interesting back-and-forth! A further note on my situation: I
actually tried uninstalling McAfee (after reading some posts
that said McAfee hogs resources) and left Spy Sweeper on. My
computer was soon after infected with something (Spydawn?) that
just took over every time I tried to connect to the internet. I
was able to fix this (at least, I THINK I fixed it) by doing a
system restore to before I removed McAfee. I think this experience
means that Spy Sweeper alone doesn't
protect my computer. Ken, if your opinion is not to run more
than one at a time, do you have a recommendation about one
protection program that really works? Earl Grey, if your opinion is
more than one is needed, do you
have any recommendations about fixing the REALLY SLOW start up?
Any other opinions out there?
Thanks.

[Gerry Cornell]

Ken

I am likewise cynical but most would not be expected to pan the three
market leaders. I have never seen you recommend Symantec or McAfee.
--
Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Post by Ken Blake, MVP

Post by Gerry Cornell
Earl
A UK computer magazine conducted tests on the latest versions of
12 leading anti-virus prpgrammes. Symantec was 8th, McAfee 10th
and Trend Micro was 11th. These are the three market leaders.
Alwil Avast was 12th. Kapersky Lab was 1 and Steganos 2.

I am personally very suspicious of comparison and reviews done by
computer magazines. These are companies that derive much of their
income from advertisements, and I therefore don't trust them to
be even-handed.
I also have personal experience with reviewers in such magazines.
A number of years ago, I had a young woman working for me as a
technical writer. Her previous job was writing product reviews
for PC Magazine. She wasn't a bad writer, but she could barely
spell *PC*, and I certainly wouldn't trust her opinions on
anything technical.

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Post by Gerry Cornell
Ken
I am likewise cynical but most would not be expected to pan the three
market leaders. I have never seen you recommend Symantec or McAfee.

No, I used to recommend them years ago, but I haven't recommended either in
a long while. I don't know why they panned the market leaders, but I still
don't trust magazines.

To make another point against magazine rankings, different magazines rank in
different orders. PC World, for example, has McAfee second, just behind
BitDefender. Kaspersky, which your magazine has first, was third. See
http://www.pcworld.com/article/124475-1/article.html

And PC Magazine ranks (or at least recently did rank) Norton as best of them
all.

The magazines all have different opinions. They can't all be right Which
should be believed? My answer--none of them. I don't trust any of them.
--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

Post by Gerry Cornell

Post by Ken Blake, MVP

Post by Gerry Cornell
Earl
A UK computer magazine conducted tests on the latest versions of
12 leading anti-virus prpgrammes. Symantec was 8th, McAfee 10th
and Trend Micro was 11th. These are the three market leaders.
Alwil Avast was 12th. Kapersky Lab was 1 and Steganos 2.

I am personally very suspicious of comparison and reviews done by
computer magazines. These are companies that derive much of their
income from advertisements, and I therefore don't trust them to
be even-handed.
I also have personal experience with reviewers in such magazines.
A number of years ago, I had a young woman working for me as a
technical writer. Her previous job was writing product reviews
for PC Magazine. She wasn't a bad writer, but she could barely
spell *PC*, and I certainly wouldn't trust her opinions on
anything technical.

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Post by Helmut
thanks to both of you for sharing your expertise, this is an
interesting back-and-forth! A further note on my situation: I
actually tried uninstalling McAfee (after reading some posts that
said McAfee hogs resources) and left Spy Sweeper on. My computer was
soon after infected with something (Spydawn?) that just took over
every time I tried to connect to the internet. I was able to fix this
(at least, I THINK I fixed it) by doing a system restore to before I
removed McAfee.
I think this experience means that Spy Sweeper alone doesn't protect
my computer. Ken, if your opinion is not to run more than one at a
time, do you have a recommendation about one protection program that
really works?

Again I know nothing about Spy Sweeper, and have no comments about it. I do
not recommend running more than one anti-virus program at a time, but I very
much *do* recommend using more than one anti-spware product to scan the
system

And I do *not* think that that you can rely on "one protection program."

I use all of the following

Firewall:
ZoneAlarm free

Anti-virus:
Avast

Anti-spyware:
Spyware Blaster
Spybot Search and Destroy
Adaware
Windows Defender.

[Daniel Stapleton]

You should keep both, One of the easiest ways to free up the ram is to run msconfig and disable spysweeper on start up. Remember this is one of the most powerful programs ever made for anti-spyware. It will kill almost anything. Not long ago the 2 systems didnt blend together, but MSN somehow figured to blend the 2 together recently and so far so good. I'm running xp with mcafee, RUBotted,MSE, & Spy Sweeper on MSN. They are all blending seemlesly together so far.
It's not always what you do, but how you do it.

Post by Helmut
I have both McAfee (all protections) and Spy Sweeper (with Anti Virus, v.5.3)
loaded on my Dell computer. Start up is VERY SLOW. I have done de-frag,
general housekeeping (emptying unused files, programs, etc.) nothing seems to
help much. Any suggestions? Will I be safe if I remove McAfee and just leave
Spy Sweeper?
--
Helmut

Post by Earl Grey
By themselves, McAfee Total Protection and Spy Sweeper w/Antivirus will
cause your computer to start and operate slowly. You have both.
Moreover, you should never have two anti-virus programs installed on a
computer. The same is becoming increasingly true for anti-spyware
programs, too.
Choose the program you want and uninstall the other.
Earl Grey

Post by Ken Blake, MVP
I don't agree. There is nothing wrong with having two or more installed at
once. But there is a lot wrong with having two or more *running* at once.
I disagree vehemently with that statement. One anti-spyware program is
simply not enough. Note that Eric Howes, who has done extensive testing on
"No single anti-spyware scanner removes everything. Even the best-performing
anti-spyware scanner in these tests missed fully one quarter of the
"critical" files and Registry entries" See
http://spywarewarrior.com/asw-test-guide.htm
--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

Post by Earl Grey
I'm glad we can disagree and still be respectful of each other's points
of view.
As the threats facing users become more and more complex, which they
unfortunately are, security software has to sink deeper hooks into a
system. Also, malware is becoming more of a blended threat, so the
distinctions between viruses and spyware, for example, are beginning to
blur.
Consequently: Whereas in the past it might have been fine to have two AV
applications installed if only one was active, that is fast becoming no
longer true. And whereas in the past it was not only fine, but
recommended practice to have several 'anti-spyware' applications running
at the same time, that advice is also starting to fall by the wayside.
Nowadays, many AV and/or AS apps won't even install if they detect the
presence of similar apps, whether running or not. And the newest version
of Zone Alarm Security Suite is not the only application that will crash
under different circumstances in the presence of other AV's and AS's.
(In my particular case, on-demand disk scans crashed vsmon until I
uninstalled Spy Sweeper, even though it wasn't active at the time.
Interestingly enough, there are other anti-spyware applications that
cause no trouble for ZASS.)
It's still possible to combine security software from different vendors,
but you have to keep on top of what is still compatible with what. I
have not read any recent advice saying that it's still OK to have to AVs
on the same computer.
For better or worse, suite solutions are gaining traction over a
best-of-breed approach, even where a suite combines products from two
vendors (SS w/AV and ZASS are examples). It comes down to compatibility.
Earl Grey

Post by Helmut
thanks to both of you for sharing your expertise, this is an interesting
back-and-forth! A further note on my situation: I actually tried uninstalling
McAfee (after reading some posts that said McAfee hogs resources) and left
Spy Sweeper on. My computer was soon after infected with something (Spydawn?)
that just took over every time I tried to connect to the internet. I was able
to fix this (at least, I THINK I fixed it) by doing a system restore to
before I removed McAfee.
I think this experience means that Spy Sweeper alone doesn't protect my
computer. Ken, if your opinion is not to run more than one at a time, do you
have a recommendation about one protection program that really works?
Earl Grey, if your opinion is more than one is needed, do you have any
recommendations about fixing the REALLY SLOW start up?
Any other opinions out there?
Thanks.
--
Helmut

Post by Earl Grey
I won't address your questions to Ken, for whose knowledge and
One of the reasons many experienced users love to hate McAfee and
'Norton' products is that they can be difficult to uninstall. I have not
had the (dis)pleasure of using McAfee software, so I suggest you get
advice on how to uninstall it completely.
If in fact you have a malware infection it may be due to the fact that
you had two AV products active on your system at the same time. Each AV
program can view the other program as malicious software, so neither can
do their job properly.
System Restore does NOT fix a malware infection. You need to remove the
malware. That will go a long way toward speeding your startup.
Earl Grey

Post by Ken Blake, MVP
Again I know nothing about Spy Sweeper, and have no comments about it. I do
not recommend running more than one anti-virus program at a time, but I very
much *do* recommend using more than one anti-spware product to scan the
system
And I do *not* think that that you can rely on "one protection program."
I use all of the following
ZoneAlarm free
Avast
Spyware Blaster
Spybot Search and Destroy
Adaware
Windows Defender.
--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

Post by Gerry Cornell
Earl
A UK computer magazine conducted tests on the latest versions of 12
leading anti-virus prpgrammes. Symantec was 8th, McAfee 10th and Trend
Micro was 11th. These are the three market leaders. Alwil Avast was
12th. Kapersky Lab was 1 and Steganos 2.
--
Hope this helps.
Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You did not say what the ranking means: Speed? Effectiveness (at doing
what?) Something else?
Earl Grey

Post by Ken Blake, MVP
I am personally very suspicious of comparison and reviews done by computer
magazines. These are companies that derive much of their income from
advertisements, and I therefore don't trust them to be even-handed.
I also have personal experience with reviewers in such magazines. A number
of years ago, I had a young woman working for me as a technical writer. Her
previous job was writing product reviews for PC Magazine. She wasn't a bad
writer, but she could barely spell *PC*, and I certainly wouldn't trust her
opinions on anything technical.
--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

Post by Gerry Cornell
Detection rates.
--
Regards.
Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Post by Gerry Cornell
Ken
I am likewise cynical but most would not be expected to pan the three
market leaders. I have never seen you recommend Symantec or McAfee.
--
Regards.
Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Post by Ken Blake, MVP
No, I used to recommend them years ago, but I haven't recommended either in
a long while. I don't know why they panned the market leaders, but I still
don't trust magazines.
To make another point against magazine rankings, different magazines rank in
different orders. PC World, for example, has McAfee second, just behind
BitDefender. Kaspersky, which your magazine has first, was third. See
http://www.pcworld.com/article/124475-1/article.html
And PC Magazine ranks (or at least recently did rank) Norton as best of them
all.
The magazines all have different opinions. They can't all be right Which
should be believed? My answer--none of them. I don't trust any of them.
--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup
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[Y. Soserious]

You HoopleHead Eggheader: Do you think the OP is coming back to see a reply
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Post by Daniel Stapleton
You should keep both, One of the easiest ways to free up the ram is to run
msconfig and disable spysweeper on start up. Remember this is one of the
most powerful programs ever made for anti-spyware. It will kill almost
anything. Not long ago the 2 systems didnt blend together, but MSN somehow
figured to blend the 2 together recently and so far so good. I'm running
xp with mcafee, RUBotted,MSE, & Spy Sweeper on MSN. They are all blending
seemlesly together so far.
It's not always what you do, but how you do it.

Post by Helmut
I have both McAfee (all protections) and Spy Sweeper (with Anti Virus, v.5.3)
loaded on my Dell computer. Start up is VERY SLOW. I have done de-frag,
general housekeeping (emptying unused files, programs, etc.) nothing seems to
help much. Any suggestions? Will I be safe if I remove McAfee and just leave
Spy Sweeper?
--
Helmut

Post by Earl Grey
By themselves, McAfee Total Protection and Spy Sweeper w/Antivirus will
cause your computer to start and operate slowly. You have both.
Moreover, you should never have two anti-virus programs installed on a
computer. The same is becoming increasingly true for anti-spyware
programs, too.
Choose the program you want and uninstall the other.
Earl Grey

Post by Ken Blake, MVP
I don't agree. There is nothing wrong with having two or more installed at
once. But there is a lot wrong with having two or more *running* at once.
I disagree vehemently with that statement. One anti-spyware program is
simply not enough. Note that Eric Howes, who has done extensive testing on
"No single anti-spyware scanner removes everything. Even the best-performing
anti-spyware scanner in these tests missed fully one quarter of the
"critical" files and Registry entries" See
http://spywarewarrior.com/asw-test-guide.htm
--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

Post by Earl Grey
I'm glad we can disagree and still be respectful of each other's points
of view.
As the threats facing users become more and more complex, which they
unfortunately are, security software has to sink deeper hooks into a
system. Also, malware is becoming more of a blended threat, so the
distinctions between viruses and spyware, for example, are beginning to
blur.
Consequently: Whereas in the past it might have been fine to have two AV
applications installed if only one was active, that is fast becoming no
longer true. And whereas in the past it was not only fine, but
recommended practice to have several 'anti-spyware' applications running
at the same time, that advice is also starting to fall by the wayside.
Nowadays, many AV and/or AS apps won't even install if they detect the
presence of similar apps, whether running or not. And the newest version
of Zone Alarm Security Suite is not the only application that will crash
under different circumstances in the presence of other AV's and AS's.
(In my particular case, on-demand disk scans crashed vsmon until I
uninstalled Spy Sweeper, even though it wasn't active at the time.
Interestingly enough, there are other anti-spyware applications that
cause no trouble for ZASS.)
It's still possible to combine security software from different vendors,
but you have to keep on top of what is still compatible with what. I
have not read any recent advice saying that it's still OK to have to AVs
on the same computer.
For better or worse, suite solutions are gaining traction over a
best-of-breed approach, even where a suite combines products from two
vendors (SS w/AV and ZASS are examples). It comes down to
compatibility.
Earl Grey

Post by Helmut
thanks to both of you for sharing your expertise, this is an interesting
back-and-forth! A further note on my situation: I actually tried uninstalling
McAfee (after reading some posts that said McAfee hogs resources) and left
Spy Sweeper on. My computer was soon after infected with something (Spydawn?)
that just took over every time I tried to connect to the internet. I was able
to fix this (at least, I THINK I fixed it) by doing a system restore to
before I removed McAfee.
I think this experience means that Spy Sweeper alone doesn't protect my
computer. Ken, if your opinion is not to run more than one at a time, do you
have a recommendation about one protection program that really works?
Earl Grey, if your opinion is more than one is needed, do you have any
recommendations about fixing the REALLY SLOW start up?
Any other opinions out there?
Thanks.
--
Helmut

Post by Earl Grey
I won't address your questions to Ken, for whose knowledge and
One of the reasons many experienced users love to hate McAfee and
'Norton' products is that they can be difficult to uninstall. I have not
had the (dis)pleasure of using McAfee software, so I suggest you get
advice on how to uninstall it completely.
If in fact you have a malware infection it may be due to the fact that
you had two AV products active on your system at the same time. Each AV
program can view the other program as malicious software, so neither can
do their job properly.
System Restore does NOT fix a malware infection. You need to remove the
malware. That will go a long way toward speeding your startup.
Earl Grey

Post by Ken Blake, MVP
Again I know nothing about Spy Sweeper, and have no comments about it. I do
not recommend running more than one anti-virus program at a time, but I very
much *do* recommend using more than one anti-spware product to scan the
system
And I do *not* think that that you can rely on "one protection program."
I use all of the following
ZoneAlarm free
Avast
Spyware Blaster
Spybot Search and Destroy
Adaware
Windows Defender.
--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

Post by Gerry Cornell
Earl
A UK computer magazine conducted tests on the latest versions of 12
leading anti-virus prpgrammes. Symantec was 8th, McAfee 10th and Trend
Micro was 11th. These are the three market leaders. Alwil Avast was
12th. Kapersky Lab was 1 and Steganos 2.
--
Hope this helps.
Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You did not say what the ranking means: Speed? Effectiveness (at doing
what?) Something else?
Earl Grey

Post by Ken Blake, MVP
I am personally very suspicious of comparison and reviews done
by computer
magazines. These are companies that derive much of their income from
advertisements, and I therefore don't trust them to be even-handed.
I also have personal experience with reviewers in such
magazines. A number
of years ago, I had a young woman working for me as a technical
writer. Her
previous job was writing product reviews for PC Magazine. She
wasn't a bad
writer, but she could barely spell *PC*, and I certainly
wouldn't trust her
opinions on anything technical.
--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

Post by Gerry Cornell
Detection rates.
--
Regards.
Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Post by Gerry Cornell
Ken
I am likewise cynical but most would not be expected to pan
the three
market leaders. I have never seen you recommend Symantec or McAfee.
--
Regards.
Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Post by Ken Blake, MVP
No, I used to recommend them years ago, but I haven't
recommended either in
a long while. I don't know why they panned the market
leaders, but I still
don't trust magazines.
To make another point against magazine rankings, different
magazines rank in
different orders. PC World, for example, has McAfee second,
just behind
BitDefender. Kaspersky, which your magazine has first, was
third. See
http://www.pcworld.com/article/124475-1/article.html
And PC Magazine ranks (or at least recently did rank) Norton
as best of them
all.
The magazines all have different opinions. They can't all be
right Which
should be believed? My answer--none of them. I don't trust
any of them.
--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup
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