I run Spybot first because it's usually faster than Ad-Aware. The past week Spybot has been saying "Congratulations! No new Spybots found!"
Then I run Ad-Aware and it finds 32 objects.

I haven't changed a thing with Spybot and always check for and download updates before running.

Any thoughts?

Spybot S&D is okay as a secondary check. They do not update their files very often.

Ad-Aware has a new update every other day it seems, and a new ref file update was just announced:
01R257 15.02.2004

you have to run spybot in conjunction with ad-aware. Spybot is better in some areas than ad-aware and vice-versa. Also some of the stuff ad-aware finds are just cookies that was left behind.

Thanks! You confirmed my assesment!

Spybot may find things that AdAware doesn't and vice versa, but even when using both they may not catch every possible spyware/adware entry out there. However I find that using both together solves 99% of the problems.

I do use both- what I'm saying is, I run Spybot FIRST, because it is faster. It should be catching the 32+ spybots before I even run Ad-Aware.
But it is coming up with nothing. I would expect that if I had run Ad-Aware first... -rolleyes-

what was the stuff ad-aware found that spybot didn't?

I am trying FireFox .08.
When I run ad-aware it rarely finds anything.
When I was using Avant or IE6 it found all kinds of tracking items several times a day

what gives?

It's most likely finding cookies. Maybe FireFox .08 doesn't leave cookies on your system or stores them in a folder AdAware doesn't scan??? Just speculating.

cookies. -rolleyes-

c:/documentsandsettings/....etc.