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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.
It's nice that they acknowledge the existence of free solutions ("freeware" anti-spyware programs), such as (my personal fave) Spybot Search & Destroy. I would feel a whole lot better about this article if it would actually compare these expensive commercial programs to the whole playing field of contenders. Leaving out the least expensive solutions (free ones) leaves this article wanting.
Did any of them find the Sony rootkit?
To answer your topic question, it's necessary because Windows users usually run with administrator rights and don't care much for what an installer may do. Think doing the same but in Linux as root.
And then few OS'es out there will help if the user choose to install a spyware infested program and click "Yes" to install the whole thing. I mean, once a user run executable code with admin rights, what can the OS do?
One solution is of course to run in a more protected user mode where you're requested of admin rights when it has to do something to the system, and the upcoming version of Windows will do exactly this, and what *nix desktop managers have had for years.
However, when the user see "This application requires administrator rights", will he/she still just blindly fill in the requested info, click "yes", and get the spyware?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
From the test results page:
Clean machine accuracy and performance testing
* Accuracy: Only Lavasoft and Spybot Search & Destroy picked up anything when instructed to scan a newly installed and patched version of Microsoft's Windows 2000 Professional. Both reported Alexa (adware) related items. The other seven applications in this test correctly reported no items.
Sorry, but in my opinion, Alexa IS spyware (or can be if you use IE) and spyware detectors should find and at the very least warn you of its presence. From there it's up to the user to decide to keep it or junk it. Just because you have a fresh install from Microsoft doesn't mean it is clean. Microsoft is just as capable as anyone else of bundling crap with their software.