Need alternative to AVG Anti Spyware

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macx

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Purchased on 3/11 - that's a full month.
Have not rec'd license.

Also no response whatsoever to 6 attempts to contact to get license.
And that's filling out their online customer "service" form.
I don't care how busy they are with their wonderful new product, that's
"over and above" - I've filed a Paypal claim for refund for non-receipt
and no reply.

Would not even a patient person think that's too long?

Am ready to purchase something else - what's a good alternative?

Thanks!
 
Thanks!

Since I posted this, I've been doing a ton of research, looking thru and reading in detail reviews from reputable sources.

Some ones that seem to come up good are Spysweeper and Spyware Doctor, but they do have their problems.

Overall, the Zone Alarm Suite v 7 seems to be the best - i.e. most effective at blocking and removing. It's got a few "administrative" problems with how it presents its results, and is a little slow, and does use a fair amount of resources - although not any more than the other effective ones - but bottom line is effectiveness in both blocking and removing.

Not cheap,e ither, at near $50 - but new hard drives and spending hours reloading stuff, or just plain losing lots of info, isn't so sweet, either.

Interestingly, AVG 8.0 was universally reviewed as being "second tier" even with it's highly touted improvements. And their Anti Spyware was quite a ways down on most of the review lists. Even their Anti Virus wasn't in the top tier from reviewers that actually tested using numerous current viruses and spyware. With ZA's firewall still being top of the heap, and now with ZA's suite using the also top tier Kaspersky anti virus, plus most reviewers that tested finding their anti spyware the most effective, I'm just gonna let the
Paypal claim proceed and "bye bye AVG" altogether. Am going to retain a couple of the free anti spyware apps as recommended as "overlaps" - but not capable on their own or even in combo with other free anti spyware. SSD and AdAware and AVG Free were included as some of those as not being all that effective on multiple in depth tests/reviews and useful only as supplemental overlap applications. Not my words - straight from testers / reviewers in various PC magazines and online major name review sites.
 
In my personal opinion, you only have to be as paranoid as your computing habits require. If for instance you are frequently viewing and downloading questionable material, you might require some pricey army of anti-spyware applications. I've only ever used (in the last 4 years), NOD32, Adaware, SS&D, Windows Firewall and a router. I haven't really had any issue with malware at all.

Given your interest in comparing the effectiveness of anti-malware software, perhaps you'd be interested in Virus Bulletin's website.
 
Thanks! I'll check that out too.

I've had my share of problems over the years -
and with just downloading stuff from like hot rod
forums, online car magazines, investment sites,
and that type of common stuff. Twice lost everything
and had to reload, then physically lost a brand new drive.
That's when I said "ENUF"!!

The daughter & son-in-law of good friends of mine
had 2 bank accounts cleaned out and 2 cards max'd out
from hackers, and the friends had so much malware on
their computer it took me 4 days to clean it off - 1
security app at a time.

Also I recently had a big new drive go bluescreen on me
(and I had all the stuff listed in the stickies here on my machine)
and it cost me $1,100 to recover the data.

Course, I've been lucky all my life (!!?)

So - Yup, I'm about as paranoid as I can get.
 
In the future, as lazy as it might seem, when you're dealing with serious malware infestations, back up essential data and reinstall Windows. It's both the easy way out and the smart way out in my opinion.

As long as you keep one anti-virus updated and active, a firewall, and keep your software (including Windows) up to date, you shouldn't have any problem.
 
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