Anti-Spyware Software

I see a lot of posts regarding Anti-Spyware/Malware, etc... and I read an article in Computer Shopper while I was flying back from Dubai. I thought I would share this with everyone as it came up with some interesting results. Computer Shopper do Lab Testing of various things every month, in this release it did one of Eigth Anti-Spyware products; Grisoft AVG Anti-Spyware 7.5, Lavasoft Ad-Aware SE Personal 1.06, M$ Windows Live OneCare, PC Tools Spyware Doctor 5, Spybot Search & Destroy 1.4, Steganos AntiVirus 2007, Sunbelt Software CounterSpy 2 & Webroot Spy Sweeper with AntiVirus 5.3.

I will not go into the full details (not sure how that would infrindge any copyright if I did that). I will highlight the interesting bits about the results.

Spybot Search & Destroy ** - I love this product and have always sweared by it, it however didn't do very well and only got the two stars. Apparently it missed a lot of the Malware it was tested against and also it doesn't providfe real-time protection.
Lavasoft Ad-Aware SE Personal ** - This also only received two stars, they said that to remove spyware it requires multiple levels of reboots which they felt may confusion many users, doesn't provide real-time protection (unless you pay) and also scans missed Malware in the lab.
Webroot Spy Sweeper with AV ** - Although this does provide realtime protection and AV, it still only detected only around half of the Malware detected. Also, they say that one of the malware tested ended up corrupting the software. Also this isn't free
Sunbelt Software *** - Quite a cheap product with some useful general features such as history cleaner and Secure File Eraser. By default it locks certain things from being changed that often Malware targets, such as IE settings. It failed to detect any of the Malware during the download phase but the manual scan did detect over 60%.
M$ Windows Live OneCare **** - This was a shock that it got 4 stars. Its not free however it says that it includes a license for upto 3 machines and with decent spyware protection. It detected most of the Malware as it was downloaded and it picked up more during the manual scan. Also, it includes a much superiour Firewall to the standard one in Windows (doesn't say if it means just XP Firewall or the new Vista Firewall). On a personal note, this has just received Virus Bullitins 100% AV Detection which is a huge step forward for this product. There is supposed to be a 90 day free trial.
Steganos AntiVirus 2007 ***** - 5 stars for this however its not free. This had the best spyware and virus detection and it is reletively cheap. This is a rebranded AV program developed by Kaspersky Lab and is £8 cheaper than the original Kaspersky product. 100% detection, even during the download and the AV will also detect most of the e-mail viruses they encountered, intercepting them as your e-mail program received them. Easy to use.
Grisoft AVG Anti-Spyware Free 7.5 ***** - Also 5 star and something that I keep meaning to look at because this one is free. The only downside was that it didn't detect during the download however the manual scan did pick up over 90% of the malware. This company also provides a free Anti-Virus product so you can get free overall protection.

Unfortunatley i have been unable to find the article on Computer Shoppers website so i cannot provide you with a link.

Cheers

Interesting stuff. I'm surprised too that they rated Spybot and Ad-Aware that low - those two are my standard spyware toolkit and they've never let me down yet. I do use them together as one misses things the other catches and vice versa but even so...
Makes me wonder if the article might be a little biased? The AVG product sounds worthy of a look though doesn't it

I think the key thing is to use a good COMBINATION of tools, as no one tool seems to hold all the trump cards.

I personally use a combination of Spybot, Windows Defender and AVG. Then I use HijackThis! if I want to get my hands dirty.

hey guys agree with dalight all combinations come in handy..

my combination > Ad aware LavaSoft, AVG 7.5pro, Spy bot S&D, Hijackthis (trend micro)...

Found an interesting site here www.spywarewarrior.com

It's interesting here how do those testers raise the question of "Did it detect all the spyware ?". In my humble opnion I think they should ask "Did it detect all and nothing more ?".

For example, older versions of "FlashGet" (which I regularly use) is used to install some type of adware called "Cydor". Based on my personal privacy preferences, Cydor is completley harmless. I don't care if takes my name or statistics and stores it in thier database. My name is in my site and everywere on the net. Yet, spybot catches it and even the newer versions of symantec AV catches it as a VIRUS !!. So, to me a 100% catch is not that catchy.

Another example is CAIN & ABEL. I use this securiy tool, and symantec catches it as a virus. It takes me 10 seconds of clicks to exclude it. Am I gona do that for every security tool I use ?. symantec is becomming too secure, paranoid in fact. "Hey, this is not a virus, not to me at least".

My question is, can I specify a privacy/security level ? And those spywares would be ranked accordingly and only the one above my privacy/security level would be removed.