Effectiveness of Spybot +AV

Spybot S&D, in combination with a separate Virus Scanner has always provided a complete malware protection solution that has never let me down.

Over the years, my preference in Virus Protection has changed as different vendors have risen to effectiveness, and then sunk into negligence and poor business practices.

But Spybot has been on every PC that I've owned for as long as I've been using the Internet. It's always been effective, and it's never been bothersome or pushy.

Of all of the computer software that I have ever used, Spybot S&D is outright the easiest to recommend. It does it's job effectively, without ever overstepping it's bounds, and to say that this is a rarity among security software would be an understatement. In these unfortunate times Spybot S&D seems to be unique, the lone survivor of an age where security software did it's job effectively and without bother.

As I once again search for yet another AV Solution, I find myself looking at Spybot +AV, and wondering if I could trust all of my malware protection to a single piece of software.

I would love to be able to put my faith in Spybot +AV's Anti Virus capabilities based purely on S&D's outstanding record over the years, however I am keenly aware that Anti Virus scanning is a very different ball game to the spyware protection that is Safer Networking's area of expertise, and that success in one area is by no means in a guarantee in the other. Indeed, I believe that software should be specialized in order to be effective, and should not be trusted for anything beyond it's primary function.

I have not been able to find any rating of Spybot +AV's detection rates, be it from Safer Networking or a 3rd party.

This brings me to the question. Is Spybot +AV as effective at Virus Detection and Removal as it's competitors, and how can this be verified?