spyware

catsilversword

Anyone know of a freebie download for this? Seem to be able to find anti virus and firewalls but not a free spyware tool. Unless one of you knows differently!

sra

Microsoft Anti-spyware

I also occasionally use
Ad-aware
Spybot S+D

catsilversword

Many thanks.

pchelpman

Also use two more tools from Javacool....SpywareGuard here....

http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareguard.html

and Spywareblaster here......

http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

You can have the Resident TeaTimer tool of Spybot also running in the background. There is a view that TeaTimer isn't as good as Spywareblaster but it can't harm to have both running in real time to help protect your PC.

Make sure you use "check for updates" on all protection programs (especially the free ones) in case there is no auto-updating available.

All the best.

Wombat

I also use the free Pest Patrol alongside Ad-Aware, SpyBot and Spywareblaster:

http://www.excid.com/futurenet/download/

Bigun28

It's always best to use a couple of these progs together because you will find that they tend to detect different things.

pchelpman

Wombat - I don't use this one from Pest Patrol but I do use other tools they have. Very good company. In your experience can the AV and antispyware be configured to run in the background all the time as "real time" protection or are they only scanning tools?

EDIT: one thing I have found is that Pest Patrol and Spybot S&D can occassionally cause false positives if used in conjunction.

steve_r123

Ad Aware and Spybot as mentioned above will get rid of most of it.

Microsoft one is ok'ish' for real time protection but useless for finding spyware already on your system. Internet explorer full of holes for spyware to come in so therefore Microsoft don't want everyone to know this.....

John_Gray

steve_r123 wrote:

Internet explorer full of holes for spyware to come in so therefore Microsoft don't want everyone to know this.

Are you really saying that Microsoft Antispyware Beta is deliberately not finding spyware that might have been let in by Internet Explorer? Interesting... What sources do you rely on for this statement?

Does the fact that Microsoft issues security fixes on the second Tuesday of each month, often to correct faults in Internet Explorer, disprove your view that I have quoted?

John

gustav

Downloaded Microsoft AntiSpyware Beta last week.
On the first scan, it fingered Kazaa, which I havent used for a long time, and an online casino program. So I quarantined both of these.
No alarms or surprises since then.

pchelpman

Just to add my thoughts on John Gray's question (I'm sure steve_r123 will have his own).

Microsoft Antispyware detects and stops what Microsoft thinks is spyware. MS is, of course, free to decide what they believe is, and is not, in this catagory.

Many folk in the anti-spyware community feel that Claria and 180 Solutions still remain "spyware" and remove them. MS does not, however, and MSAS leaves them on your system if found.

See here for a couple of articles on this (although there are many, many others)....

http://antivirus.about.com/od/antivirussoftwarereviews/a/msantispy.htm

Eric Howes at Spyware Warrior discovered ...... during a recent test ..... that Dashbar, Gator, PrecisionTime and Weatherscope had all been switched from a "Quarantine" classification to "Ignore." Full article....

http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft_Denies_Claria_Favoritism/1121100525