Microsoft enters the Anti-Spyware Market

[Chuck]

Earlier this week Microsoft announced it would be releasing a New Anti-Spyware beta for free. You can get a copy of it at:
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

The jury is still out on this new product and I will offer a review in a day or so. So far I can say is needs definitions improvements. It does miss a few things.

You can try it for yourself and read this for more information.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=569&ncid=738&e=10&u=/nm/20050107/tc_nm/tech_microsoft_security_dc

[kcredden]

Hi Chuck: I downloaded that this morning, and just installed and ran it.

Guess what? It did find 9 pieces of spyware that Ad-aware and Spybot didn't find. However, they found stuff that MS's program didn't.

So goes to show, that we shouldn't put all our eggs into one basket. I've now got 3 spyware scanners on the system and will run each one every week, with Spybot doing a scan every night, automatically.

Oh, I should say that I had no problems with bugs on this version either, even though it was beta, surpisingly. But I'm not holding my breath.

One thing I particularlly like about this program is the idea of sharing anti-spyware info with other users. That may prove to be a great feature.

Another thing I found. I found that my scanner's scanning program had installed iMesh into my system! Now that surpised me, but proved one thing you said. That these companies who make hardware devices for computers have spyware installed into their system.

Now what's needed is an open source spyware killer, at least that way we can be sure that it can't be 'bought out' for anyone could make their own version of it to get around that.

[tkcomer]

PC World just had an article on it and they seem to like it. You can read it here: http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,119572,pg,7,00.asp Only one retail spyware version did better. It does take a while to run, but if I run Ad-Aware first, the Microsoft version doesn’t find anything. And Ad-Aware is much quicker.

[kcredden]

Thanks TK for this. I've been having problems with it lately. As it, it won't run :). But that's not surpising for a beta. I'll keep trying it.

PC World just had an article on it and they seem to like it. You can read it here: http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,119572,pg,7,00.asp Only one retail spyware version did better. It does take a while to run, but if I run Ad-Aware first, the Microsoft version doesn’t find anything. And Ad-Aware is much quicker.

[tkcomer]

One thing I did notice, Ad-Aware finds stuff called “Negligible Threat.” Microsoft does not. I’m not sure what a negligible threat is. Ever since they put that one spammer in jail a while back, Spybot finds nothing. Could be a good thing.

[kcredden]

That's the main reason why I use all three, since one usually finds things the other does. As long as also as it's free, I'm happy with the results too :)

One thing I did notice, Ad-Aware finds stuff called “Negligible Threat.” Microsoft does not. I’m not sure what a negligible threat is. Ever since they put that one spammer in jail a while back, Spybot finds nothing. Could be a good thing.

[Chuck]

Negligible threats are cached history items. But not limited to that. Generally they hold information on things you did on you computer last. History information that could be transmitted to a collection point then sold to deliver targeted advertisement to you.

After running all of these anti-Spyware programs you can still check out your PC and find that 10% is probably missed. Mostly level one type adware but still missed.

I have several issues with the MS Version. Mostly it spends to much time talking back to Microsoft. Part of the beta program i would guess.

MS spends a bunch of money with these magazines so I would expect a very pro article.

Not that Microsoft doesn't put out a fine product. I am a skeptic with mainstream corporations. But I think you know that already...