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Anti-Spyware Products Don't Live Up to Promises
John Wells writes "In the December, 2004 issue of PC World, the author of an article titled Poor Defenders concludes that most commercial anti-spyware software is ineffective. In tests using a fresh install of XP and 6 typical spyware infections the commercial software failed to stack up against freeware competitor Spybot Search and Destroy. Four out of seven commercial products failed to remove any of the infections. One product even installed 57 spyware files itself! Conclusion: Use freeware products like Spybot and Lavasoft's Ad-Aware SE Personal."
free is better
I'm curious if there are comparable-quality Freeware/Shareware anti-virus products available? I don't mind paying for a product, but don't like having the product cease to function unless more money is extorted out of me in perpetuity. I'm sick and tired of Symantec shaking me down for subscription updates, and subsequent versions of their products becoming more bloated and inefficient.
I'm curious about Symantec AntiVirus 9. Supposedly it finds spyware & adware too.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Because MS wants people to be able to install software easily and quickly. It enhances the Windows usability experience to be able to quickly and easily install any piece of software.
Plus, Microsoft likes to sell ads on its sites. I doubt you'll ever see anything like the Firefox ad blocker or the AdBlocker extension for IE.
I was very surprised they blocked pop ups. Probably got to the point where pop ups from spyware infected computers were making people think twice about windows as an os.
The open source community really needs to rally behind this, I think.
I'd love to see a project that uses community involvment to flag projects and websites as "phishing" or "spyware" related.
It could be integrated into open source projects such as Firefox and Thunderbird so you could be assured that after a few people in the community confirmed that a particular URL or even IP was "phishing" or "spyware" related, it would be disabled in the browser or email client without a blood sample and double confirmation.
I, for one, am sick of helping other people clean their computers of spyware. Many of them become so bogged down they are unusable.
Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
you really need to go further.
looking for free AV or firewall software I encounterd that MOST has spyware bundled with it. the ONLY apps I feel safe installing are Open Source where I can look to see if there is spyware included.
Freeware software has become the biggest carrier of spyware. many "media players" and other apps have a crapload of spyware in them and I am running into people with claria installed that dont even use the internet but recieved a nice CD with a copy of PC magazine that had some nice free apps on it.
personally, I am making a killing at $50.00 a pop to relatives and friends. i tell them to let others know that I'll do the same to their computer for $100.00 and I'll give them $20.00 for each person they send me.
I now clean about 20 computers a week, all set up in a row in the basement with a 2 day turnaround for them and they have to sign a waiver/disclaimer and pay in cash.
christmas is going to be a great one this year.
so in a way, I really have the spyware makers and microsoft's IE team to thank for the plentiful bounty I have this year.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If I am not mistaken (I use a Mac, so my contact with sypware is largely in removing it from other folks' computers) even the good free programs (adaware, spybot, etc) are closed source. As soon as the makers stop updating them, they become useless, as they can't remove newer spyware.
I've often wondered if it'd be feasible to start an open source spyware zapper project - the scanner wouldn't be too tough to write I don't think, and you could get the community to keep submitting updated definitions for newly found spyware via some sort of wiki-esq mechanism.
Could this work? And if so, could we also make our own anti-virus program while we're at it?
Spyware exists for Mac OS X.
So why don't any Spyware removers exist?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
While true, it is hardly their fault when so many programs out there come bundled with spyware. I've run across many free utilities and applications that are filled to the rim with spyware and I'm very careful about what gets put on my Windows box. I can't see how the average "it's just a tool" users out there can keep on top of all this.
But there are also programs that auto-install themselves without the user's knowledge, just by landing on an otherwise legit looking web page. That is an OS level problem and there is no excuse in the world for it. XP SP2 fixes many instances of this, but not all and not everyone has XP. There are still a huge number of 98, ME and 2000 users out there and SP2 won't help them a bit.
The "ease of use over all other considerations" model has left Windows vulnerable to these infestations. It saddens me that people are unwilling to hold Microsoft to task for their short sightedness and utter lack of concern for their users security. While there are no built in systems to stop spyware from getting installed by a user under Linux or OS X, OS X, at least, requires a user to provide the administrator password for any application that is trying to install system level software. And none of the Linux/OS X (and non-IE browsers on Windows) auto install software from a website.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
"Rogue/Suspect" means that these products are of unknown, questionable, or dubious value as anti-spyware protection.
Some of the products listed on this page simply do not provide proven, reliable anti-spyware protection. Others may use unfair, deceptive, high pressure sales tactics and false positives to scare up sales from gullible, confused users. A very few of these products are either associated with known distributors of spyware/adware or have been known to install spyware/adware themselves. Users are advised to rely on anti-spyware applications with deserved reputations for trustworthy performance.
useful link to bookmark
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Alright, I'll bite. What short-comings would the Linux OS have without third party applications? You could almost argue that everything in your distro, besides the kernel, is a third party application.
Now, saying that the OS shouldn't rely on third party applications to patch holes - that I'd agree with.
I work on lots of peoples computers guys. It isn't just mine. I install stuff from the internet just like others have on here but nobody would dare admit it. Sure I have the yahoo messenger, gmail notifier, folding@home, weatherbug, etc on mine. It isn't that uncommon guys. Get off the high horse. The spyware tools are what I put on other peoples computers when I work on them in my spare time. I also have to use IE at work to be like the customers we have when I troubleshoot our program. I'm tech support. Sheesh. I swear the people on here with their high horses and arrogant assumptions. Do I have to post my whole damn life story to keep people from filling in the blanks with ?
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
I think there is a bigger issue behind all of this. People really are starting to trust free and open source software more than commercial software. It is no surprise as private companies act as your enemy as soon as you buy something from them. They try to extort money from you by pushing upgrades because of vulnerabilities and compatibility. They make you subject to small print, EULAs with mysterious and suspicious content, advertisement that is manipulative, misleading and dishonest while giving you poor quality support for their products. They push expensive insurance on everything you buy.
Just they other day I had to throw out a perfectly good scanner because the company that made it (agfa) stopped making new drivers for it and it won't work under XP.
Before the advent of opensource/free software consumers had no alternatives so they had to deal with unethical deceitful entities. But now open source has proven to be much more competitive on the ethical and honesty front. If private companies want to keep their market share they are going to have to earn their trust. They will have to stop trying the fsck everyone in the behind all the time by pulling charlatan licensing tricks on you or people will slowly move away from them.
It never ceases to amaze me that people will knowingly and willingly install an operating system on their computer that is so obviously broken; to the point that after the install, anti spyware and adware software must be installed for it to remain functional; not to mention then having to install hundereds of megabytes more of patches and fixes at the additional cost to the user. But hey, people get what they wnat I guess. Personally, I think that this is the result of a victim mentality imposed on the masses largely by our government who so desperately needs to be seen as our savior. Hence, the farsical government lawsuits against MSFT and the joke of a anti spam law that increased spam almost exponentially. Now they will save us all from the spammers by making us all pay for email (another tax). bla bla bla, I have to go puke now
$ whatis msft msft: nothing appropriate
You're right about running multiple software levels in your defence against adware, spyware, malware and viruses.
At the same time, these programs don't always coexist well together. I had to laugh (wince) when my Panda anti-virus program decided that Spybot was a potential threat and quarantined it. (I was using Panda mostly for the firewall, because I don't trust the built in XP firewall capabilities). Sometimes these apps just are unknowing about one another, and seeing something out of place, they want to do something about it. Now, of course, the experienced computer user can make some intelligent decisions. But a newbie or your elderly mother might well be challenged to make such decisions and would likely just run things in automatic quarantine mode.
Now, I can still use Spybot, I'm just not sure all of its parts behave as they once did. It still seems to do the job, I just don't know if it is doing as good of job as before.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
'Sophos' has some good blog postings over at ITToolbox on the emerging market of "Digital Snake Oil" in the antivirus/antispyware product sector...
h ives/001997.asp
h ives/002284.asp
http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/eai/implementation/arc
http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/eai/implementation/arc
The1Genius - Littera Scripta Manet
Not always - I had the real pleasure of cleaning my inlaws computer a monthy ago. They have a 16 yr old in the house + broadband and un-updated windows box - The machine was pretty much dead - I had to pull the ethernet connection to even get it running. I had a copy of ad-aware with me - first pass netted 642 critical items. Cleaned those - was able to get online - then updated ad-aware defs and cleaned another 152 critical items (in addition they had their browser cache set at 40 gigs and it was about half-full).
" Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass (SPY ACT) (H.R. 2929): ... Among other things, it also outlaws taking over a PC for the purpose of sending unsolicited information to others (setting up a zombie PC); changing a browser's home page or otherwise loading pages other than those the user intended to request;"
Seems to me that would outlaw pop-up advertisements completely. There is no way this is going to become law.
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