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

Wow, is this for real

[Cracell]

So wait a sec Microsoft's product is actual good?

Re:Wow, is this for real

[wankledot]

Of course it's good, they know where to find spyware and viruses because they're the ones that created them!!@# [/tinfoilhat]

Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait.. aren't we supposed to hate Microsoft? I'm confused.

Funny...

[lga]

Does anyone else think it funny that the advert at the bottom of this review is for Smiley Central, a well known piece of computer-invading crap?

Enough already.

[XorNand]

Ok, enough of the "MS should do better, they make the holes" comments. If you remember correctly, MS bought this code only a short while ago from Giant Company. About the only thing Redmond has done is repackage and rebranded it.

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.

Re:Just tried to install this MS AntiSpyware

[Chemical]

You can download without having to validate your license. Just select, the "No, leave me the hell alone" option when downloading.

This isn't really MS antispyware

[mutilated_cattle]

MS just bought giant AS and rebranded their product as Microsoft. As far as I can tell there's very little change to the program itself beyond the branding.

Giant has always been among the top antispyware products, as evidenced by Failing Grades for most anti-spyware tools so this "MS should know their own security holes better than anyone" stuff isn't strictly relevant. I think MS should foucus more on fixing the secuity problems in IE that are responsible for 90%+ of spyware infections rather than sticking plaster over the holes by buying up anti-spyware solutions. Is this even going to be free when it's released?

Personally I prefer webroot spysweeper anyway, Giant has always generated too many false positives for me.

Re:Not a Microsoft Designed Product

[Jesus 2.0]

I rennamed a textfile something like claria.exe and that thing started screaming immediately that bad people were trying to take over my life.

Wow, how horrible. I can't imagine how annoying and dangerous that would be for me, given how often I rename text files to claria.exe.

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.