[ale] Seeking ways to getting around spyware on Windows

[joh6nn]

Spybot and AdAware have both been mentioned, as has the Norton Suite. 
i'm an advocate for Spybot and AdAware, but against all things Norton; i
have never had a good experience with any Norton product.  There are
plenty of free anti-virus offerings that are not only comparable, but
arguably better. i install AntiVir (www.free-av.com) on the machines of
those i help, but that's just personal preference.

i also strongly recommend Kerio Personal Firewall 2.14; there are newer
versions available, but i don't think they're as good as 2.14.  i'll let
you make your own call on that (though if you can't find it elsewhere, i
have a copy of 2.14).

you'll also want JavaCool's SpywareBlaster, which blocks known activex
problems.

a good hosts file, complete with windows installer, is available here:
http://www.everythingisnt.com/hosts.html, and is updated fairly regularly.

it's also good to keep in mind that using the regedt32 tool (not
regedit, the other one), you can make registry keys read-only, which can
be a great preventative measure.

Spoofstick (http://www.spoofstick.com/) anti-phishing extension for
Firefox, and also a bayesian Firefox porn filter (not really
anti-spyware, but a good idea regardless):
http://singlepointnetworks.com/ffext/blockxxx/

i'm not sure if Yahoo's talk feature is available from 3rd party
clients, but i feel it's definitely worth investigating, as both
Trillian and Gaim have a much better history than Aol's clients; i don't
know if Yahoo's clients have been as bad.

i can't think of anything else at the moment, but those are at least
most of the steps i usually go through for windows users

-joh6nn