Slashdot Mirror
Review of Microsoft's Anti-Spyware Tools
happyslayer writes "Matthew Fordahl has written a review of Microsoft's anti-spyware tool and has declared it, in a word, 'ineffective.' Though the methodology isn't carried out completely (he uses another anti-virus program after trying MS's tool, but doesn't do the same with the anti-spyware tool), it's a fairly good anecdote on the MS product's usefulness."
But it's beta, and his methodology is just plain wrong. I'm not one to jump up and defend MS, but WTF?
Oxymoron?
I ran the current version of Spybot, then I ran the current version of AdAware (free version), and when I ran Microsoft Antispyware, it still found stuff to remove that the others didn't. That's proof enough for me. Of course I immediately uninstalled the MS Antispyware after running it, but that's besides the point. I would never let it run in the systray because if MS's reputation for bloat.
How many times are we going to have a Slashdot blurb about someone reviewing this thing?
If Giant Anti-Spyware is ineffective, then please, what do you call Spybot S&D? Worthless?
Giant and Webroot's are the only two that work at all, and neither is overly impressive. So what is the author trying to say?
couldn't they just fix their shit? IE, for example, if they actually continued to release new versions of it and keep it secure then 99% of spyware problems are fixed, is this just a way for them to blame "those damn hackers" while selling their new product to fix their other product? I assume this will be for sale, and not for free.. i bet i'm right.
From the end of the article:
Overall, I was more impressed with the antispyware program's protective measures and simple interface than with its ability to cleanse existing infections. Still, Microsoft seems to be on the right path to fixing the mess caused by the careless users, malicious programmers, unethical companies and vulnerable software.
Twenties Retirement
I'm sure the Slashdot crowd will love this, even though everything I've heard and seen says it's the best product on the market in that space...and it's beta.
This is great news!
/. intentionally trolling?
Is someone at
I can tell you that I had to clean a machine today that had 56,000 instances of 'Claria' (GAIM aka Gator)
Ad-aware missed them on the first pass...so I used MSAS, and it caught them all. And removed them. Successfully. (whereas Ad-aware would have just quarantined them).
I know I'll get roasted for this obvious 'fanboi' ism, but remember, MSAS is actually still GIANT, who they brought it from. (check your process names while running it...you'll see)
I don't know about you, but I'd get pretty nervous about using any software that Microsoft *openly* admits is beta.
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
PHIARPHOCKS You should not have had to download this MS tool in the first place.
According to this story on the register, the MS anti spyware tool also labels Bitdefender (a romanian anti virus tool) as spyware.
My pics.
... 'cause I don't believe in touchdowns.
This is yet another band-aid supplied by none other than Microsoft. The company has become a bit of a holy saviour lately with all of these "solutions" to the problems with Windows.
I think most of us remember how Netscape died (rough analogy, I know) -- they just kept piling feature upon feature without digging deep to fix the problem in its roots.
If Microsoft keeps piling up all of this junk on top of Windows to fix other junk, they will soon see that these types of actions will soon become redundant, and they'll have to seriously start thinking harder about security.
This is a misguided 'strategy' by Slashdot.
Seriously, who gives a shit what Microsoft does, until they're serious about OSS?
Attacking Microsoft doesn't make Open Source any better.
These attacks don't further the OSS community.
At best, they provide a "common enemy" - that's not a good way to rally programmers around a complex solution like Spyware detection.
Think about this:
Where are all the Open Source virus scanners?
Where are all the Open Source spyware detectors?
What? There are precious few? Hmm - and here we have a massive media force in Slashdot that does NOTHING to inspire / continue projects like these... The projects that are thankless, the projects that closed source wins because "no one wants to do that in their spare time"...
Before we bash MS for TRYING in this arena, maybe we can spend our efforts supporting OSS in this arena... Just a thought.
like they don't even read their own site?
ok its nice that they have an anti spyware and if it works well, thats great. But if they made a more secure OS it wouldn't be needed. Also they know where there hole are (at least i hope) so they know where to fix.
I used it on my XP Pro. machine after running only ad-aware se personal, and it found nothing. Zero. The Big '0'. Guess it wasn't worthwhile, especially since my computer was noticeably laggy after it had run, which usually doesn't happen with other virus-scan/adware-scan programs.
Dude... you've already posted this just an hour or so ago in reply to my post, mod, do your business..
I think the reviewer may have accidentally installed "Home" rather than "Pro Edition"
MAC is a truck, MAC is "Media Access Control," however MAC is not a computer.
I have to give credit to Microsoft purchasing the company who made this AntiSpyware program. Yesterday I went to a client site and their server got infected (surfing on a naughty site I'm sure) and AdAware and Spybot removed a few but the machine was still hosed. I was unable to double click on any icon on the desktop - I would get a GPF. I went in safe mode with networking, downloaded the MS AntiSpyware tool, went in regular mode to install it (LUCKILY that worked, not sure why), went back in safe mode to run the tool, and it wiped out over 20 different spyware signatures and over 100 files, much more than either of the other tools. After a few hours, the machine was running perfectly with the icons allowing to be double-clicked on.
What's up with all these "reviews" immediately condemning this new tool? As far as I can tell, it's an honest attempt on Microsoft's part to actively aid it's customers in removing crap from their computers. I've used it myself at work, and after running Spybot, Ad-Aware, SpySweeper, and HijackThis, Microsoft Antispyware still manages to flag and remove quite a few leftovers.
Granted, by itself it may not be the most effective thing in the world, but the same can be said for any antispyware/antivirus software. We need to run at least 3 antispyware programs at work, and at least 2 antivirus programs before we feel confident that a computer is clean enough to return to the customer.
Besides the fact that it's just a beta, it's worked out pretty well for what it is. The interface is easy enough to figure out and use, and it identifies software which comes bundled with adware/spyware. When was the last time Spybot or Ad-Aware flagged Kazaa or Imesh as adware bundlers, while the default action is "ignore," but removal and quarantine are obvious choices? I say enough of these reviews. I'll be "reviewing" it myself by using it for what it can do well. If the final version works as well as this does, or better, it'll stay on my list of removal tools for my customers.
That seems to be the common mindset amongst a good majority of /.'s. While I don't necessarily agree with their business practices, I admit that they put out some pretty good software. The visual studio family of compilers for one. Another thing, I've /never/ experienced a crash with XP. Because I know how to use it. I've never had a crash with Slackware either. You know why? Yup. Because I know how to use it. Also, firefox is not some magical solution to spyware. I'll admit it's a bit harder to become infected if you use ff instead of ie, but a stupid user is a stupid user regardless of what software you place in front of them.
In short, MS AntiSpyware looks like a very promising app. One which I hope MicroSoft continues to improve.
In which the author said it was better than Adaware and Spybot combined?
By the way, after testing it out, I find it to be quite effective.
What kind of crack is this guy smoking? Giant AntiSpyware is very effective, and that is all this new "beta" is. It catches things that other programs do not, and does so very well.
:) Smart move on MS part IMHO. Best of all, it is a production quality piece of software, so, it is stable. I did however notice that it is missing the "innoculation" and file shredder in the advanced tools though.
MS calls it "free beta" to get people to download it, like it, and then pay for a subscription in the future.
I can only hope that MS doesn't bugger up a great piece of software...
Notice how he couldn't even get it installed properly to remove the spyware?
How do you expect this tool to work correctly when it's not even installed right. It's just not possible that it wouldn't find anything. Obviously something else was messing it up.
BioHaz
I'm sure in this thread we'll see those who say how they hate it or love it, and then someone will mention firefox. Does it ever end?
It's Groundhog Day on slashdot.
Some of you that do like it will change your mind when you learn that Microsoft Anti-Spyware was written in VISUAL BASIC 6.0 (here comes more bloatware comments)
I'm sure those people will change their mind just to conform so they can find a spot on the Slashdot bandwagon along with the firefox fanboys that hate Visual Basic and Microsoft.
MSAS detects cookies used for common affiliate tracking programs such as Azoogleads and CommisionJunction as 'spyware', while all they really are is cookies that say that you were refered to the site from 'PUBLISHER_ID' and that 'PUBLISHER_ID' should get credit for your purchase.
If someone uses your affiliate link, runs MSAS, then goes back and buys the product, you will not get credit!
I think this is the third. How about holding off until a final product, or at least a new version, is released?
The article was posted by michael, so yes.
I can't believe this is story was posted. As much as I dislike MS on many levels, THIS IS BETA!!!!
Furthermore, some of the most effective anti-spyware tools I have used have broken windows before. It is in Microsofts best interest to be carefull in their approach to this. If they break legitamite programs with their tool, they a looking at lawsuits (EULA or no) and they have money to go after.
Please save the bashing until this thing is released officially as non-beta.
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
The spyware tool is better than what they had before; nothing.
Once it's a regular part of windows update, it can't get anything but better (it's beta for a reason), and the worst that can happen is the volume of spam and bullshit on the 'net will go down a little bit.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I like how microsoft buys a company, rebrands its software and suddenly it as if this product has been written from scratch by microsoft. Maybe in a few years you can complain about anti-spyware microsoft this, anty-spyware microsoft that... but this is a little premature.
Since when can Windows run 56,000 instances of anything?
But it didn't remove the second because the file was a unist.exe. That didn't happen again!
I still have Spybot S&D and Ad-Aware, but MS's is a good supplement.
Billy
If M$ puts this on windows autoupdate as they SHOULD (the browser that brings the crap is free, so the cleanup tool should be equally free), then this will at least put a basic measure of protection in place for the majority of Win users who don't frequent /. for the latest spyware news.
I'm tempted to give kudos to M$ for the effort, but I fear I would get modded Troll for doing so.
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
I think it's great. Nooo, definitely no sarcasm here. uh-uh.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
I downloaded the new MS anti-spyware tool, and I dont know where the fucken thing is. Can anyone help me out here?
The only difference i have noticed on my system is a yellow exclamation every time I plug my iPod in, saying iTunes.exe is corrupt, please run chkdisk.
Tracking cookies were the only thing MS anti-spyware didn't find, and there is nothing in the documentation about MS antispyware going after such items.... so in other words it performed as advertised -- and needs improvement.
That said I am switching to Mac and leaving this spyware crap behind me.
M$ OS's have always shipped with an Anti-Spyware app.
Its called Fdisk
And removed them. Successfully. (whereas Ad-aware would have just quarantined them).
.. well sometimes computers *do* make mistakes and i prefer it if they can undo the mistakes.
Errr and how is quarantining worse than deletion ??
I personally would find quarantining a feature because
Lima India November Uniform X-ray
Something I've been wondering about, ut I haven't seen an answer yet.
:)
Does MS's antispyware tool remove or report cracked/pirated software? After all, if it's not original it might have a back door built in, or something. And it's just the kind of thing that MS would pull.
Not that I pirate stuff, or anything, just wondering
what seems to escape most posters is that the majority of spyware on computers was instaled by the people that uses them. There is no OS or antispyware or whatever that can do anything about that, average joe is dumb in windows in linux or os2, average joe will click on ad or will install bonzi budy just to watch some naked chicks. its mostly a problem of user education, not software.
The author is ineffective at system recovery.
I tested the programs on a Windows XP computer I borrowed from my wife's cousin. The 3-year-old PC, a Gateway running Windows XP Home Edition, was basically unusable.
Me too, except this was a customer.
Error messages appeared when I tried to open the Task Manager, a Windows utility that shows running programs and processes. It refused to load Windows Update, Microsoft's site for downloading security patches and other fixes.
Those plus the TCP stack was corrupt on this machine...wouldn't renew the DHCP lease. Had to manually rebuild that as well.
To load Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool, I had to get it using another machine, load it on a USB drive and install it manually. (It's usually available through Windows Update.)
Or you could have just put the executable on a CD with SP2's executable and MS Anti-Spyware's executable. But that would make sense for someone in the system recovery business and we can't have that!
The tool looks for a limited number of pests, such as "Sasser" and "MSBlaster," so it didn't find the worm, "Netsky.P," that had infected this PC.
The program was designed to search for a few insanely critical bugs. It COMPLIMENTS your set of tools...not replaces them.
But bizarre behaviors -- including multiple pop ups, unwanted toolbars and generally sluggish behavior -- continued.
That's because you're not in safe mode and you haven't stopped the programs from regenerating.
So I rebooted the PC in safe mode...
Now we're going in the right direction!
After rebooting again, the PC continued to show signs of infection, though it did seem less bogged down. Having spent two days disinfecting the system, I broke down and reformatted the hard drive. I then reinstalled Windows XP and all its patches.
Pfffft. Ineffective computer technician.
I don't have the option to just backup whatever I feel is important on a customer's PC...they're paying me to recover their system, not pick which files have to disappear forever and cause them to lose all their settings and programs.
Once again for clarity: INEFFECTIVE COMPUTER TECHNICIAN.
MS Anti-Spyware has done an EXCELLENT job on every single customer PC. The Malware tools from MS make a quick and easy check during the in-home visit for those REALLY nasty bugs.
Who is this guy, anyway? Oh wait...
MATTHEW FORDAHL, AP Technology Writer
Technology WRITER. Leave the tech stuff up to the tech people and have fun with your little Word.
Another review for this Anti-Spyware tool that hasn't removed a thing from my box (I usually find a lttle thing or two after updating my definitions in AdWare)...
Did Microsft warn everyone else about the dangers of RealVNC???
"The world only exists in your eyes. You can make it as big or as small as you want." - F Scott Fitzgerald
>>Is someone at /. intentionally trolling?
...New to /.
You have to pay to use Outlook now, chances are Microsoft will charge a (probably nominal) fee for this thing as well. Have to pay for something that MAYBE will protect your computer from the end result of Microsoft's inability to create secure, efficient software. God I love GNU.
y'know...modding the parent 'redundant' would be funny.
...and I'll say it again, but there are Anti-Spyware devices that are the of my eye.
Okay, slightly OT, but answer me this: why is it that Linux and Unix based systems (like Mac OS X) don't have problems with spyware and viruses? The popular argument by Windows fanboys is that because there is not enough of a market share for *nix to matter to malware authors. I've read it also has to do with package management on *nix, and that you cannot just simply execute a script or binary on a *nix system? TECHNICALLY SPEAKING, what is the strait answer here?
Once again the issue of spyware/adware/viruses is raised and once again slashdot readers attest to the effectiveness of their favourite utilities.
They once again seem to wholly overlook the problem in their anti-microsoft/anti-ie/anti-windows logic that they, the supposed experts, suffer from such problems in the first place.
I'll be blunt. You people are a bunch of fucking idiots who may be computer literate but you're no smarter than the average chump who clicks "yes" to prompts while surfing porn. That is, ladies and gentlemen, the crux of the matter. Not microsoft, not IE, not active X.
The idiot user.
I think it is, therefore, a little difficult to impose upon microsoft the responsibility of curing human stupidity.
About the antivirus bit, I see those kinds of tools as a sort of "quick fix": they can catch half a dozen virus (usually the group of viruses of the month/week and it's variants) but won't do much more. I usually use them as the "first wave" against an infected PC, followed by a proper full, *updated* scan by an antivirus.
About the spyware tool itself, in my opinion, its really well put together (I didn't knew the GIANT product, so the MS version was my first contact with it). But I guess that spyware poses a diferent problem concerning detections and all: how do we count a "hit"? by the simple count of files and reg keys? by the grouping of "infected" objects from a certain product? it's really a very murky area, as I've come to figure, after a long time using the "wonder-trio": Ad-Aware, Spybot and Spyblaster.
And I guess that this hole "counting" problem is in the genesis of a lot of confusion about how efective an anti-spyware tool can be. If the MS Tool removes, for example, 129 objects and Ad-Aware (on the same test bed) removes just 89, does it mean that the MS tool is more efective? I don't think so.
I think that the main problem resides in the fact that spyware is a much more complex beast than a virus: a virus *must* be simple and discrete enough so that it can pass unnoticed on a given system. Spyware, on the other hand, can aford to be much more "loud" and rub it's efects on the user's face. Ergo, they can aford to be much larger and complex, passing as "legit" apps. A virus can consist in just a single file, and have an identified/identifiable "fingerprint" on the infected files, but spyware can take up several megabytes and be as complex as a normal windows aplication. For example, given the today soup of files and regs and stuff, how can anyone say for certain: this reg key belongs to this and *only this* application?
Eventually the coder of the application can anwser that, but in this case the coders are a bunch of sinister, evil looking goblins, so we can't expect much colaboration from them :P
So, even if tool A gets 3445 "hits", tool B gets 1298 "hits" and tool C gets 982 "hits", I think that we should use A+B+C, instead of dumping C and "idolyzing" A. All the help is welcome on this battle, since the spyware itself is getting nastiers, going for the antispyware tools itself. So if the tools cover each other's asses, as well as misses, that's fine by me.
So are we (the cleaning guys, the sysadmins, the helpdesks, the "white hats" of this world) loosing the batle? I don't think so. Logically, the solution resides in pluging the hole(s), and in my opinion, Microsoft is moving in the right direction, altough slowly, no doubt. I just hope that this hole thing about virus and spyware and stuff won't put the DRM, locked computer (sorry, Windows-inside computer) a couple of steps closer...
Anyways, summing it up: are the MS Antivirus and Spyware tools totally worthless? I don't think so. They are not 100% efective (neither is Ad-Aware, or Spybot or anyother), but they are a much needed help in this "batle". Add then to your usual swiss-army-knife/bootcd of cleaning/security tools, and you'll have adden horsepower, wich is good :D
In oposition to antivirus (1 is enough, 2 is a mess), another *good* spyware tool on the system is allways welcome.
"A sysadmin is a cross between a detective, a police officer, a gardener, a doctor and a fireman"
I work seven days a week, 10-14 hours a day as a freelance computer repair person. Most of my clients are residential, and about 80% of their problems are related to viruses and spyware, most of it brought on my the downloading and usage of "bundlers" such as Kazaa. I've found AdAware and Spybot to be very effective, followed closely by Hijack This and CW Shredder. Security Task Manager is also pretty good, and Killbox is great for eliminating hard-to-delete individual files. I was glad when Giant came out, and still OK with it when MS bought them out. Giant/MS antispyware finds stuff the others don't - each of these utilities complement one another. In addition, as another poster said, I take stuff out of MSCONFIG and the "Run" keys. I also delete executables and .dll files I recognize as bad, as well as go into Add/Remove and take a lot of rogue programs out of there, as well.
c:\windows\prefetch and c:\windows\temp get an emptying out, too.
Oh, and the 2004, 2005 versions of Norton and McAfee do seem to include some malware detection beyond viruses.
It is very slow however. I hope they make it less CPU intensive on startup when it comes out of beta.
I neither hate it nor love it or Microsoft. The simple fact is that the review was crap. The methodology was lacking and the scientific process non-existant. We've done several anti-virus and anti-spyware comparisons. What you do is simple: - Load up a virtual machine with XP and take a snapshot - then kill it with viruses or spyware - run a tool and find what it catches/cleans - revert to the snapshot and run the next tool - do some simple math
format c:/
MS designed the bloody operating system this program is running on... shouldn't it perform quite well considering they know every in and out of Windows?
"Overall, I was more impressed with the antispyware program's protective measures and simple interface than with its ability to cleanse existing infections. Still, Microsoft seems to be on the right path to fixing the mess caused by the careless users, malicious programmers, unethical companies and vulnerable software."
This is by no means a positive review, however it is a far cry from the one word characterization "ineffective" used in the teaser for this "story".
Are we really that afraid of them that we need to hyperbolize this way?
I spelled his name wrong, because i didn't want to get modded into oblivion, but i think micheal's posts are getting more and more lame. That last story said how effective it was, and in my experience it is effective (plus systray bloat).
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
Spyware is typically installed by the user. What does Microsoft have to do with that? User education is more important than blaming Microsoft.
If Gentoo was used by 90% of the install base, spyware vendors would find a way.
A test of "I ran A but then I ran B and it found X left over" is meaningless by itself. You need to start over and run in the opposite order, to see how much A catches that B doesn't.
What Eric Howes found matches what service techs find. There's no tool with 100% coverage. Which, if you know any statistics, tells you that even running multiple tools doesn't guarantee anything. I tell any client who will listen to focus on prevention.
You know what else is wrong with the AP "review"? He keeps calling the "Malicious Software Removal Tool" (hilarious name, think about it) "antivirus". It's not intended to be. It's a bundle of a few cleanup utilities.
Even though it found things that Ad-Aware and Spybot didn't find. Perhaps it should be tried the other way. What do they find that Microsoft doesn't find, and how serious are they really? Is it that much better, or is it merely different.
Secondly, has Microsoft really had time to make any major changes to the scan engine, or have they changed the update servers, and the skin (The Icon hasn't even changed) and called it beta? Keep in mind that when Microsoft bought out Giant they were merely continuing their great tradition of acquiring from someone else rather than writing their own code from scratch.
I personlly think that one cannon judge the software this early on its life. I feel that we will definatley need to re-visit the software when it has been fully "Microsoft-ized". I look forward to seeing what happens next.
Usually slashdot gives semi unbiased reviews.
Who is the reviewer anyway? Can anybody who dislikes this product make news? If you want to talk about inneffictive, how about his article.
The summary of his article should read "This just in: Joe Shmo dislikes a beta product. He has conducted the most useless, unmethodical test ever given to a computer product. Let's all rest easy now that we have a headline that reads 'ms antispyware: bad' regardless of the fact that it's a B.S review"
Let me tell you somthing. I work for a computer help desk part time for a huge campus. I get probably 20-30 calls a day for spyware problems. When I recomend MS antispyware, they don't call back. It solves more problems than any other product i've recomended. It also removes browser hijackers, which are the worst thing ever for a tech agent, because I can't tell them to touch the registry. This is an excellent program that puts the other big ones to shame; and its free!
slashdot, this was a terrible article.
There are plenty of AOL users on Mac OS X... but they get virii and spyware too -- or does the obscurity of the platform shield them from thier sins?
It seems they have been more lately because there haven't been as many duped stories lately.
Whenever a Microsoft bashing article comes up on slashdot we need a little video song clip to come on with pasty aggressive nerds emerging from their basements in homemade rockets with the lyrics blaring: SLASHDOT! FUCK YEAH! Coming again, to save the mother fucking day yeah, SLASHDOT, FUCK YEAH! Linux is the only way yeah, Microsoft your game is through cause now you have to answer too, SLASHDOT, FUCK YEAH! So lick my slanted posting, and suck on my trolls, SLASHDOT, FUCK YEAH! What you going to do when we come for you now, it's the open-source dream that we all share; it's the hope for tomorrow. FUCK YEAH! OpenBSD, FUCK YEAH! Spybot S&D, FUCK YEAH! Beowulf CLusters, FUCK YEAH! Neil Stephenson, FUCK YEAH! MMORPG, FUCK, YEAH!
Usually slashdot gives semi unbiased reviews.
Haha. Very funny.
Is there anything happening on the anti-spyware/malware front for Linux and MacOS X? The usual argument I hear is that the *nixes are more secure as they don't allow root privilege access by default as Windows does. However, spyware, malware and other crapware doesn't need root privilege does it? I have enough privileges on MacOS X to have spyware install rogue apps and have them start when I login. Same goes for linux. These *wares don't need to run as root to cause damage.
So what's happening in the *nix world to ensure that all this crapware doesn't affect us? Not having root access is not the solution.
Why would anyone want to use a text editor that is not vi?
I know that the so called "ineffectiveness" of this tool is another Slashdot Bull-crap.
My personal experience with this tool has been very satifying.
I never had spyware or virus on my XP so I downloaded some malware off the web to a Virtual PC session to test this out.
The developers have done a stupendous job on this program.
I am sure as hell surprised that MSNBC carried this story too.
Review: Microsoft Anti-Spyware Ineffective
You have the wrong idea. When ad-aware quarantine's something it does remove it. The "quarantine" is just a fancy word for "backup" it backs up whatever it is going to delete into the "quarantine" file and then proceeds to delete it. If something on your computer stops working you can "restore" parts of the "quarantine" file.
Have you metaroderated recently?
Let's just bash everything Microsoft makes. Better yet, let's bash the BETAS that Microsoft is publishing.
Longhorn:
I installed this piece of crap on my laptop. It didn't ask if I wanted to keep my linux partitions, it juts made me delete them. The default wallpaper is stupid, and how many users know to right click the desktop to change it? Also, the Win95 drivers shipped with my laptop don't work in Longhorn. And it keeps telling me about this "beta" thing that I supposedly installed. It's really slow on my PII-400.
WUS:
This thing requires an OS preinstalled. A WINDOWS OS. It requires IIS and IE installed. It doesn't deploy linux patches. Don't bother switching from yum to WUS, it's not going to work. It's still using that femmy blue theme.
What do you people want? Oh that's right, we want to see Microsoft fall flat on their face. Never fear, this is the probable cycle:
* MS buys technology
* MS repackages technology
* MS publishes betas and eventually ver 1.0
* Slashdot crowd gets nervous, posts negative reviews only.
* ver 1.0 is halfway decent
* MS decides to add "features"
* ver 2.0 ships. Twice as big as ver 1.0, and where are these alleged features?
* MS decides it should send mail (Zawinski's law)
* ver 3.0 ships. It sends e-mail now, but still puzzles users as to why they upgraded from ver 1.0
* ver 4.0 ships as an e-mail client, and no one remembers what the product was actually supposed to do
* ver 5.0 ships. It no longer sends mail or does what it originally did. Users await ver 6.0
* Product is EOL'd
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
You know, i've been thinking, maybe having all of these anti-spyware programs in the long run isn't such a good thing. Maybe if people had to do a complete re-install and lose all their data everytime they do something stupid on the net, then people would learn to be a little more careful.
In all seriousness though, I've done my best to try to educate my own friend and family for whom I have to do tech support, and it seems like some of these people either don't get it at all, or have decided that it's just much easier for me to take a couple hours every couple of weeks out of my life to come over and clean up their machines. What have other people done to educate the clueless in taking proper care of their computers from malware?
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
Those last 4 are all Microsoft too.
So, pretty well all reviews of MS anti-spyware, except for any reviews by Paul Thurott, which will undoubtedly be written by his love-god, Billy Gates.
I'm the last to support MS in any way shape or form, but seeing as this is nothing but a rebranded version of Giant Anti-Spyware, and Giant Anti-Spyware was shown to have the best batting average of removing spyware why are we jumping on the bandwagon to bash it so soon without allowing it to get out of "beta" (which it really isn't, as Giant Anti-Spyware wasn't beta).
There's no reason to bash this tool yet. It's still in beta - it's going to crash. On top of that, from what the reviews have said, it's still Giant's software with a new UI.
This existing does not mean that Spybot or Ad-Aware are going to in any way become obsolete. No one spyware removal program to date can remove **all** components of spyware on an infected machine. When we have to clean computers for work, we use both Ad-Aware and Spybot and sometimes other tools on top of that, such as CWShredder or HijackThis.
This is just _one_more_ tool to work with, and so far, it's getting pretty good reviews. I don't know about the rest of you, but I hate spyware, and even though I run Linux, I still want less spyware around, so as long as this thing removes at least SOME spyware, then great. But this doesn't mean I'm going to be uninstalling Ad-Aware from users machines because "MS to the rescue!" On the other hand, just because it's got the Microsoft seal on it, it doesn't make it inherently crap...past history notwithstanding.
-Jay
I recreated the only spyware infection I've ever had in order to test MS AntiSpyware.
Bottom line: MS AntiSpyware did almost nothing to protect me and using it to "clean" the spyware left me in a much worse position than when I started. After using MS AntiSpyware to clean my PC, I still had a new IE toolbar, a popup ad whenever I opened IE, and a big search bar over my taskbar and, thanks to MS AntiSpyware, I couldn't get rid of them. I had to reinstall the spyware and uninstall using add/remove programs.
The truth doesn't care what I think.
Having spent two days disinfecting the system, I broke down and reformatted the hard drive. I then reinstalled Windows XP and all its patches.
It took just 90 minutes.
Not reformatting the hard drive would have been faster, and he wouldn't have lost any data.
This article from a few days ago dubs spyware "IT's public enemy #1" and I have to agree. I admin a small network of about 100 Windows PCs and it's such a headache. Sure, I know how to clean a machine completely... but it involves an arsenal of different programs plus a lot of by-hand work and reboots and safe-mode and such.
The problem is, there is no one effective tool. The antivirus industry has matured. Granted, Symantec might not catch EVERYTHING but what it DOES catch covers everything I've ever come across, and 99.999% of what most other people will too.
SpyBot... AdAware... SpySweeper... Giant/MS Antispyware... each catches stuff the others don't. Doesn't matter what order you run them. And I can run ALL of them, and sometimes go into HijackThis and find more spyware still lingering. Sometimes it's remnants of some spyware the tool identified but wasn't effective in completely removing. Sometimes it's an entirely NEW piece of spyware.
So what's a corporation to do? Sure, some of them offer corporate versions... but since none of the catch a reasonable amount, there's no single one worth investing that amount of money in. So what do you do... manually spend an hour ever week on each machine? x100? x1000? x10000? It's crazy.
I sincerely hope they never do charge for this product.
MS selling anti-spyware is like Goodyear selling anti-defective-tire-glue-or-something.
1.Build defective product
2.Let customer get flooded with problems
3.Instead of fixing defective product, sell customer
some kind of half working fix you bought from someone else
4.profit!!!
We should have been
So much more by now
Too dead inside
To even know the guilt
MS' Spyware seemed roughly competitive for my home use with Spybot and Adaware in my very limited use (W2k). Got rid of a corrupted IE toolbar, gets some misses some. Better run all three occasionally. I hope MS is not seriously thinking of trying to charge us for this. Subscription - ha! The recurring auto features I probably will turn off. I can honestly say BG bytes the big one too, since OS/2 fud ~1992 (I did not have DR DOS).
I wanted to test Microsoft's program, so I ran Spybot first, rebooted and ran Anti-Spybot.
Their software detected 28 types of threats that Spyware missed. 1 memory process, 70 files and 328 registry keys that we infecting my system.
http//injoke.org -- Culling The Interesting
Wow, I never imaginged a critical review of a Microsoft Product on Slashdot. Thank you for your unbridled enthusiasm.
"And now, Frank N. Furter, your time has come. Say 'goodbye' to all of this, and 'hello'... to oblivion!"
MSAS is actually still GIANT, who they brought it from. (check your process names while running it...you'll see)
Hehe. So yet another Microsoft "innovation" (yes, they did use that word) is not only not innovative, but not even Microsoft.
And, I'm sure it sucks. Microsoft software always sucks (even when they didn't write it) until the third release, at which time it becomes excellent. At least to people who've never seen anything else. To the rest of us, the third release generally marks the point at which the software becomes usable for its intended purpose. Judging by the examples of Word and XP, the software seems to hit some sort of peak sometime later, maybe around the fifth, sixth or seventh major release, and then undergoes a rapid decline in both reliability and usability. We really need more data points to plot out the whole lifecycle, though.
It doesn't work at all. I couldn't even get it to open the installer on my PowerBook. I mean, really, what good is software that you can't even install? I had to fight with Safari just to get the microsoft webpage to load. Sheesh, you think they'd know SOMETHING about Information Technology by now.
Informatus Technologicus
Please forgive me if any of this has been mentioned, there's just some times I can't read through all the comments, ok a lot of times I can't read through all the comments.
Anyone who thinks Microsoft's (Giant's) antispyware software is ineffective has not looked at it from all perspectives. Take on the role of an affiliate marketer, and you would applaud this software.
Being an affiliate marketer, and solely relying on affiliate marketing and affiliate commissions to live, this software attacks and removes many known adware/spyware/parasiteware programs that hijack efforts by affiliate marketers (180solutions/Zango/, Gator/Claria and many more). Not only does it attack these parasites, it attacks and remove many browser hijackers and other known BHOs (CoolWebSearch and the like). Such programs install themselves on internet users computers and, if that computer user clicks throug a legitimate affiliate link, these programs hijack the links and redirect the user through their own affiliate link, thus screwing the legitimate affiliate out of making money. Some may not care, but browse the web and see how many affiliates there are out there.
Not to mention, Matthew Fordahl is reviewing and criticizing BETA software. Gee, think something may not work right? Get a clue. Put yourself in another person's shoes and Microsoft's AntiSpyware tool is a treasure. A long time Ad-Aware user, it has now gone to 2nd-place in my array of tools. And as an affiliate marketer, I'm among MANY (that's a high count, by the way) that absolutely love this software.
Sure, it may not get every single thing on the Internet, but it's attacking many common parasites and it's causing illegitimate affiliate marketers a lot of headaches. And again, it's only Beta.
which i personally have solved at home by cresting the learning curve of *nix. yeah it's not a perfect solution by any means. but instead of chasing my tail and trying to bludgeon an ms OS into submission, i have been slowly learning how to tailor a linux based OS to my needs and wants. i'm not chasing a moving target of virus, spyware, adware or what have you. to me, joe sixpack, my choice just seems easier. oh yeah, and the free beer aspect...duh!
Serenity now, insanity later.
you must be new here
The longer a thread goes on the more likely Firefox will be mentioned. There the thread ends.
q
This was a waste of slashdot newsprint.
1. I don't get my software reviews from yahoo.
2. He took a broken system to test.
3. I doubt any tool would have fixed his system and he didn't supply comparisions.
4. I would have rebuilt the operating system or diagnosed the problem much sooner.
How come MS doesn't just buy Lavasoft? :D
"Microsoft Excel"...
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
I've dealt with a lot of fubared systems. I've dealt with systems that were so full of nefarious DLL hooks that using the machine was literally impossible; ads would pop up, IE instances would launch instead of the action the user was trying to perform. I've dealt with systems that barely managed to boot outside of safe mode due to spyware infestation. And through all this, I've never had the holy triumvirate (AdAware, SpyBot, HijackThis) come up with more than a couple of hundred individual spyware objects. I haven't kept a particular running "high score," but I don't think I've ever seen more than 500, and I know I've never seen 1,000.
I'm not counting cookies, I'm talking about actual spyware, though cookies are often included in the "spyware" reports of popular programs. Still, I don't believe that Windows could even keep up with 56,000 cookies, let alone processes.
I'd like to see a screenshot from any spyware removal tool showing anywhere near 56,000 objects found. I simply don't think it's possible.
I've tried Microsoft Anti-Spyware, and it's really not that bad, but it does generate false positives. On my own system, among other things, it claimed to find a "WhenU SaveNow" infestation inside of a batch file with the following contents:While BearShare does arrive with stowaways like SaveNow and Weathercast, I nuke that junk manually after installation, and neither of those cretins get installed into BearShare's working directory to begin with. There is nothing in that directory infested with any sort of spyware, but MSAS really, really wanted me to quarantine or delete the batch file (along with most of the other files in the BearShare directory). It just makes me curious.
MSAS is not a bad app. I kind of like its "Tracks Eraser" feature. I wrote an app a few years ago called WinSanitizer which does a lot of that, and if I ever decide to finish it up and give it to anyone else, I might include a few of the new ideas that MSAS's "Tracks Eraser" has given me. The "System Explorers" feature is beautiful, and IMO more useful than the anti-spyware feature of the program.
Overall I'd say MSAS is one more tool for the toolbox. I wouldn't dare trust it alone any more than I trust the apps which comprise the triumvirate alone. But I hope during the beta process, they weed out the false positives.
(BTW, I presume you meant GAIN and not GAIM...
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
I guess that means there no hope for most ither folks, either...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
After burning tens of thousands of R&D hours, the brains at MS labs will be adding add a dancing, blinking magnifying glass that will pop up with the caption "I see you're trying to get rid of spyware!"
Sigs are bad for your health.
I don't see what's wrong with it? Microsoft's AntiSpyware Tool Removes Internet Explorer!
Who ever modded me as a troll, thank you, your ignorance made my night. I don't understand how making a valid point in reference of a large standard of the web makes me a troll. Everyone from those who run Adsense to those who run full datafeeds from Amazon, Overstock and the like are affiliates. All are being screwed by parasites that take revenue away from those people. MS' software attacks and removes those parasites.
You must be one of those kewl anti-M$ people. Oh wait, I forgot where I was.
MS is apparently having seconds thoughts about their own software. MSN SmartTags are classified as threats which 'should be removed or quarantined from your computer'. You can see it here
I would label all spyware tools as inefficitive, or at the very least suboptimal and flawed. I know of no tool that will autommatically remove all spyware safely and reliably, and block it form the system. I can find this technology in a virus scanner, several in fact. They have essentially a 100% detection rate, frequently updated definitions, ability to block viruses before they reach the system, and with heuristic analysis the ability to block unknown vairants.
All the spyware software is flawed in some way. The automatic software fails to completely remove all spyware. Even good ones like SPybot and Adaware fail to remove everything, in fact one often finds what the other misses. Also, sometimes when it does remove a peice of spyware, it does so in a manner that causes harm to the system (Adaware improperly removed new.net and one point and left DNS inoperable on the system). Manual ones, like Hijack This, do a much better job, but only if a skilled and knowledgable individual is operating them.
So I'd say, if MS's tool finds a lot, but not all spyware, they are on par with other good tools. It would be desirable to see it get better, and become the first to find all spyware, but you can't knock them for not totally succeding when no one else has come close.
slashdot idiots = redundant.
The write-up:
"Matthew Fordahl has written a review of Microsoft's anti-spyware tool and has declared it, in a word, 'ineffective.'"
The word "ineffective" isn't even in the review. Some editorializing on the part of our submitter, maybe? Because MS-bashing is AWESOME, even if there's no grounds at all. Bullshit. Not only is the article crap, but also the person who submitted the story is full of the brown stuff.
The software isn't ready yet, that's obvious. That's why it's still beta. What I see is an honest attempt to address issues that should have been addressed three years ago (flame MS for this all you want).
Let's see what they do with this. If they listen to feedback and reduce the rate of missed spyware, it'll be a useful tool for cleaning out your system. If you were stupid enough or unlucky enough to have your system infected.
(Go ahead, mod me flamebait. I don't give a shit.)
Good, solid anecdotes. That'll put the world to rights.
This is what happens when you let a fagtard write a review.
-!!!
In the end, let me tell you that my IQ is above 160! So, it is a scientific fact, that I can NOT be an idiot!
So how come you're able to write something as stupid as this? Actually IQ tests doesn't measure anything else than how good you are taking IQ tests. And high IQ is not connected to a high social intelligence. A lot of "intelligent" people has done and said stupid things. Do you really think name calling is such a brilliant way to prove your opponents are wrong? And why do you feel the need to brag about your IQ at all?
The belief in a biblical god is an ignorant one
The whole key thing about anti spyware is that it should be run when the user wants to run it, the MS solution is for idiots. It installs stuff that runs all the time, people don't want stuff running in the background slowing down their system don't want that. Arggh its spyware itself! Even if you disable the realtime protection it still has a live updater.
The only thing I want running on my pc is antivirus and I use NOD32 because of its performance and it does not install a million services like norton...
Let me get this straight... a couple of months ago when this was branded as Giant Software, it was GREAT!! Now that it's branded as MS software, the same product sucks?? Typical slashdot mentality.
Giant == Good, MS == Bad. Same product, retards.
...which clearly means that potentially some informations about what is installed are sent back to M$ !
reminds you of something back in 1995 when they tried to send the registry back to Redmond ?
Yesterday I wanted to test Exeem, but as everyone knows it comes with Cydoor, so I was a little wary. So I installed Adaware and Microsoft Anti-Spyware beta. I ran Adaware and it found 1 dubious registry entry, that wasn't, and 8 tracker cookies, so I used it to clean the cookies. I then ran MSAS and it only picked up Kazaa, suggesting it may have installed spyware along with it. I run a fairly tight system, 3 firefox, so was happy with the results.
I then installed Exeem!
DUN DUN DUNAAH
I ran Adaware again, and it picked up nothing at all.
I ran MSAS again, and as well as finding Kazaa it picked up Cydoor, 2 clicks later and Cydoor was gone! To check I googled and found out how to manually remove Cydoor then went through my system by hand and indeed it was no longer there.
So what am I saying? MSAS is actually pretty good.
So there.
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
I ran it on several machines I knew (hoped anyway) to be clean but it still turned up some hits. Guess what the Microsoft NT4 and Windows 2000 Resource Kits are choc full of spyware! So is my Bluetooth driver, and so on.
OK I knew not to accept its recommendations to delete those files but falsies like these mean I dare not allow non-technical users to run it.
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation
Microsoft released two tools: a "Malicious software removal tool" on Windows Update and MS AntiSpyware in the timespan of a couple of days.
"The tool looks for a limited number of pests, such as "Sasser" and "MSBlaster," so it didn't find the worm, "Netsky.P," that had infected this PC. The program, though, will be updated each month and will presumably become more effective."
According to that quote, the guy never even installed MS Anti-Spyware, but only the "Malicious software removal tool" that only removes some worms as mentioned in the quote itself.
To my understanding, the AntiSpyware program is not even available on Windows Update, only as a separate Beta-download.
The "reviewer" also said "To load Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool, I had to get it using another machine, load it on a USB drive and install it manually. (It's usually available through Windows Update.)"
That pretty much removes all doubt.
Yup, this guy is definitely a pro. He can review software without ever even installing or seeing it.
Showing my smartness here again, I guess I should have read the entire article. Yes, I'm stupid, mod me down all you want. Point and laugh.
Yoo hoo! Idiot here!
So the overly-simple answer of "there is not enough popularity/market share" to target them is more or less accurate?
.exe file and use Mime types to declare it as a sound file. Many mail clients (including Netscape and perhaps even Mozilla) would think "Great! A mail with music. I will play this for my user without asking. She will be thrilled!". And then the mail client would ask the OS to play the file. The OS would think "Hm, I have been told to start this file. It seems to be a program file, so I will just run it."
Mostly less accurate.
Such a statement would mean that if there were as many Linux/Unix systems as Windows systems, they would be as spyware infested as Windows. If one states that, one ignores two facts:
1. Much of the automatically installed malware depends on Windows mail clients' and web browsers' tendency to do too much too easily or even fully automatically without asking the user.
One of the classic examples is the Mime type exploit where you could send someone a mail containing an
This exploit type would be difficult to recreate under Linux. A mail program can't just hand the OS a music file and let the OS chose how to open it. The mail program would have to ask a music player to play the music file. The music player would hopefully say "Uhh, no. This is not a valid music file".
However, other exploit types would be just as likely under Linux, given the "right" client software. For example, nothing prevents someone from writing a mail client which can execute program files if the user doubleclicks them. The typical claim is "This is impossible under Linux, since the 'executable' bit must be set in the file's permissions.". This claim is void, since anyone purposely writing a Linux mail client with the ability to execute attached program files would of course have to include the functionality of setting the 'executable' bit.
2. On a default installed Linux system, a regular user do not have the priviledges to infect other accounts than his own with spyware. On a default installed Windows system, all users have admin rights, meaning that one user can infect all other user's accounts. As it is becoming quite common to create individual logins for each family member on a typical household PC, this difference is important.
Microsoft could do something to even out this difference. They would just have to change the default user account type to an unpriviledged account. However, that would create a lot of problems in everyday use, since many everyday programs for Windows (including some written by MS) are so badly written that running them without admin rights is difficult or impossible. I know this from my own experience, because in our household we run as unpriviledged users on both Windows and Linux PCs. There are almost no problems under Linux, since all everyday programs are designed to be run without admin rights. The Windows PCs are a nightmare.
that if he was reviewing Giant Anti-Spyware instead of MS Anti-Spyware (and let's face it, all it is, is rebadged), the review would have been a lot more positive?
Micros~1's tool is supposed to remove spyware and some of the most spread viruses
Micros~1's tool is a SPYWARE product, not a antivirus. The review critizes micros~1 for not removing viruses. Oh, what surprise. What if he buys a antivirus instead of a antispyware product?
Why don't people just run Windows in usermode and not as an Administrator? I mean, it's not that difficult, just check
http://blogs.msdn.com/Aaron_Margosis/
and you'll see.
No one uses Linux as root all the time. Just run Windows as a user and suddenly all of the spyware, trojan and virus problems are gone. Or at least 99% of them. No need for an antispam software...
MS isn't the only one that does this sort of thing.
The trend in electronics in general is to add in lots of flashing lights, beepy noises, etc., that say "look at me and my pimped-out cell phone"
I recently installed a new stereo in my car that runs an ad-like "feature list" on the display when it's turned off, has an entirely useless but very sparkly graphic "output" display that is entirely useless and doesnt reflect the music that's playing. Most annoyingly, it beeps and boops when the engine is turned off. Fortunately it stops after a few seconds but MY GOD IS IT ANNOYING.
Anyway I actually RTFA and the question he should have raised was whether ANY anti-virus or spyware could have fixed the PC, or even if malware was the whole problem. He ends up formatting and re-installing his OS, but sometimes that's not a bad idea even if malware isn't involved.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
Mi simple solution to Win-problems.
1. i don't use windows
well in the past, i was use windows, and my solucion was be:
1. kerio personal firewall
2. never use IE (or IE motor)
3. never use 0utl00k
Best Regards
Ing. Fabián J. González Berger
I gotta have it!
Anyone got an link to this "beta" ?
That'll be one of the greatest tools EVER!
How many times do we need to see reviews on ANY anti-spyware programs. NONE of them get rid of all spyware!!!!!!!!!!!
/. a while ago please check it out. It seems from the review that Giant AntiSpyware was this best in this review. Odd, how about 2 weeks later Microsoft has an AS program, that looks like Giants. Oh wait, MS bought Giant Company. Oddly enough it's the same product. I wonder if the reviewer in this article would have gave it a better review if it still siad "Giant" instead of "Microsoft."
I'm going to point to a review that was on
I for one am not a fan of Mr. Gates, or MS, but this is still a quality product. I've been using Giant AS for a while and and a change in name doesn't change the product. Well, not yet anyway.
DarkMantle I been bored, so I started a blog.
Let have a quick look at the PC in question that was used for testing.
If you had a "3-year-old PC, a Gateway running Windows XP Home Edition, was basically unusable." And upon starting the machine you were inundadted with "Annoying pop-up windows" and "The modem dialed phone numbers even though the PC was hooked up to a broadband connection". Indeed even "Error messages appeared when I tried to open the Task Manager".
Really, what would you do with a machine like this? I'm pretty sure that a PC that is demon dialing the outside world, and that is no longer loading basic OS files is completely and irrevocably 0wned. Really, is it *reasonable* to expect that an anti-spyware application of any type would be able to fix this level of compromise? Even if "appears" to, how could you know that your PC is completely safe?
I think the real solution to this particular problem is "format c:". Not only will it leave the end user with a safe, clean install - it will save time.
The bottom line is the author of this article doesn't know what he doesn't know. He is not the first to have made the same mistake, as this article was published hot on the heels of another piece by Mossburg in the Wall Street Journal. Mossburg decried ms anti-spyware as "Seriously Flawed" becuase it did not remove tracking cookies, that it did not have incremental IE setting rollback and it did not support other web browsers. In similar fashion his assesment is a bit too zelous, and incorrect. He fails to recognize that his "flaws" have nothing to do with the removal of spyware.
Tracking cookies are easily removed, and easily blocked, and in the grand scheme of things - they do not cause your computer to behave strangely. In addition Mossburg did not do his homework; the ability to remove cookies is in the application under advanced -> tracks eraser. As far as setting restore goes, the MS anti-spyware tool acutally resets all of the browser settings to their factory defaults, by default - however you can easily control each setting with the "Change restore setting to a new URL..." link. Also, one features that is not mentioned are the System Explorers. These give access to some windows settings - such as Start Up items, but not just the applications in your startup folder - ALL of them including your logon shell, tremendously useful in determining if something is starting when it should not be. Finally ubiquitous browser support is absurd. There is no complelling reason for MS to release a free product that supports the competition. Now they could make you pay for that feature...
In short - the product would appear to work as advertised for the task it was designed for, despite what "technology buffs" would have to say about it.
Yep, and Hitler wasn't totally evil either - after all, he did build the autobahns and German illiteracy fell dramatically during his rule. And both of those accomplishments put any positives that Microsoft has done to utter shame.
But as you said, make your judgements accordingly...
PS - just who the fuck defines a "right-thinking" person anyway?
Matthew Fordahl has written a review of Microsoft's anti-spyware tool and has declared it, in a word, 'ineffective.'
Then I'm going to guess that the author tested Spybot Search & Destroy and AdAware right nest to the MS AntiSpyWare and found them "useless". You can do the tests yourself very easily.
1) Infect a machine with as much ad-ware/spyware you can find
2) Use AdAware - note the results
3) Use Spybot S&D - note the results
4) Use MS AntiSpyWare - note the results
Do 2-4 again after putting the spyware back on the PC, but do them in a different order.
You'll find that MS AntiSpyware will find more.
An executive at my company brought his home PC to the help desk a week ago. It wouldn't boot (The registry had been deleted). After recovering the registry from an earlier copy, I first ran AdAware...found 30 or so pieces of Adware/Spyware....Then I ran Spybot S&D - found about 23 more...Then ran MS AntiSpyWare....it found an additional 1300 files (which weren't just browser cookies), and over 5000 more registry entries.
Funny that. I think if MS can keep up with the updates, and change from a subscription service to including it in a SP or as a free download for users, it'll be an amazing tool.
Slashdot could never post an article saying the product was good. I will concede that there is not a product out there that does the job completely, yet. I have found though, that the MS tool is so far the most comprehensive one of all of them. I haven't had any trouble since it's install. That seems to fly in the face of the author's article to me. Before that I had continual problems. I am not heralding it as a great product, but so far it is the best one I have tried out of the big six. I think the willingness to bash any MS product, regardless of wheter it is true or now is pretty clear here at Slashdot.
Microsoft has built its empire by announcing, acquiring or developing products to compete with already existing products. Often these products are at least initially inferior, but often cost less and are bundled with the OS.
For example: Netscape Navigator -> Internet Explorer, Macintosh Finder -> Windows, RealAudio -> Media Player, WordPerfect -> Word, and tried to do this with Money -> Quicken stopped by the FTC. I'm sure there are many more examples of this strategy you historians can name.
If they do charge money for a anti-spyware/virus product, this will undermine Norton and the other companies which so far HAVE SAVED MICROSOFT's ARSE. If it is a pay-product, then it will garner resentment. If this product is inferior, it will make Windows as a platform less viable by exposing its own weaknesses.
Hey Microsoft, here is a *great* opportunity for you to finally get recurring subscription fees from your user base!!!!
Where do you want to go today? What's in your wallet?
.
"You have liberated me from thought."
It's only in beta. By the time MS is finished with it, it will be so good that Lavasoft and Kolla will be forced to bundle their programs with some Claria software just to make money.
Moderators: Please note that "bonch" is a known fanatical psycophant whose obnoxious offtopic rants are legend here on Slashdot. It doesn't matter what the topic is, he'll find a way to scrape in some pointless Microsoft shilling. While nobody expects us to love Microsoft in any way, his particularly tepid style of calling anyone he replies to "troll" or "liar" because he happens to disagree with whatever they're saying is well documented and should not be rewarded. If anything, bonch is the type of person that should not be part of the open source/free software community. He is an anathema to all that is good about free software.
/. subscriber, I invite you to look through some of his posting history. I guarantee that you'll be hard pressed to find someone that is more "out there" than bonch. You'll also probably notice he's got quite an AC following. Don't just read his posts, make sure you go through the replies.
I'm posting this so that you (the moderator) have some context to consider bonch and not mod him up whenever he posts his filler preformatted rants about installing Windows or whatever that unfortunately get him karma every single time and allow him to continue posting his trademark toxic crap (read on) day in and day out. You may consider this a troll - I consider it community service. And I ain't kidding.
If you're a
For example, in this recent post bonch not only calls the OP a troll but attempts to "tell it like it is" while making some vague argument about "MS". Yes, if you're confused, you're not alone. The reply (modded +0) proceeds to simply destroy his bogus argument. You will notice he did not reply. This is what some people call "drive-by advocacy". A sort of I'll just leave you with my thoughts here and move on to the next flamebait kind of deal. In fact, he almost never replies because he knows that his fanatical arguments simply do not hold up to any sort of discussion. It's not that he's chosen the wrong cause - he's just going at it in a completely wrong way.
More? Just read though this post and the subsequent replies. I guess this stands on its own.
More? Bad spelling in astounding conspiracy theories, more offtopic FUD and uninformed "I'm right, look at me" rants, promptly proven wrong. Worse even, bonch wants to be Bill Gates, apparently (that first one is a winner). I mean, really. You think?
FUD, FUD, FUD, FUD, offtopic FUD, and more FUD. This guy is like the Monty Python SPAM skit, but with FUD and more FUD instead of canned meat. Amazed yet? Don't forget that KDE and Gnome make you dumb, and it's all a Slashdot conspiracy. How low do you want to go? Maybe as low as this?
The infamous Slashdot Front Page Troll? Nuclear fireballs? It goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on (troll?). Like the energizer bunny. Or take these two, which stretch the definition of weird.
It's up to you. We can get rid of this guy and make Slashdot a better place. I don't know about you, but I'd rather take the trolls and crapflooders over people like "bonch" any day. And I sure as hell don't want to be categorized along with him. This is not how you advocate free software, period.
I decided to give their anti-spyware software a try, just to see how it faired against Ad-aware. I never got past the system detection routine because it demanded that I install Internet exploder 6. Since I use Firefox and Thunderbird this application was more or less useless to me, why it cannot use my default browser of choice is just plain silly.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
Moderators: Please note that "bonch" is a known fanatical psycophant whose obnoxious offtopic rants are legend here on Slashdot. It doesn't matter what the topic is, he'll find a way to scrape in some pointless Microsoft shilling. While nobody expects us to love Microsoft in any way, his particularly tepid style of calling anyone he replies to "troll" or "liar" because he happens to disagree with whatever they're saying is well documented and should not be rewarded. If anything, bonch is the type of person that should not be part of the open source/free software community. He is an anathema to all that is good about free software.
/. subscriber, I invite you to look through some of his posting history. I guarantee that you'll be hard pressed to find someone that is more "out there" than bonch. You'll also probably notice he's got quite an AC following. Don't just read his posts, make sure you go through the replies.
I'm posting this so that you (the moderator) have some context to consider bonch and not mod him up whenever he posts his filler preformatted rants about installing Windows or whatever that unfortunately get him karma every single time and allow him to continue posting his trademark toxic crap (read on) day in and day out. You may consider this a troll - I consider it community service. And I ain't kidding.
If you're a
For example, in this recent post bonch not only calls the OP a troll but attempts to "tell it like it is" while making some vague argument about "MS". Yes, if you're confused, you're not alone. The reply (modded +0) proceeds to simply destroy his bogus argument. You will notice he did not reply. This is what some people call "drive-by advocacy". A sort of I'll just leave you with my thoughts here and move on to the next flamebait kind of deal. In fact, he almost never replies because he knows that his fanatical arguments simply do not hold up to any sort of discussion. It's not that he's chosen the wrong cause - he's just going at it in a completely wrong way.
More? Just read though this post and the subsequent replies. I guess this stands on its own.
More? Bad spelling in astounding conspiracy theories, more offtopic FUD and uninformed "I'm right, look at me" rants, promptly proven wrong. Worse even, bonch wants to be Bill Gates, apparently (that first one is a winner). I mean, really. You think?
FUD, FUD, FUD, FUD, offtopic FUD, and more FUD. This guy is like the Monty Python SPAM skit, but with FUD and more FUD instead of canned meat. Amazed yet? Don't forget that KDE and Gnome make you dumb, and it's all a Slashdot conspiracy. How low do you want to go? Maybe as low as this?
The infamous Slashdot Front Page Troll? Nuclear fireballs? It goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on (troll?). Like the energizer bunny. Or take these two, which stretch the definition of weird.
It's up to you. We can get rid of this guy and make Slashdot a better place. I don't know about you, but I'd rather take the trolls and crapflooders over people like "bonch" any day. And I sure as hell don't want to be categorized along with him. This is not how you advocate free software, period.
yes, I meant GAIN. It was a typo.
.gdb extension (I think).
Call bullshit all you want, but it's true. Under the folder c:\program files\common files\GMT, were about 60 folders, with randomly generated names consisting of (I think) 10 characcters each. Each of those had multiple folders underneath, usually consisting of ga, gb, gc, etc. Each of those folders had an enormous amount of folders underneath consisting of 5 numbers each. Each of those folders had a file in it, consisting of the same name as it's parent folder, with a
All told, there were 56000 of them, and each registered in MSAS as a file 'infected' with Claria. (they were actually generated by it)
I thought about getting a screenshot, but didn't because I thought it was kind of a stupid thing to brag about.
It gets even worse. Instead of trying to let MSAS deal with them, I first cancelled the scan, and went to manually delete them. Use windows explorer, it look like it would take over an hour. So I killed explorer, dropped to a command prompt, and deleted the entire tree that way. On reboot, the entire tree was back. Claria had done it's own system restore, invisibly. I had to disable system restore and run through the process again.
This was Giant anti-spyware, which if I remember correctly, bested the other leading anti-spyware tools in a review done by computer shopper.
/.'ers, lets hear how computer shopper is biased and all.
Go on
Frankly, I had giant anti-spyware installed and running, and it was the only thing that did the job of removing spyware efficiently, well above ad-aware and spybot s&d. When the MS beta came out, I switched to that immediately, and am now enjoying the same great product free-of-charge.
I have seen over 25,000. Mostly cookies of course! Sorry, that I didn't grab a screen shot.
So how many times is a review of this software going to be mentioned here?
I too deal with spyware infested systems quite a bit, and I also doubt the 56,000 number. I've never seen anything remotely close to that, but I have seen a combination of Aluria, MSAS, and Ad-Aware come up with a total of nearly 2000 objects. FWIW.
Emory: Uh..we're still..beta testing that.
Oglethorpe: What you're testing is me and my patience!
First of all, this program is beta, and should not be subject to review. Secondly, I've found all of the anti-spyware programs to be ineffective. They will remove a lot of it, and detect most, but there are a lot of spyware out there that these programs will not remove, and must be removed manually.
These spyware programs employ some pretty nasty tricks. We've found that with some of them, we need to remove the hard drive completely and put them on a seperate system to be removed, or use something like Knoppix, or BartPE, which loads a different OS instead, so the files can be removed.
How do we get rid of all that SpyWare? I wonder if it will run under Wine?
It seems in general people aren't looking at the software for its two valuable functions: A) Removing Spyware B) Protecting the user against future spyware "infections". When cleaning up a client's computer or a friend's computer, you can give them a list of 3 anti-spyware programs to run weekly, and set all of their security settings, and tell them not to download and install weatherbug, but that behavior will only last a week. Unfortunately, the free version of AdAware does not install AdWatch, and Spybot doesn't have an agent running in the background anyways. MS's anti-spyware tool not only does an effective job at removing spyware, but out of the box it loads agents that prompt when registry keys are being modified, and blocks malware. A simple instruction to the user to ALWAYS BLOCK unless they are legitimately trying to install something leads to a much cleaner and spyware free computer. Nothing's perfect, but I wish people would give some goddamn unbiased reviews. MS Fanboys are going to say MS Anti-Spyware is the best thing since sliced bread, Linux fanboys are going to say "See, you should be on linux, MS sux0rz", and the Apple fans are going to say, "I swear to god the iPod shuffle is the best MP3 player ever. SO WHAT if it doesn't have a screen.. IT RULES!! SHUT UP!!! *tear*"
Am I the only one to have used it more successfully than Spybot AND Ad-Aware put together? Or are you all crazy mofo's trying to run it on a mac?
Derive Politics
Why would a site such as this be taking ads from someone pushing down Avenue A? Also my wife is so sick of browsing recipies and getting interupted w/ messages on what is being blocked, I just set spyware to auto block and not ask
wouldn't it make more sense if MS stop bull crapping to consumers and actually make their OS secure enough that ADwares cannot automatically install itself? If the consumers are stupid enought to click "yes" everytime a pop up comes out, i think they deserve the adware.
Working in a little repair shop that does 90% of it's business fighting spyware, I've got an understandable interest in any new anti-spyware tool. After all, anything that makes my job easier (and keeps billable hours up) is a good thing. I normally run Ad-aware SE Personal for basic cleanups, with judicious use of msconfig and various 3rd party startup controls (Winpatrol is great!). The more obstinate machines will get hand cleaned via the previously mentioned "Google the process names" method. Massive infections get an OS reload. My own experience with MS Antispyware has been mixed. I've been running it on everything in the shop, and am rapidly coming to the conclusion that it definately has it's place. For the basic, everyday spyware cleanup, MS is just too damn slow (averaging 3 hours for a deep scan/removal). It's even too slow for moderate infections, and doesn't detect/remove enough of the threats to make the wait worthwhile. However, there is that occaisonal machine that's been completely, absolutely possessed by pure evil. The kind of machine that glows with an eerie green light as the customer brings it through the door, and sends the other techs running out the door, screaming for holy water and a legion of priests. Machines with a number of infections uncountable by modern mathematics. On these machines, MS Antispyware can often save the day. Sure, it takes 5 or 6 hours to run, and doesnt detect nearly everything that's in there (doesnt even get all the running processes), but it can usually clean out the nastiest things, which can stabilize the machine enough to run Ad-aware and Spybot, and thereby avoid a full OS reload. In short, MS Antispyware is a good "last resort" for those machines that can't be reloaded.
The author of this post (happyslayer) obviously didn't read the article because then he would have understood that the author of the review was referring to the Maliscious Virus remover as being 'ineffective' not the anti-spyware software. The reviewer said that the anti-spyware software did a great job at the role of being a protector of a clean machine, which it should be because that is hopefully going to be the primary use.
But thanks micheal for not reading the post and the article to see if what you posted on Slashdot was credible. You know people at CBS lost their jobs for reporting without checking facts.
Is this "normal" for MicroSoft machines? I'm asking because that is one of the things my last MicroSoft Windows(TM) machine did before I decided to kick it to the curb, and nobody I've mentioned it to had heard of anything like it.
Is the cause generally just bit-rot? How would one go about rebuilding the stack?
As a 'furthermore', I found it interesting that I left OSX after it did a similar thing--it would renew the lease but wouldn't pick up the DNS servers. Two hours in the Apple store resulted in a more broken machine followed by a demonstration of the magical self-healing powers of OSX--but even then it only returned to the state it was in when I got there and a "You'll have to reinstall."
If someone could explain the likely cause of either problem, and possibly a solution, I might change my view on these operating systems. As it is, I don't feel they should just break like they seem to have--and in neither case has somebody I've asked seems to be able to tell me why.
Never trust anyone over 90000.
I am assuming MSAS counts every directory and every file that a piece of spyware uses or generates as a seperate instance. That means if c:\windows\GAIN\ and all it's subdirectories contains 56,000 files, MSAS will detect 56,000 instances of GAIN while Spybot may only detect a few as it counts c:\windows\GAIN\* as a single instance. Remember that GAIN tracks every website you visit, so 56,000 files for a log of your browsing activity and all the ads downloaed for offline showing is possible. Basically, MSAS over reports the amount of spyware, though that may be a result of it being beta software as beta software often gives more output for debugging purposes.
Yeah, that's right Bonch, give Bill a chance. Your computer's poor performace could be anything because Winblows is such an immature technology! Give me a break. The whole thing is pathetic because Windows is poorly designed and supported by an obsolete development model, closed source.
Only someone so deeply in love with Microsoft could possibly sit around defending their second rate spyware program for their crappy OS that needs such stuff in the first place. Let's go back in time and look at some of the M$ love fest, apologizing and Slashdot insulting from Bonch:
All of the above was found by looking at two pages of google results for bonch slashdot. More than half of the results were like those.
Well, that's enough fun for me for now. Thanks for playing, Bonch. I hope your account is deleted soon. Until then, I think I'll save this post and put it wherever you show up.
Every few weeks I need to help someone (son. daughter, sister etc.) get rid of spyware, hijackers etc. I've adaware, spybot, hijackthis all installed and typically need to use all three. I've installed the new Microsoft tool, and it is a worthwhile addition to the arsenal of tools I'm using. First - the advanced tool restore hijacked explorer settings is great. I found it in no other tool. Yes, hijackthis will report those, but won't help you restore defaults. Second - think of the regular user, not the pros - the extra checkpoints are really helpfull since they call attention to situations normal users miss. Third - its not perfect, but it looks a good tool and it does the work. I think the auto-updates it has are very important. Adaware does not auto-update (unless you buy the retail), spybot does not auto-update. So bottom line - regardless of liking microsoft or not, this is a keeper. I just hope when they mature it from beta it will remain free - after all, its windows that lacks the security and they should be held responsible for fixing their own problems.
I love Microsoft, with that being said I download and installed MS's Anti-Spyware Beta1 and ran it. WOW! It detected, deleted spyware I thought I had deleted and found others more serious that I could not find on my own. I was blaming my ISP but now my 3MB connect is back! WOW! I have been watching Microsft's beta programs forever, and I am impressed on how this hits the street running! It even updated itself while it was running a scan. Hey I love to bad mouth something that's bad, but you're not going to get it from me on this beta, can't wait for the final product.
FERRIS TECH SERVICES
seriously, i don't even know what to say. the amount of blind hatred here is astounding (not just this post, the /. community). they have released a free spyware scanner that is certainly among the top 3 on the market (as referenced in many other reviews before they bought out giant) and you come back with "they do not own the internet". Of course they don, because if they did no doubt they would be responsible for every virus that used that medium to perpetuate it's self and cause destruction. people who write the viruses and all the spyware are the responsible parties. if linux were the prevalent desktop operating system, you would see a ton more linux viruses/spyware. then would it be the open source community and linus don't own the internet?
grrrrrr. soo frustrating. it feels like i'm living in the deep south prior to emancipation and i'm the only non-racist.
I found Microsoft's AntiSpyware tool to be a good one. I used it on my sister's computer which was not functioning well at all and by the time it was finished it was functioning beautifully. I think they have made an excellent product.
- http://www.davemackey.net/ - http://www.daveenjoys.com/
IT's nice to know the anti-MS bias of the Slashdot crowd hasn't impacted Happyslayer's ability to objectively respond to reviews written about MS products.... /end Sarcasm. Pathetic.
As of far, no popups, or other crap, running it ever 24hrs, and man. For a BETA, cant wait for the full. I just hope it comes included in the OS bundle!
Rock Out!
Those slackers at CBS deserved to be shown the door before they became some politician's FUD puppet... good riddance.
-- Howto: Get +5 (1) Whine about M$ (2) Namedrop Gentoo (3) Casually Abuse Mods (4) Namedrop Early Computer Model
I ran it on my GF's XP box over the weekend.
First I ran Ad-Aware. It found 2 things.
Then I ran MS's tool. It flagged the empty Imesh and Kazaa directories that were left over from installs of those programs. No big deal, but it does inflate the number of threats that it finds. It found 13 different threats total. I let it run, and it broke networking after a reboot.
So I tried Ad-Aware again, and told it to do a deep scan. It found 37 "threats" (each part of a thing is counted, so 4 different registry keys used by one piece of spyware are seperate threats.) Removed them all, and the system still booted and worked properly.
Ran MS's tool again, and it found 2 things. One of which was the thing that caused networking to break.
Overall, MS's tool has a much nicer interface for reporting threats and does so in a more sensible manner (only listing each piece of spyware in total, not each part as a seperate threat). The display is a bit buggy though, if you expand them to show the individual pieces. The free realtime protection feature is nice too, you have to pay to get that for Ad-Aware.
Too bad about that breaking the system thing, that could be a major problem for less technically inclined people. I'm sure my gf wouldn't have been able to figure out how to use restore points... But maybe that's why it's still "Beta'.
In the mean time, anyone know how to remove WinSock DLL shunts without breaking things, or a way to reinstall networking entirely? You used to be able to do that with win9x...I suppose it's too integrated in NT.