AVG + Spybot s&d + Zone Alarm - not good enough!

AVG, Spybot Search and Destroy, Zone Alarm. I thought that would be enough to protect my desktop.

AVG, Spybot Search and Destroy, Windows Firewall. I thought that would be enough to protect the laptop.

Wrong. Laptop, which NEVER goes anywhere dodgy - 234 different accounts of spyware and malware - some of which included a key logger (thankfully not active) and Trojans (sadly possibly active). 172 on the desktop... which some more serious Trojans on (including one that installs itself as a browser helper object, then somehow makes itself part of the winlogon pipeline. Considering I've programmed a Gina and know all about that, I'm quite amazed how they achieved something like that on the sly).

Anyway... I personally downloaded and tested 5 different spyware things... and the best by far (as coverage goes) was Spyware Doctor, so I immediately brought 2 licences of that (begrudgedly it must be sad, got other things I would prefer to spend money on) and set them to work.

I'm disappointed at AVG, not for missing the advertising things... but Trojans? Keyloggers? Whatever way you look at that, they are viruses... they crossed that very thin and vile line between annoying and vindictive software.

And yes I am careful; no I'm not one of those people whom think "hmmm... someone sent me a screensaver - great!" The only way these bastards got on to my machine must have been through browser exploits, or operating system exploits before relevant patches came out.

So yeah I was up until almost 2 nursing the poor computers, watching Lost (yeah we are still going through series one), and whatever else.