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Two Reviews of Microsoft AntiSpyware

Posted by michael on from the unsolved-problem dept.

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.

11 of 203 comments (clear)

  1. article quoted incorrectly by Triumph+The+Insult+C · · Score: 5, Funny

    need to make a correction there at the end ...

    With that, it looks like Microsoft still has a few more companies to buy before they are the market."

    --
    vodka, straight up, thank you!
  2. My experiences in brief... by ZiZ · · Score: 5, Informative

    MS AntiSpyware is /extremely/ fast - faster than anything else I've tried - but didn't catch any advertisement cookies in Mozilla Firefox and only caught a very small number of them from IE. It also complains loudly about a number of things I use on a regular basis - FTP server, VNC, even a copy of SoftICE (which, yes, I use legitimately to debug device drivers). Could be good with some work, though.

    --
    This flies in the face of science.
    1. Re:My experiences in brief... by papadiablo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It also complains loudly about a number of things I use on a regular basis - FTP server, VNC, even a copy of SoftICE (which, yes, I use legitimately to debug device drivers).

      Yes, but you can tell it to ignore them every time, meaning it won't bug you about them.

      I agree it's extremely fast. It is also free and in beta mode so I wouldn't expect it to be as good as commercially released subscription based software. It would be nice if it continues to be free and I expect it to only get better over time.

    2. Re:My experiences in brief... by RonnyJ · · Score: 4, Insightful
      It also complains loudly about a number of things I use on a regular basis - FTP server, VNC

      It *should* pick up on these two - if you're advanced enough to have a use for them on your system, you're quite capable of telling the program to always ignore them.

      If, on the other hand, a typical home user finds a FTP server or VNC on their system, who has no idea what it is, or why it's there, it's likely it's not been put on there for their use.

  3. My experience by yfmaster · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  4. For the pirates... by StevenHenderson · · Score: 4, Informative
    Just an FYI to all the pirates out there:

    Even though it says you need to "validate" Windows, it prompts you after you click the download link, and then you can click "no." Good news for me^H^Hthe pirates out there with illegitimate XP copies.

    1. Re:For the pirates... by Zocalo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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!
  5. Three things by RM6f9 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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/
  6. The WSJ article is very biased. by sllim · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Problems with these reviews:

    1. It really isn't fair to issue a review of a product in its beta form. Yes it can be argued that Microsoft throwing out this software in the public domain pretty much gives people the write to issue opinions on it, but it seems to me that in a respected news source like the WSJ should take there ability to influence people to heart and wait for a final version before issuing reviews.

    2. The reviewer faulted this tool for not finding cookies. Big whoop. Seriously, cookies are highly overrated. Ad-Aware is a pretty good tool, but its insistance in clearing out all my cookies causes me to have to redo passwords and such for websites that I would have rather left alone. This utility ignoring the cookies is a good thing.

    3. Resets hijacked home pages to MSN. Buyer beware? Oh thats right this software is free. The problem with hijacked home pages is that there is a script that keeps resetting them to the hijacked page, you can't get rid of it. I haven't tested this, but I imagine that the Microsoft tool simply resets your home page to MSN. You are free to change it back to whatever you want. I imagine it would be a simple enough thing for Microsoft to reset it back to what it was originally, but that requires that your home page wasn't hijacked when the tool was installed. All in all if Microsoft want's to make MSN the default home page with this tool, and the tool is free, I say we got what we paid for. Let them have it.

    4. Doesn't support Firefox. Let me get this straight. Microsoft offers a product for free that a good many of us would be willing to pay for and they don't offer support for there competing web browser? Say it aint so!
    Let me be the first to say that if you wan't Firefox support then maybe you should look at an open source solution or possibly a pay client that supports Firefox. As long as Microsoft is giving this thing away faulting them for this is bias pure and simple.

  7. Does not remove Back Orifice by siliconjunkie · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  8. The Best Microsoft AntiSpyware... by eomnimedia · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...can be found at:.