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Antispyware Shootout
An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet has published a review of 8 antispyware products from Computer Associates, Lavasoft, McAfee, Microsoft, PC Tools, Symantec, Trend Micro and Webroot. Check out the Editor's Choice. Interesting winner ...." I've used quite a number of these scanners on and on & off basis, and I think the reality is that you if you are truly to clean a machine out, you're going to need to use like three - five of these. Each of them captures a certain area, but none are the One Ring or anything.
I wonder whether there will remain enough CPU power to run the applications once I will install three to four ofthose scanners.
Maybe some major fix in the operating system (as well as in the users' brain) could help a little bit.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
I don't understand this. How can you trust an infected machine without wiping everything out. Even MS accepted that it's not possible to clean some rootkit kind of spyware if you don't reinstall Windows. Even if it can, how can you trust, without checking every bit of the OS? This is not Windows issue, it's same with linux or any other OS. But it's also very hard unless you're very ignorant, to get a complete infection with linux than Windows.
I would not trust any machine which is infected once, because there can be countless ways to hide an application once a hacker got in.
How many average PC users would be able to maintain a Linux box? It's hard enough for most of them to simply use Windows let alone manage a PC. Can you really see a vast majority of people switching OS? The worst thing would be that once the Linux population gets to a significant proportion it would become worthwhile to write viruses and spyware for it. The elite niche that Linux users enjoy is part of it protection, not just because it's more robust. I'm sure given sufficient motivation there are exploits to be found in Linux as well. For now any reasonably clued up Windows users can avoid most of the problems associated with viruses and spyware.
I'm sure that this review was limited to either current or potential ZDNet advertisers. Tech journalism (web or print) has absolutely no credibility. The entire article is a thinly-veiled ad for the "contestants."
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." -Voltaire
Hogwash. In Linux or Mac, you can accomplish all daily tasks as a user with limited privileges. This is often impossible in Windows. In Linux, you can easily choose to install software only from trusted sources (e.g. your distro's package repositories.) It comes with all needed apps. This is not true in Windows.
Need more proof? See this from the Register.
It's completely ignorant to say that Linux and Mac would be just as bad if they had more marketshare.
Penny - plain text accounting
The computer is not smarter then the monkey using it. If all the users run as administrator as most users do in windows then what good is it requiring administrator rights. They already have them. True a *nix OS is better at protecting from unwanted installation of programs for a few reasons. One reason is because with the windows browser is so closely tied to the Operating system itself. As any *nix operating system not so closely tied. Also in the *nix type operating systems the end user is by default mostly unprivileged. As with a windows user generally there is ether no user at all (that defaults to administrator level user) or there is a user with administrative rights. So that concludes that the main reason why Windows computers receive so much spy ware is because of the end user. If End users would take the appropriate percussions by first on day to day use run as a limited user. Running on a user with Administrative rights is like running a *nix system as root all the time it is just not smart. Second take the attitude that most web pages can not be trusted. Why ads ads ads marketing people like keeping a eye on you and how you use your money. Active X should not be used on a regular webpage. I am surprised how many times I browse the web with ActiveX prompting me to accept most of the time I click NO and the page works fine. Third do not download unusual programs. Forth do not click those banner ads. Last of all Do not let anyone do anything on your computer remotely or otherwise without giving them just enough permissions to do the job. If all those things are followed you will have one of 2 things or both. One a secure computer or two a annoyed user.
~tuxmaster
It's really annoying to me that all of the linux users keep on taking the holier-than-thou attitude to spyware. Spyware is not a virus and does not prolifirate on it's own. The vector of attack for spyware/adware is through the uneducated/uninterested user downloading his latest fun program. That means that as soon as those nice downloadable games will be available for Linux, the spyware will start coming out for Linux as well.
It doesn't matter if you are running as admin or as the user, because for spyware the only thing that matters is your user behavior. Therefore if you install it as the user, it will still be able to show ads, replace your mozilla start page, do popups, etc. The only difference is that it will be per-user rather than machine-wide. For most people that wouldn't matter as they are a single user on that machine and the difference between having it be user-process or admin-process really isn't large. As it has been previously pointed out - the only thing that matters on a personal workstation is the user's data and you don't have to be an admin to have access to that. The only good thing could be the fact that removing it could be just a tad simpler, assuming that the software doesn't try to exploit some type of local-root exploits.
The only reason Linux does not have that problem at this time is that there isn't a market for the spyware industry in the Linux world. The current Linux users are less likely to download those type of programs and more likely to ensure that the programs only do what they are supposed to. As soon as there is a noticeble increase in the average usage of Linux, the spyware will start to develop their expertise in that area as well.