FrankC,

I work in IT and we "officially" used SpyBot on over 20,000 machines that we support until just a few weeks ago (licensing issues caused us to have to dump it, unfortunately.). I can recall only one ad/spyware issue that it was not able to resolve, nor was AdAware, and it is actually an issue we are still researching.

At home, I use both AdAware AND SpyBot. I've used both for a couple of years now, and they are both, in my mind, equally effective in their own right. Sometimes, one will catch stuff the other misses - try running AdAware first, then SpyBot, at the end of one month, and the next, run SpyBot, then AdAware. There might be about two or three things that the first one missed that the second one catches.

I DO like SpyBot's "Immunize" feature, though, I have not run a "scientific" analysis on an immunized machine versus a "non-immunized" machine to see just how effective it is.

If you are interested in more hardcore methods of taking care of crapware on your machine, then I also recommend loking into HOST files. They can be helpful and can be a do-it-once-and-enjoy-the-benefits type jobbie, or you can dive into it and make a major project out of updating it on a regular basis.

MrPex