gszwag: Most of your problems are more likely coming from interactions between the different antispyware products, more specifically the active protection portions of these products or issues within the products themselves. A hijack is possible, but doesn't really explain the issues you were seeing.
Since I run Tea Time and the Microsoft spyware simultaneously the Microsoft asked permission to allow the 207mm.net or the 307mm.net browser tweak, to which I said no.
It's 139mm.com and a known issue with Microsoft AntiSpyware. You should have allowed it since it's one of Spybot S&D's Immunize; Restricted Sites entries. MSAS makes it sound like a bad thing, but it's wrong as the links below discuss.
http://spybot.safer-networking.de/en/news/2005-06-21.html
http://spybot.safer-networking.de/en/news/2005-07-01.html
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=902956
I knew something was hijacking my system because every time I tried to update all of my spyware it would never remain updated. When I tried to update from S&D it would usually come up with a bad checksum. I could and did, for a while, update and scan every day to no avail, even with all of my spy software and my virus software.
This is most likely a problem that's been building over the last few months as Spybot S&D's Detections Updates grew in size and the Updates Download servers started to become overloaded. This situation was improved greatly over the last few weeks as new update server(s) were added and issues with several others were fixed.
http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?p=174#post174
Finally I downloaded the new version of Spybot 1.4 and its update from the website, and when I ran the spy check it found 17 spybots, and now my system runs perfectly fine now.
Glad to hear it, but this is probably less an issue of a specific peice of malware then the differences between Spybot S&D 1.3 and 1.4 versions, even when they're using the same Detections Updates. Version 1.3 has known issues with some of the more current detections, so even though it may be updated it really isn't detecting everything that 1.4 can.
This is why the first thing recommended is to upgrade to SS&D 1.4 before attempting other fixes. For example:
http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?p=505#post505
Moral of the story; keep your anti-malware applications up to date and be aware that changes you make in one of these applications can be affected by or cause issues with others. The more such applications you have, the more possibility for interaction. I'd keep the number of such applications down to no more then two anitspyware with only one operating in active mode and one active mode antivirus. Use online scans from different antivirus vendors occasionally as a crosscheck. Any more then this is overkill and will take more time to keep updated then it's worth.
It's far more important that the products you use are up to date, including current detections/signatures then having larger numbers of outdated products. If you're having problems updating in the future, get to a forum or other support site immediately since it's always possible that malware is causing the issue as you originally thought.
