Regarding Layered protection

[pinnacle]

Question is this if I have Avast, Online Armor Premium do I really need a real time AntiSpyware program as well. I just get confused by a lot of the advertising and marketing crap out there. Isn't adequate to just run on demand scanners of a AntiSpyware without it actually using its protection modules?

[DavidR]

For the most part on-demand would be enough, that said I still have SAS Pro a paid option as an additional anti-spyware and I also have MBAM free as an additional on-demand anti-malware scanner.

The choice is yours alone as we can't decide what your computer activity is and the potential risk involved in it as to the benefit of a resident anti-spy/malware application.

My activity is virtually risk free, but that doesn't stop me taking pro-active steps to prevent infection or at least limit potential for harm even if I hit trouble. If all else fails then you must have a comprehensive back-up and recovery strategy.

[sded]

Avast! already does real time spyware protection, and Online Armor will also alert you to activities attempted by malware/spyware to make connections and perform unauthorized functions.  The difference is that with a firewall/HIPS you just get an indication of unexpected activity, not necessarily that it is malicious, and need to decide yourself whether to block or allow it.  From the popups you get some hints whether to block or allow, but ultimately it is up to you.  Usually you can just block and see what happens, and if something doesn't work try it again.  I also run Prevx, mostly because I support their approach to the problem of using the community as processing nodes to provide rapid evaluation from a central facility to the users, but it is really an augmentation of the HIPS to add more information.  The batch stuff is primarily to pick up things that weren't caught in real time because they weren't in the database yet or because the evaluation procedures were too cumbersome for real time, or just as a second opinion.  But all this layering eventually ends up with you as the final authority and just provides guidance, more detailed for better known threats.  And some false positives for good measure.  

[pinnacle]

Thanks DavidR, I am pretty careful, but that sometimes is not enough activating SAS key back to Pro status. sded, I agree completely it is the users final decision and can be a double edged sword with False Positives