Spyware and adware have have emerged as a more pervasive and insidious threat than worms and viruses, which previously ruled the highways and byways of the Internet as sources of chaos and ruin.. Without some kind of software protection in place, no one active on the Internet is safe and sound.

watch out,
another .com.com link?
we see it again,
this is the right one:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/1 [...] index.html

And what's the best security software and hardware that we average customers can buy to protect ourself from this threat?

Good question. I use avast! home edition for viruses and Windows Defender for spyware/adware. Then again, I'm running Vista RC2 so I don't have much of a choice.

funny, i never had such things like spy/ad/malware

W2k + Sygate + Firefox (NoScript) protects me perfect...perfect

Yeap, that's one of the safest combo for windows. But anyway, i use an even better protection when surfing: Linux instead of windows ...

The above statement is false, that's only for windows hell. After a linux install, you can have all the "unprotected sex" you want with the internet.

MAIA

Meh, if you want to boot back and forth be my guest. I don't want to restart my computer every 10 minutes when I decide to stop surfing the web and do something more productive.

Best Anti-spyware is would probably be Webroot Spysweeper.
Best Free Anti-spyware is Lavasoft Ad-Aware.
Best Anti-Virus is Bitdefender.
Best Firewall (and free) is ZoneAlarm.

Thats enough to protect all computers from nearly everything. A hardware firewall also helps a bunch (i.e. anything your router has). Disable UPNP always. There are also some other programs that kills some other vulnerbilities such as Windows Messenger and others. I like www.GRC.com since they have a bunch of little tools. Also security updates whenever they come out. Thats about all you can do, and all you need to do.

Even if you don't want to go into any heavy details on programs, I think mentioning some popular spyware protection examples would be appropriate...

I use McAffee Virus Scan which chatches most of it, but I just installed the Spy Sweeper Trial and I'm pretty impressed with it. It was able to tell even when I was going a website that was full of trouble and blocked the website. (Though outright blocking the website, while protecting me seems a little overkill. It shouldn't have to do that to stop the ad/spyware, imo.)

I'm lucky enough to have 3 machines, a machine for work, my wife's laptop, and a third machine for music, video editing, etc, all with a boatload of security software. I only use my office machine for work, purchasing on-line only from trusted sites, and financial stuff. If I'm randonly surfing, want to try new software, etc I always use the 3rd machine. While not full proof, it significantly reduces the possibility of malware on the office machine. Also before any on-line purchase or financial stuff on-line always do virus and malware scans, the lattter with Spysweeper, Adare, and Spybot Search and Destroy.

I live in a small town and have alot of Friends/Customers that call about about Malware(if the know that have it or not) so I have become good at removing most. I use

ad-aware se ( picks up most )
Spy-bot SnD (picks up the rest), I have the tea-timer running.
AVG free
and windows defender

my XP home box is behind a router at all times.

and I have seen some infections that have rendered systems completly unusalable!

did one a couple of months ago that would take 45min - hour to boot
and took me about 8 hours of hard work with all my tools to put it right. the customer would not let me do a reinstall due to buisness data on the machine (no backups)

Ha...that was a funny article. "The world is going to end because of spyware and we're all doomed! Want to know how to protect yourself? Too bad, I'm not telling."

WEll I imagine anyone on Tom's already knows about spyware and how to prevent/remove it so why they bothered with that article I don't know.
Anyway...I only use Firefox + Spybot + Ad-Aware...That's it. I have no anti-virus nor firewall on my computer (besides the one built into the router). I tried Windows Defender...But it never found anything that Spybot didn't soo....why have it? Thats usually the same story with Ad-Aware too...Spybot seems to find more.
At this point in time, if you just use Firefox and do a Spybot scan every day...you should be perfectly fine. I've heard good things about Spysweeper and have used the demo before....But...Have to buy it. :-(

The biggest problem I have with add/spyware is that is can really slow me down.

Common solution: Install virus protection and 2 or 3 addware detection softwares: which will really slow me down.

My solution.
For my home use I don't use virus or add/spyware proction on my windows machine.

Instead I do 3 things.
1. Use tools that identify processes and where they come from, what started them. Learn what all of your running processes and startup apps are.

2. Don't use IE or Outlook.

3. Do frequent disc re-imaging / or reformatting. I find a good imaging / re-imaging plan works wonders . I like to have an image that I re-image and update, then save once a month. After I save an image I can always run some virus and spyware detection programs just to be safe, then remove them knowing my image is clean. But I tipicly don't bother with that.

And with a frequent imaging / restore plan it's also fun to run speed testing before and after just to compare.

Here's another question...If u have an infected hdd/OS...Don't you just have to slave it to another computer and run spyware/virus scans on it? Usually the problems arise when viruses use processes in the background so you can't delete them normally. But if you were to slave it, its now on a different partition that your OS so it can't run its processes therefore you can simply delete them. Is this not true?

PS (Oh if I ever do get virus issues, I just goto housecall.trendmicro)

Memo to all the Malware and Spyware programmers. Read this thread to find out what people use and program a spy to bypass so you can get your stupid adverts seen! Huzzah!

Ad-Aware, Check. Firefox, Check (hehe, this one has been on the list for awhile! Finally we have conclusive evidence people use it!!!) Windows Defender, Check.

Screw windows defender. There are much better free software out there.

I guess my own personal software firewall is redundant with the hardware router firewall, but I'm running a laptop so when I connect elsewhere its a lot more useful.

Adware and spyware are the biggest problem. Hopefully IE7 will fix a lot of it. I'll give Firefox 2.0 a shot also and see how it is. People are going to start targeting Firefox more and more, so it's going to lose part of its secuirty allure from IE...