Microsoft Antispyware program
 

I know how much of us here dislike Microsoft, but I have to admit that Microsoft's Antispyware program is pretty damn good. One of my coworker's computer got hit with some pretty bad spyware (iSearch/iDownload) and none of the major spyware programs I tried could remove it. I tried Lavasoft AdAware, Spybot S&D, HiJack this, and Spyware Blaster!. The spyware was so intelligent that even when I did remove them from those anti-spyware software, they would keep coming right back and reinstalling themselves, even when I wasn't even connected to the internet. I finally gave in and tried Microsoft's Anti-spyware and it did the trick. Pretty sophisticated stuff. It's actually connected to a spyware network and is always up-to-date. Now of course, all this could have been prevented if she wasn't using Windows XP in the first place .....

I put it on a clients computer and she hasnt had any spyware since -so I agree it is a good product. All I can say is "its about time!"

lol i think its beacause they did not make it

It sucks, only finds 3% of the spyware.
spy bot Search and destroy is better.:)

You know what?!?!?

I have a better solution. It's damn near 100% effective. Use Linux exclusively. I worry about spyware about 0.000000000000000000000000000000000001% of the time.

Linux is great, but people I work for don't use it.

Not even sure why I'm responding to this as it is obviously BS, but do you care to publish your source for such results?

MS Antispyware is essentially Giant Spyware repackaged. And Giant performed admirably in the tests that I have seen published (admirably = highest overall detection rate).

Below are links to testing done by a non-biased and very credible source (tests performed in Oct. 2004 when still released as Giant Antispyware):

http://spywarewarrior.com/asw-test-g...tm#conclusions
http://spywarewarrior.com/asw-test-results-1.htm
http://spywarewarrior.com/asw-test-results-3.htm
http://spywarewarrior.com/asw-test-results-5.htm

I'll leave it up to you to wade through the tests and the results.

You will probably flame me for this, but I think that the core of Windows is "good" software. M$ has screwed it up by forcing crashes, viruses, hassles, licensing and of course, cost into the issue. Plus, as hard as it is for software to be rude, I swear Word is rude to people. Seriously. Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

Sorry thats a big freaking typo. it should be more like %50... I must have been tired or something then, I don't even remember typing that...

I've found plenty of spyware that MS AntiSpyware program cannot remove. Neither could Ad-Aware or Spybot. Wipe and reload time...

However, I've had pretty good luck with Ad-Aware. One thing i usually do is make sure Ad-Aware is up to date, boot into safe mode, disabled everything in Startup in MSCONFIG and run Ad-Aware. Usually gets most anything that way.

its a microsoft product........if history keeps its course, a million holes in the program will be found allowing more spyware, viruses, and worms to cause havoc. it is only a matter of time.........

It didn't find anything on my computer nor any computer i have installed it on.

And the computers I installed it on has 30second pop ups without a browser on.

So.....its not that hot.

After running adaware and spybot it doesn't get anyhting.

it's a good program, i use it to fix friend's computers who have windows .-.

IMHO the best antie sspyware program for windows in my opinion is use fire fox instead of IE you dont get anyware near as much if any at all

Berrance

Microsoft didn't make their AntiSpyware client. It, and actually Spynet, they bought when they purchased a company called GIANT. Need proof? Run MS Antispy and check your processes - I'll bet GIANTAntispyware.exe is running...

But, that aside, it is a terrrific program.

I installed it a few weeks ago and let it update when it wants to and it still hasn't found anything on my computer. Spybot and adaware both found a few things though.

I am NOT impressed with it.

I think we can conclude that nothing is 100% effective against spyware since they are practically like viruses that infect your computer. Only thing Microsoft and other spyware programs can do is keep fighting against those spywares and updating their definitions.

Yes, this could be prevented if they used a Mac or Linux, but the truth is that my company will not switch to Linux in the near future. We're so set with Microsoft and the applications we use are all Windows-based. I've tried getting people to switch to Firefox, but less than half of them actually use it. They are so used to seeing the Internet Explorer icon and just clicking on that.

I tried Microsoft's Anti-spyware program and found that it sucks. Ad-Aware is still by far the best for automated cleanup programs, but even after running Ad-Aware, Microsloth's program, AND Spybot S&D, I STILL had to clean things up by hand. Yes, I ran all three programs from Safe Mode, and still had to use HijackThis and regedit.exe (and of course take ownership of the recovery directory and clean that up as well) to finally purge the remaining programs.

To be fair, spyware is a cat-and-mouse game, with the spyware-purveying scumbags finding new and creative ways to hijack Windows boxes, but even though Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D were unable to clean up the system recovery directory, at least they were able to detect the dialer's installer in there, wheras Microsloth's program was not able to.]

Now, for you spyware authors out there (and I know at least SOME of you scumbags read this forum): If your business model is so damn acceptable and ethical as you claim, why do you:

* design uninstallers which do NOT uninstall your products
* patch previous restore points to automatically reinstall your program after your uninstaller prompts the user 83 times to make sure they're really, really, really sure they want to remove your horrid program
* patch windows INF files to make the system "think" your files are protected files
* install into %windir% which is against Windows Logo / Windows Compatibility guidelines and has been since the 1997 Windows Logo certification program
* often don't include even a superficial uninstall program

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the MS utility still in Beta? You can't expect miracles from a product that's so new. Yes Giant had the product for a time, but it's possible MS has released this (perhaps too early) as a way to test and make sure it actually does remove spyware and doesn't crash any machines.

I expect better results in the future when they've had a chance to tweak things and add a few more definition files you can download that should catch more bugs.

Naturally nobody should be ready to dump the mainstream stuff like Adaware and Spybot, but this is their maiden voyage with the new MS product.... I know you're all Linux advocates, but let's not bash their new product until it matures a little bit more. *THEN* we can say how crappy it is when Spybot is still kicking its @$$ next year.

there's a way to uninstall icons you know;) :D

Re: Microsoft Antispyware program
 

that's scary... a microsoft product that actually works... for a while

what are they trying to do, get payoffs from the bigger spybots

- perry