MS AntiSpyware vs Ad-Aware vs. SpyBot

An anonymous reader writes "Flexbeta.net compares Microsoft's new spyware fighting tool, Windows AntiSpyware, to Ad-Aware and SpyBot S&D; the two leading spyware tools on the market today. The review sets up an infected PC using VMWare Workstation and scans the machine using all three tools to see which tool detects the most spyware. Though still in beta, Microsoft AntiSpyware does an amazing job at detecting spyware by finding twice as many infected files as Ad-Aware and nearly three times as SpyBot."

Comments

Just tried to install this MS AntiSpyware

[benzapp]

and apparently their detection of license keys has greatly improved... my key is invalid.

Anyone else have this problem using their obscure key of choice? SP2 installed fine a few months ago.

Warning: Real-Time option reenables itself

[PatientZero]

I tested it out too on my home machine, and the only thing it found was the Download Manager for Gamespot (based on Kontiki). Thank you Mozilla. :)

In any case, I uncheked the "install real time protection agents" option during installation, but after running the scan I ran through the options to see what other features it had. Surprise, RTP was enabled. Oh the irony of MS AntiSpyware behaving in the same shady fashion as Spyware apps. ;)

So if you do install it but don't want the RTP agents, make sure you hit up the options before quitting.