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Does having multiple antispyware software on the system make it more vulnerable to malware?

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Latest post 12/18/2008 09:22 PM by joe53. 2 replies.
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Joined on 10/19/2002
Posts: 163
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Does having multiple antispyware software on the system make it more vulnerable to malware?

18 Dec 2008 08:14PM

I was at a local brick and mortor software retailer today when I overheard a store clerk telling another customer that he should only keep one antispyware program on his computer at a time. I remember that the clerk said that having multiple antispyrware programs will leave the computer more vulnerable to malware like trojans, worms, viruses, etc. I want to know if this is true, I have always had two antispyware programs on my system and have never had a problem. I have always had Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D, as well as Norton Internet Security on the system and have never once gotten a trojan, worm, or virus on my PC. It has been my experiance that there can sometimes be spyware threats out there that one program can't see, but another can.

Was there any truth to what that clerk was saying, or was he just full of hot air?

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2 Replies:

Joined on 02/11/2006
Posts: 17,167
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Re: Does having multiple antispyware software on the system make it more vulnerable to malware?

18 Dec 2008 08:24PM

It is suggested that you run only one anti-virus running in realtime, but you can have more than one anti-spyware. Perhaps the customer was having a problem with resources, so running one anti-spyware in realtime and one or more on demand would have been a better choice for someone who was trying to run many.

 

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Muddy Yorkville
Joined on 06/07/2000
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Re: Does having multiple antispyware software on the system make it more vulnerable to malware?

18 Dec 2008 09:22PM

I agree.


I have multiple antispyware programs: MalwareBytes'Anti-Malware, a-squared Anti-malware, Windows Defender, SUPERAntiSpyware, Spybot S&D, and WinPatrol Plus. I have yet to be infected in many years.

 

They all are configured to run as on-demand scanners except for one (jn my case, Windows Defender, which I run in real-time), and all play well together. It's a bit of overkill, and I run them from time to time just to alert folks to false positive detections. The biggest problem I noticed when running more than one in real-time was that multiple popup alerts would drive me crazy whenever I made changes to system or protected files, plus a bit of a drain on resources. I presume that the antispyware module of NIS is all you are running in real-time, and you should be ok.

Free Internet Security - WOT Web of Trust    Use OpenDNS    Get WinPatrol Free    MalwareBytes' Anti-Malware Free

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