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Which Spyware Protection Product Is The Best? |
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Written by windowsxp550
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Sunday, 30 October 2005 |
Antispyware
Maleware
Security
Spyware
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Over the past 2 to 3 years, spyware has gone from an unrecognized/unknown to one of the top three computer security issues (behind Viruses, and SPAM). So what is Spyware? |
Webopedia defines Spyware as ...
Any software that covertly gathers user information through the user's Internet connection without his or her knowledge, usually for advertising purposes. Spyware applications are typically bundled as a hidden component of freeware or shareware programs that can be downloaded from the Internet; however, it should be noted that the majority of shareware and freeware applications do not come with spyware. Once installed, the spyware monitors user activity on the Internet and transmits that information in the background to someone else. Spyware can also gather information about e-mail addresses and even passwords and credit card numbers.
Yikes! This doesn't sound like anything that most of us would want on our computers. When I first heard about Spyware back in 2001, my first thought was, that spyware was something that my virus protection would prevent. I quickly learned that, this is not the case at all. In fact most virus scanner/remover programs on the market today still have not incorporated protection/scanning for spyware. So, bottom line, you need to have a virus AND a spyware protecting/scanning/removing programs.
When it comes to Spyware, there are LOTS of programs to choose from. Below are a few of the main spyware remover programs (most of them offer a trial period download). I've included a screen shot of each and a short summary of what my thoughts are on each.
Please note that this review was done in October 2005. This is important to note because many factors involved with a review change over time when software gets updated.
Ad Aware
Made by Lavasoft
GRADE: B+
Ad-Aware has been my Spyware Scanner of Choice Since 2002. What I love about Ad-Aware, is that it is such a powerful scanner while at the same time keeping itself "dummy proof". So when it finds something, I never have to recheck it's findings to make sure that I wasn't deleting something important.
Ad Aware can easily be considered a "Set it and Forget it" program. Personally, I prefer to manually run my Spyware Scanner when I choose (as opposed to setting the program to run at certain times) . With Ad Aware, this is no problem. You can customize Ad Aware as you choose. It even has plugins and Skins that are downloadable, these allow you to change the look and the functionality even more.
By testing other Spyware programs for this article, I was shocked to find that Ad Aware may not be quite as effective as I had once thought...Read my Spy Sweeper Summary Below for more on that...
I still stand by Ad Aware as a quality easy to use product. It gets a few points off in effectiveness. Overall Though, a Top Notch Product.
Spy Sweeper
Made by Webroot
GRADE: A-
Spy Sweeper is one of the newer spyware programs. Spy Sweeper is made by Webroot (Webroot is the company that produced another favorite program of mine, Window Washer). I was very impressed by Spy Sweeper.
The Program was Nicely designed and it was customizeable. My initial Scan of my system revealed a shocker, it had found 3 spy's, one of which was a Trojan Horse (this was a shock to me since I use Ad Adware and run scans on my system daily).
Spy Sweeper allowed me to read detailed information on each of the 3 spy's it found and I was able to quarantine and delete all 3 with no problems at all. Spy Sweeper's find, has slightly shaken my overall faith in Ad Aware's Effectiveness to find everything, and while I still stand by Ad Adware, I am planning on keeping Spy Sweeper for awhile to test to see which program is more effective.
Windows Defender Beta Release
Made by Microsoft
GRADE: F
Microsoft's Spyware Remover Program is still a Beta. I have to say that I was extremely disappointed in the quality of this program, it was poor, even for a Beta release.
The program is very intrusive. In installs in your start up programs without telling you it is. I had Spy Sweeper on when I installed the Microsoft Spyware Product and Spy Sweeper Popped up with a warning that a program was trying to load itself into my system startup programs.
In my opinion, this program was very Showy, meaning it had a lot of nice pretty graphics and animations but that those features almost acted as a distraction to what was lacking in the scanning engine. The results were very basic with little detail and to top it all off, the program froze on me. I had to Control + ALT + Delete, just to shut the program down.
This was definately the worst Spyware Program I have ever seen. Shame on you Microsoft..
Added 06/09/07 – Note that Microsoft has updated Windows Defender and that the above review does not take that into account. I plan on re-reviewing spyware software sometime in the future
SpyBot
Made by Safer Networking Limited
GRADE: B-
After it was brought to my attention that some of what I had put in my original review of Spybot were in fact misinterpretations, I decided to re-review Spybot. After relooking and reviewing Spybot again, I have to say that overall it is actually a pretty decent spyware program.
There are some positives and there are a some negatives. I’ll start off with the negatives. Spybot is overall a bit ackward and clunky. It is not as user friendly as some of the other Spyware Programs. Spybot’s biggest downfall is that there is a learning curve with Spybot.
Some of the features, and the overall names and functions (such as Immunize or Tea Timer) are unique to Spybot and take a little bit to get used to. With that said, once you get used to these differences and how Spybot operates you will find that overall Spybot is much more powerful than other spyware programs.
Thankfully, Spybot does separate some of the more powerful features by requiring that the user enable the advanced mode to access those features. The makers of spybot do have a good product, they just need to work on making the program more user friendly from a newbie’s perspective.
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