In any case, it's always best to only have one on-demand scanner, (disable the on-demand capability of any others) and simply run anti-spyware and anti-virus scans manually with the others every once in a while.
I've been thinking about the above statement for several days. I am not trying to second guess an expert, but it seems to contradict itself. Please tell me if I am wrong, but I thought there were essentially three methods that antivirus & antispyware software use to catch bugs: (1) Scheduled Scan where, for example, the program is set to run at 3pm every Monday; (2) On-Demand Scan which means that the user decides to run the scan at that moment, thus making it a manual scan; and (3) Resident Detection in which the scan is always running in the background. If my assumption is true, then the statement in question is telling me to disable the ability to perform an on-demand scan on all but one program, while at the same time telling me to perform an on-demand scan with these "other" programs.
I could understand the instructions if it read, "It's always best to have only one scanner with resident detection (disable the resident detection capability of any others), and simply run antispyware and antivirus scans using the on-demand function (ie manually) with the others every once in a while."
But even then, can the user not simply do the following: enable resident detection on only one program for real-time protection, and with any number of other programs, run
either a scheduled or an on-demand scan occasionally, just making sure that only one such scan is running at any one time, excluding the program with the resident detection enabled, which is ALWAYS running in the background?....
.....unless the user is supposed to disable the resident detection function of the one program any time a scheduled or on-demand scan using another program is conducted (so that the resident detection function of program A does not interfere with the scheduled/on-demand scanning function of program B)?
Sorry for perhaps making things more difficult, but I have been performing these mental gymnastics, reading about the basic tenets of antivirus/antispyware programs, scanning forums on these topics, etc., yet I remain extremely confused, and now I have a massive headache on top of it.
Could one of you computer geniuses help me clarify this so I can live in peace?
(On a practical note, what I am running now as far as antimalware programs are the following: AVG-Free (with resident detection enabled, plus scheduled scans); SuperAntiSpyware (which only allows on-demand scans with the free version); and Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware (which only allows on-demand scans with the free version). Plus I have the "shells" (for lack of a better word) of a few free online scanners downloaded (e.g. Panda ActiveScan 2.0, Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner) so that I can perform on-demand scans using these programs if something looks suspicious to be extra cautious. Is such a setup okay as far as the rules of program interaction we have been discussing?)
Thanks so much for everyone's generosity and wisdom.
And Happy New Year to those of you who, like me, celebrate it tomorrow night!
Scott