BleepingComputer.com: Spybot

I have been using Spybot for a while and think it's a great piece of software - but I have never used the immunize function. I was wondering what other people's experiences of using this function were.

Hi Budapest.

Most necessary if you are going to take advantage of the protection available. After you have downloaded your updates, click on the Immunise button in the left pane - between Recovery and Update. If you are then told that there are unblocked bad products, go up top and click the green cross by Immunise.

It is not the most user friendly interface but you really should do this. Do you have Resident Teatimer enabled - this gives you RealTime protection and IMHO is vital for your protection.

Cheers

I don't have Resident Teatimer enabled, but after reading a few positive comments on here I think I will enable it on my own computer when I get home this afternoon. How do you do this? Will it conflict with my Norton Antivirus 2006 or with Spywareblaster?

Click on MODE/ Advanced in the top left corner.
Click on TOOLS in the bottom left, then go up to Resident. Check both Resident boxes.

First time up you will probably have a lot of decisions to make but this is a oneoff. When you are sure of your answer, click Remember and either Allow or Deny. If you are unsure, check the database here or Google your query. The effort will be worth it.

You may notice a small increase in your startup time as Teatimer does its thing but this is a small price to pay for safety. Teatimer should work OK with everything.

Good luck. Cheers

Immunization is passive protection. When you "Immunize", entries are added to the system Registry. This blocks cookies from some sites, places other sites in the restricted zone and blocks the download of selected ActiveX scripts. This feature is similar to SpywareBlaster in that it adds registry entries for bad sites which are then blocked by IE. I use it along with Spywareblaster and IE-Spyad.

Note: If you use Spybot, SpywareBlaster and IE-SPYAD together, there is an overlap of some of the protection offered. If you undo or disable the protection in one product, it may remove some of the protection installed by the other. You should re-immunize or re-enable the protection in the other products as appropriate.

Well...I immunized with Spybot and enabled Resident Teatimer - all going well so far. I like this Teatimer thing. Right after I enabled it I downloaded some updates to Adobe Reader and it flagged up that changes were being made to the registery. I allowed these changes but it's good to know it picked them up in the first place.