Microsoft® Windows AntiSpyware (Beta)

[hadi]

Any comments on this microsoft antispyware. Please

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=321CD7A2-6A57-4C57-A8BD-DBF62EDA9671&displaylang=en

Thanks

[AnthonyG]

I have been using it for about a month and a half now and i think it is fantastic. Even though i still have others installed, i rely on this program mostly for my regular and on demand scans.

It has an excellent detection capability, its quick and i have yet to have a false positive. (which i have received with every other Spyware product except this and spysweeper).

I would highly recommend this product.

[richrf]

I have a Giant license, before it was purchased by MS so I am still using Giant.

At the time I first purchased Giant, I was using Norton with a firewall. At that time, Giant would find some malware and tracking cookies (that Ad-aware didn't catch) from time to time that got past Norton. After, MS, purchased, I noticed:

1) Giant would no longer catch any cookies
2) Updates came more infrequently
3) It no longer flagged anything

Subsequently, I re-engineered my front-line security to:

1) Kaspersky AV 4.5 (not 5.0) which pretty much catches all malware
2) ProcessGuard 3.0
3) RegDefend
4) Prevx

This seems to be a very strong defense and none of my backup software catches anything anymore including Ewido and TDS-3. I no longer run Giant in real-time and very rarely on-demand. While Ad-aware will still catch any tracking cookies, Giant doesn't do this or anything else. So I judge Giant to be superfluous on my machine and will not renew the license with MS when the current license elapses. I may look at CounterSpy which has access to all of MS AS's signatures (via a cross-licensing agreement) as wll as its own database which I would guess still includes the cookie scans.

Rich