Note: Spybot Search & Destroy seems to have forgotten the spybot, search and & parts

[Bossy Monkey]

I was having untold numbers of crashes and hangs. Suspected Ad-Aware, as it's gotten so bloated, but switched it off and there were still crashes. Thought I didn't have enough hard drive space, so I cleared a lot, defragmented, checked for errors and still had crashes. One hang occurred when WinPatrol was working (the "Scotty is working" graphic got stuck, eternally) so I closed that and still had crashes. Closed Spybot and miracle of miracles, crashes and hangs just stopped. Granted, it's a fairly elderly notebook running Vista Basic, but I think I'll be living without Spybot Search & Destroy for the forseeable future.

[flvegan]

1. I uninstalled both Adaware and Spybot S&D.

They would both hopelessly hang up my laptop. Now I just use Malwarebytes. No problems with that.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

3. Uninstalled both as well. In the past, they rocked. Now? Not so much.

I have a friend who does mobile help desk work...he installed Advanced System Care (free version) and CCleaner ("Crap Cleaner")...between these and AVG Free, along with the hardware firewall in my router, I'm covered.

[petronius]

2. I thought Spybot was supposed to be just an on-demand scanner

Is there a version that always runs?

It's been fine for me - I use the free versions of Spybot, Spyware Blaster, and MalwareBytes to complement the somewhat porous commercial software that my institution provides for our personal use.

Which reminds me, it's about time for another round of updating and scanning...

[Bossy Monkey]

4. It has a resident program called TeaTimer that doesn't seem to play well with others

Then again, it worked fine until the latest update to Online Armor, the free firewall that I use. But as I say, the latter has worked fine without SS&D.

[petronius]

5. I left out that part when I installed SS&D; guess I got lucky...

[TroglodyteScholar]

6. Spybot isn't your problem

Vista is.