Testing Anti-Spyware Programs

Mercutio

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
Joined
Jan 17, 2002
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I am omnipresent
I saw this on Slashdot Yesterday..

Spybot Search and Destroy did VERY poorly in these tests, confirming something I suspected before I ever read the article. The "winner" was Giant Anti-Spyware, a product I have not heard of before.

The testing methodology does not appear to consider the use of Safe Mode during the detection and removable process. That's mildly surprising to me.
 
I just installed and ran Giant's AntiSpyware. It picked up RealVNC as spyware, but during the cleaning phase of the program, it recommended the "ignore" option, as it understood what RealVNC is used for and why someone would install it the software. However, it did point out the security risk of using this type of software.
 
I'll have to give it a try also. I don't rely entirely on Spybot S&D. I use it in conjunction with ad-aware, and normally recommend most people check with a variety of spyware tools. Thanks for the tip, I'll take a look.
 
Thanks for the info guys, I'll have to check it out. I have RealVNC too. Pretty cool, but the security risks do worry me a bit.
 
I agree with Merc about Spybot - I'm not convinced it achieves anything beyond what Ad-Aware does, let alone as much, so I no longer recommend it.

Regarding the review, I'm fairly sure I saw Ad-Aware recognize Altnet some time in the last month.

Finally, due to a particularly difficult problem I'm currently dealing with, I'm trialling Security Task Manager:

taskmanager.gif


It looks to be way more focused than Sysinternals' Process Explorer. Anyone tried it?
 
RWIndiana said:
Thanks for the info guys, I'll have to check it out. I have RealVNC too. Pretty cool, but the security risks do worry me a bit.
Click to expand...

Well the risks can be minimised by closing the server when you don't want to use.
 
I disagree with everyones opinion of Spybot. It does one thing that Adaware does not do -- Immunize. The ability to keep stuff from reinfecting is a good deal.
 
Spybot "immunization" is nothing more than adding a bunch of sites to a hosts file. I've seen spyware that directly overwrites the hosts file, so I think immunizing is the wrong word to use.
 
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