Shaft,
There is a mighty big difference between viruses and malware. They are not synonymous and the detection programs are not interchangeable.
Viruses are (mostly) detected by an anti-virus program, malware may be detected by programs such as adaware / spybot.
Bear in mind that "malware" covers a very broad spectrum, from tracking cookies to key-loggers.
What is it that keeps being detected? It would be normal to have tracking cookies detected every time you run adaware, unless a cookie blocker is running.
SD