Hi,
Sorry for creating another thread about this but the previous thread (link below) was closed.
I wanted to ask, is using PC Tools Spyware Doctor monitoring my PC in real time really decreasing my security? I am asking since, the two gurus from the thread at http://community.norton.com/norton/board/message?board.id=nis_feedback&thread.id=60154
mention that it does decrease system protection, no offense, but what proof do they have? If they have just heard some rumours that it decreases protection, that’s not enough. I am aware that using 2 programs instead of 1 is obviously going to increase your attack surface but since the programs are both password protected with strong passwords (i.e. longer than 14 characters and include upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters e.g. “?” and are not English dictionary words), update as often as necessary and both have tamper protection mechanisms. Is it really increasing my attack surface?
I use PC Tools Spyware Doctor (without Anti-Virus) version 6.1.0.447. I have all of its real time IntelliGuards enabled. I also use Symantec Norton Internet Security 2009 (16.7.2.11) with all of its features enabled. (I will be upgrading to NIS 2010 next week).
I have added Spyware Doctor to the NIS Scan Exclusion list and also added Spyware Doctor to the list of programs detected by the firewall. The firewall is set to allow Spyware Doctor to connect to the Internet.
In addition, I have added NIS to Spyware Doctor’s Global Action list and set it to ignore the main processes (.exe files) of NIS.I have use both of these security programs together for over a year with no problems. In addition, Spyware Doctor has prevented threats entering my PC when NIS didn’t notice anything wrong. I also really like the way Spyware Doctor detects and blocks cookies in real time without needing to run an NIS Quick Scan to remove them. Both programs run a full system scan each week.
Both of these programs are installed on my laptop. It has a 1.73 GHz Pentium M CPU with 2 GB of 533 MHz DDR2 RAM in dual channel mode. I use Windows XP SP3 with all updates from http://update.microsoft.com installed. I also keep every program and browser plug-in on this PC (and my other PCs) update to date.
NIS monitors my PC all of the time, but I turn Spyware Doctor on before I connect to the Internet. I fully turn off PC Tools before turning off my laptop at the end of the day since it drastically slows down boot up times. Spyware Doctor has a very convenient way of turning on and off all of its features at once.
I use IE 8 as my browser sometimes with 20 tabs open but I don’t experience the severe slowdowns that people mention. I would say that Spyware Doctor adds about 1 second to the loading of each tab in IE 8. This is fine in my opinion since it providing me with more security.
I would be interested to hear people’s opinions on the above. Thanks in advance.