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Two Reviews of Microsoft AntiSpyware
jasondubya writes "PC Magazine released their review of Microsoft's Anti-Spyware Beta 1. While they agree with most that it has great potential, it has yet to take over their top spot. In an informal test, it removed about two-thirds of the spyware detected and blocked about fifty percent of the threats they attempted to install. After removal, they ran Webroot's Spy Sweeper 3.0. It was able to detect '900 traces of 48 distinct threats still present, including two keyloggers and three Trojans.' With that, it looks like Microsoft still has work to do before they are on top of the market." Several other readers sent in link to Mossberg's review in the WSJ.
I've tried it and it found some stuff that ad aware didn't even pick up. It also correctly identified tight vnc as a possible spyware app, but labeled it as low priority. I was more then happy with it.
1. Does it work well? (not as well as many others)
2. Does it uninstall cleanly? (HA!)
3. How much does it cost for support (Better put, IS support even reasonably AVAILABLE for it?)
No thanks, I'll stick with what I've got.
Take the 90-Day Challenge! http://rwmurker.bodybyvi.com/
Let me get this straight, Microsoft buys another company, does a badge job on the product to slap their logos all over it, and suddenly it's something new and exciting? We might as well be reading the last review of Giant's software.
I guess it's news because it's Microsoft, just like a divorce is news if your name is Brad and Jennifer or whatever...
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
This is also useful for getting updates and other stuff from Microsoft's website site using alternative browsers like Firefox, which obviously won't run the ActiveX control this validation requires. I make a point of avoiding using Windows Update (which requires IE) and manually getting any applicable Windows patches each second Tuesday using Firefox, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this. Hopefully someone at Microsoft is paying attention to their webserver reports and realises that making sections of their websites require IE isn't going to be very popular. How many legitimate Windows users are they willing to annoy just to make it a smidgeon harder for people with unlicensed copies of their software and/or privacy concerns to get updates and so on?
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Just a note: I have a copy of Back Orifice 2K on my laptop for running some chores on several machines on my home network (the boPeep plugin is very handy) which is detected by NAV2004, and Spybot as a trojan (it can be) but it is not detected by MS Anti-Spyware. Interesting.
I would HATE to have BO2K on my machine without knowing it.
I've been testing this thing against some of the worst laptops students can put in front of me and it does a great job so far.
It's beating Spybot pretty much every time I've put them head to haed. It's still got a way to go against Ad-Aware but generally speaking it's not bad and it does a much more through job then just about every other automatic scanner I've used. I'm finding much less residue with hijackthis with MSAS than anything else so far. With a little more work on their definitions this could easily be a top notch antispyware utility.
The on demand scanner is really through. If on demand virus scanners were written with a system similar to this it would be really impressive against viral attacks. It checks just about every startup point I can think of where spyware hides. MS definitly didn't waste money by buying this impressive scanner Giant Developed.
The only problems I see is that it's questionable if MS is going to keep this program free and MS is a huge Lawsuit target. I can see every Spyware company suing the holy crap out of them for removing their product Screaming "Monopoly" and "Antitrust" all the way to the Judge.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
I guess taking some of those billions and building a good, secure operating system isn't part of Microsoft's business plane. Funny how all those Linux and BSD hippies did it without billions of dollars to play with.
we will end no whine before its time
Can VNC or an FTP server be used to spy on a computer? Yes, of course they can.
In fact, it seems like an effective method of doing it, considering that most scanners wouldn't pick up on them.
Does anyone else think that they achieve their amazing speed from secret system calls?
We all know microsoft can make good bugs and can't repair them. How are they supposed to make software that repairs bugs. Obviously, the program will make more bugs. Its the Microsoft way (*cough* SP2 *cough) ^_^
You may have a valid point someday, but at this point, that's where the credit deserves to go. The truth is, the program known as Microsoft Antispyware is just Giant with a facelift. To see just how superficial the change is, install the program and then check your registry. The program still registers under Giant Software. As of right now, what's under the hood has very little to do with Microsoft.
Howdy.
I'm using a special hostfile I got online, that helps me avoid a lot of ad servers, etc. The anti-spyware beta really dislikes this, however, and every time I run it picks ONE server it tells me is maliciously redirected. I can't easily tell it to just ignore that one component of the search, and when I ask it to ignore an individual server entry, it gives me warnings like I'm going to be really sorry I didn't let MS do what it wants.