Ok, this is probably going to sound really stupid and annoying to most people but, I want to know what you guys think is the best spyware protection available. Everytime I get a new anti-bad stuff program, or update definitions if I haven't in a while, I find literally hundreds of spyware/adware/viruses/trojans/ect. I don't ever do anything stupid e-mail wise, I keep a separate account for entering into forms I know will result in spam, I rarely even receive much less open e-mails from people I don't know, or click links or anything like that, but I do do a lot of web browsing, I have firefox and the "site advisor" extension which claims to warn me about bad sites, and I am relatively careful, but still I am usually infected with 10 or sometimes many more (23 today) bad things every day. I have McAfee Virus Scan and Firewall, I run Ad-Aware (the free version) everyday and Spybot every other day or so, but I need something to keep this from happening. I know the Plus version of Ad-Aware offers Ad-Watch or something that keeps things from being installed. I'm sick of this, I am willing to pay for something good that will protect my computer from this crap being installed. I don't have a lot of money to spend so I was wondering what people's opinions are on the best value and if it even is worth paying for at all. I am also on a small wireless network(with people I trust) and I know nothing about that, could this be why I'm getting all this stuff all the time? If so, is there something I can do to stop it (I'm not in charge of it or anything) besides having a firewall?

I also have another questions regarding advertisements on websites. How do they always know what city I live in and what sort of sites I've been looking at? Is this from spy/ad ware? I would assume so but it doesn't change even after I run all my anti programs.

I apologize for my ignorance in all subjects, thanks for any advice.

Perhaps I can help answer at least some of your questions.

First, every site gets some basic information: your IP address, your browser, and the last visited page. Any other information, such as your city, etc., they generally get from cookies they set that has information provided by the user. For example, Borders knows my zip code, and lists the closest three stores to where I live when I want to check an in-stock position.

Since you seem to be fairly cautious about your browsing habits,use Firefox, and handle E-mails with care, I am wondering if all the adware your applications report is not actually cookies. If so, you can change the settings in Ff so it only accepts cookies from the originating site.

Regards,
John

I just wanted to point out that I do not believe that Ad-watch supports Firefox-I have Ad-watch and just searched the help file and found no reference to firefox.

SpywareBlaster, by Javacool, does have a mozilla/firefox browser protection and it is free. I do not have Firefox-but Spywareblaster is pretty widely used.

I am guessing that John is correct about the cookies-I have seen this in several forums.

I have also seen that a lot of people who use firefox have Tacoda cookies. I did a search on this once and Tacoda "piggybacks" on first party cookies. This means that they will keep coming back as long as the first party cookies are there and they have a lot of customers-so that may explain the knowledge of you.

The only time I heard of someone permanently suppressing these was over at the Ewido forum-where someone had kept scanning and cleaning the tacoda cookies and they kept returning-but he had the realtime guard of Ewido and went to the folder where the cookies are kept and opened them and the guard came up and allowed an option of "clean and block" (not available on the scan) and upon doing that he did not have the tacoda cookies anymore.

The best spyware protection is not a single product, it is a group of products working together called 'layered protection'. This involves using 1 Anti-Virus program, 1 Firewall and many Anti-Spyware programs, supplemented by occasional online Anti-Virus scans. All of these programs are available free from the BC compendium of Recommended Freeware. The freeware programs on this list are widely used and recommended by the members of BC. (See my sig for the ones I use.)

You may already have been infected by malware which leaves your computer open to other garbage installing itself by circumventing or crippling security programs so you really need to be sure your system is clean before installing your layered protection. The best way to be sure of this is to post a HiJackThis log to the HJT forum here - this is a free service that will give you expert, step-by-step advice on how to clear all the malware out of your system - but you will have to be patient as the volunteers there are very busy.
If you wish to post an HJT log then please read the 'Preparation Guide' before posting to:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/Hij...alysis-f22.html

Always remember your anti-malware programs are only able to do their best if they are kept updated. Use their "search for updates" functions regularly.

thanks for the advice!