I couldn't find what I was looking for in the wiki...

While I understand that there are reasons you wouldn't want to do this, how about making a recommendation of "If you only use one malware tool, it should be XXX." Or something along those lines. I don't want to tell people I know to use so much software and go through so many steps. What is the single best solution, even though it may not be 100% complete?

Um, there isn't? The whole point is you do need at least 2 or 3 anti-spyware programs. Folowed by anti-virus, a firewall, and a cleaner.

As Ultimate Predator said, you really need more than one in order to get a system cleaned properly. Even a few years ago, you would need Ad-Aware and Spybot to get the majority of infections. As infections are becoming more and more complex, the variations of tools unfortunately also has increased.

Once a system is infected, you can never trust it.

You can just run couple of scanners and clean what you find, and hope it is clean.

With all those malware out there, you sometimes need more than one anti-malware scanner.

Sometimes you get infected by malware downloaders that download several different kinds of malware infections.

Some of them are pretty difficult to get rid off, they just keep coming back.

Let me rephrase. If you could only use one tool, which would it be?

Hm - if I could only use ONE tool, it would be the debugger. Seriously, there are only a few very, very rare circumstances where it can be fooled. And if it can be fooled, that box is already pwned, and should be wiped anyway.

Well, it is difficult to say, because different type of software do different things.

You might need a antivirus software and anti-spyware software.

And HJT is handy.

Various companies produce security suites targeting users who want to download just one program for all their security needs. There isn't one of them I'd recommend; they tend to be bloated resource hogs, and less than fully effective.

Various companies produce security suites targeting users who want to download just one program for all their security needs. There isn't one of them I'd recommend; they tend to be bloated resource hogs, and less than fully effective.

I agree.

So, cluberti's post aside, people hate the idea of using only one tool. So I'll relent and try a slightly different tactic:

If you could only use two tools, which would they be?

:D

Spybot Search & Destroy.

(For a second tool I guess I would want Autoruns.)

So, cluberti's post aside, people hate the idea of using only one tool. So I'll relent and try a slightly different tactic:

If you could only use two tools, which would they be?

:D

As DLizard said, Spybot and probably Comodo.