Microsoft's Anti-Spyware Sells Out - Gator no longer spyware?

[Itsme]

Microsoft's Anti-Spyware Sells Out

Important Stories and More from Ziff Davis
By Jim Louderback

A few weeks ago, the nastyware from Claria, called Gator, was flagged and removed by Microsoft's anti-spyware program. But now that the two companies are in buyout talks, suddenly an updated version of the Microsoft program is programmed to "ignore" those spyware apps by default. And let's face it, who changes the defaults? It's just another example of Microsoft selling out. Didn't we learn this lesson long ago? One company, controlling everything, just isn't good for users.

[DarkFury]

Just wondering... but couldn't this have been added to the thread you started on the topic here:

http://www.gotapex.com/forums/showthread.php?t=89484

[bachviet]

Adware and Spybot are still my top choices for spyware/adware removals.

[ribitch]

http://www.linuxbench.org/Posting.html

[SecretIkon]

does anyone use this microsoft anti-spyware thing?

i'm just using spybot and i think its good enough for spyware.

[zippyjuan]

The first time I used Microsoft's spyware program it found a couple of things, but since then, it hasn't come up with anything that Adaware didn't catch. Spybot doesn't find anything anymore on my system either I think Adaware is the best. I don't download a lot of things so I don't usually pick up much beyond cookies anyways. I keep MS turned off unless I want to run a scan. I have their anti virus and firewall turned off too- just use Norton there.

[Aristo]

I'm with zippy on this one. Adaware is the best on my book, found more stuffs than spybot. There is only one reason for me to use MS anti-spyware... real time protection.

[ribitch]

ms anti spyware always reported real vnc as spyware for me, so i quit using it. i prefer adaware as well

[shocky123]

anyone care to run MS spyware and Ad-Aware, or some other commercial product at the same time and see which program is quicker and/or more useful in terms of ridding yourself of spyware?

~Kyle

[bbrian]

ms anti spyware always reported real vnc as spyware for me, so i quit using it. i prefer adaware as well

There are several pieces of spyware that install real vnc. You can tell it to ignore the 'threat'. Even though real vnc has legit uses, I believe it should be alerting on it since some spyware uses it.

I use MS Antispyware purely because of the realtime protection. Even if it doesn't have a definition for spyware, the spyware can't install without MS Antispyware asking you if it can modify the registry and/or IE configuration. When cleaning machines that are heavily infected, it is wonderful because nothing else can get installed while you are cleaning off adware that it doesn't have a definition for.

Regularly, I am cleaning machines pre-sp2 machines that have adaware installed on it not finding anything at all and MS Antispyware will literally find hundreds of items. Occasionally I will see adaware find things MS Antispyware won't, but that is happening less often now.

[Jeffbx]

anyone care to run MS spyware and Ad-Aware, or some other commercial product at the same time and see which program is quicker and/or more useful in terms of ridding yourself of spyware?

~Kyle

Never did a speed test, but when running all 3 of the major products (MS, Spybot & Ad-aware) on a really dirty machine, every one of the found something the others didn't see. I don't think there is a product that is clearly better than the rest yet.

[SmokeyDP]

Never did a speed test, but when running all 3 of the major products (MS, Spybot & Ad-aware) on a really dirty machine, every one of the found something the others didn't see. I don't think there is a product that is clearly better than the rest yet.

These are my findings also.

[zero2dash]

I use MS Antispyware purely because of the realtime protection. Even if it doesn't have a definition for spyware, the spyware can't install without MS Antispyware asking you if it can modify the registry and/or IE configuration. When cleaning machines that are heavily infected, it is wonderful because nothing else can get installed while you are cleaning off adware that it doesn't have a definition for.

Spybot has real-time protection as well (Tea Timer); it works the same way too (notifies you if there is any change to the registry).

[bbrian]

Yeah, but I've cleaned several machines that had spybot installed with realtime protection turned on and had hundreds of spyware apps installed. I don't trust it at all..

I use adaware and MS AS... once they are done I use 'Process Explorer' from sysinternals to go through the list of DLL's IE and Explorer.exe have opened to make sure the system is truly clean. Process Explorer is what I used regularly to manually clean machines.. its still the best way I've found to get rid of everything.

[zero2dash]

I used to run a few other apps at the same time (SpywareBlaster, SpywareGuard, + the one included with the Yahoo toolbar) but now I just run Ad-Aware every once in awhile and Spybot (Tea Timer) and I've never had a piece of spyware install on me. YMMV with spyware & anti-spyware apps

[bbrian]

I wouldn't assume it is clean by just trusting 1 anti-spyware app. It could be riddled with types of spyware that it can't detect.

I still say the best defense is not browsing questionable sites and not opening suspect email attachments in the first place. I ran a laptop for over a year with no anti-spyware or anti-virus apps and once I installed them all the scans were clean.

[zero2dash]

I wouldn't assume it is clean by just trusting 1 anti-spyware app. It could be riddled with types of spyware that it can't detect.

(If you're talking to me) that's why I also have Ad-Aware installed.

I still say the best defense is not browsing questionable sites and not opening suspect email attachments in the first place. I ran a laptop for over a year with no anti-spyware or anti-virus apps and once I installed them all the scans were clean.

True - if you don't visit those sites or open files you don't know where they're coming from, you shouldn't (under most circumstances) have a single piece of spyware on your computer. Same thing with viruses. (Although viruses and trojans are often hidden within good files so those are easier to get.) I've had one piece of spyware install in the 5 years I've had a computer in this newfangled "watch out for spyware" age and that my own fault. I could uninstall both my antivirus and antispyware apps and be completely 100% fine with it, and most likely never have another virus or spyware app...but better safe than sorry, eh?