Best Real-Time Anti-Spyware App

I'm curious which anti-spyware product others consider as the best app for real-time prevention currently available (free or pay). I would really appreciate it if anyone could provide reasons for their choice as well. Thanks.

 

giant and trend 4 me !!!

 

SpySweeper has done me right.

 

TMIS and MSAS

 

The bests, for me, are CounterSpy (pay), Spy Sweeper (pay) and MS AntiSpyware (free)...

They have the best detection rate, easy to use and configurable...

Try and see what it's the best for you and your system...

 

MS AntiSpyware...

their realtime agent is superb, highly configurable and fast(at least on my system)...

 

I've been using Giant AS (the pre-cursor to MS AS and CounterSpy) for about a year.

Before I installed Kaspersky AV, ProcessGuard, and RegDefend, it would alert me (after-the-fact) of potentially malicious new entries in my registry and/or new services, or other potentially malicious actions on my computer, which I otherwise would have not known about. Nowadays, ProcessGuard and RegDefend provide much better pro-active notification, so Giant AS has become highly redundant. I keep running it (without registry scans because of the excess resource usage) because I paid for it, but it is basically an "excess insurance policy".

I did notice a couple of things after MS took over CounterSpy. Updates became more infrequent. Also, they do not have the cookie coverage that they once had. Ewido actually does a better job in this department (I believe CounterSpy maintains the original cookie coverage that Giant use to have).

I did try out SpySweeper for a time. When I tried it out, it was yielding far more false-positives than Giant, which was a pain because I was always researching all of the FPs. This was a while ago, so things may have improved. PestPatrol was by far the worse when it came to false positives. I could spend hours tracking down all of the FPs that is was reporting.

I continue to use Spybot and Ad-aware but find KAV, Ewido, TDS-3, and HijackThis most useful in preventing and tracking down problems. Of course, ProcessGuard and RegDefend are also part of my first line of defense. Giant is sort of a nice-to-have, but it hasn't found anything ever since MS took it over (it use to catch some tracking cookies) and I think it is pretty redundant with my already redundant defense.

Hope this helps.

Rich

 

I Have to go with MS AntiSpyware beta. Great product for free, works in real time and does what it says!

 

Hi Rich,

I wanted to touch on something you said here. I trialed ewido 3.0 for the short time trial period, but removed it because of some technical gliches with my PC that drove me crazy. I've heard that these problems have been somewhat corrected in the latest beta release (the "flickering" screen, long scans, incorrect scanning progress data, etc.), but I did notice that it discovered and removed around half a dozen "cookies" during the initial scan. One thing that also drove me crazy was that it would completely stop the scan....with the the siren and alert window popping up....each and every time it found a cookie. I then had to tell it what to do with the cookie before it would proceed.

So my question is.....does ewido automatically remove cookies when it finds them in real-time, or does it simply provide the siren and alert and ask what to do with them? Also, it is touted as an "anti-trojan" by most people in these forums, but my understanding is that it is more of a basic anti-malware with trojan/rootkit/keylogger, etc. detection/prevention/removal capabilities. Which is more accurate? I find it hard to believe that a program that removed tracking cookies during it's initial scan and boasts of 150,000+ signatures could be a dedicated anti-trojan. Seems to me that it is more of an all-encompassing, anti-malware type agent......

 

Also, for users of both CounterSpy and Microsoft Anti-Spyware.....what are the primary differences between the two? What would be the benefit and advantage of using CounterSpy ($20 a year), when Microsoft is free?

 

CounterSpy suggests that they have a larger signature database than MS AS, since they automatically get all of MS's signatures (via a prior agreement that they had with Giant), plus all those that they themselves collect.

CounterSpy will run on more Windows platforms (as did Giant) while MS AS runs only on Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Server™ 2003.

From my own experiences, CounterSpy seems to have kept the cookie signatures that MS AS seems to have dropped.

If you are unsure, I would try them both out (you run into trouble if you try to install them both simultaneously). Depending upon your setup, I think you will find the differences insignificant. I am not sure when MS will start charging for their product. Their current beta goes until Dec. 2005.

Rich

 

Thanks Rich, but how about the question that I posed to you directly above, regarding ewido?

 

Counterspy branched away from Microsoft and is headed in their own direction. They have atleast 3 times the number of signatures and I find that it runs lighter on my computer. They are trialing a new Beta which I hope to give a whirl as soon as I get my authorization email. This link has some additional info on where Counterspy is going: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1788878,00.asp

 

Hi,

The problems you were having running Ewido are known. They do not exist on my machine, so there is a conflict somewhere on your system which hopefully is addressed in future releases.

You are right about how Ewido handles the cookies under 3.0. It is painful. I don't run into these problems anymore since nowadays, I have FireFox prompt me for all cookies. I get prompted all the time, but I prefer it this way. I have gotten use to it. I have not tried th 3.5. beta so I do not know whether it still behaves in this manner. Of course, they should give you an option to delete cookies at the end of a scan, in the way Ad-aware does.

I agree with you that Ewido is more of an anti-malware tool, in the same way that KAV is. They cover all kinds of malware including trojans and spyware. It has a very comprehensive database that definitely is up there with KAV and TDS-3, which is why I like running it in real-time to backup KAV.

Hope this answers your question.

Rich

 

Thanks for the link Mongol. I think I recollect that MS AS's database considerably diminished in size when they removed cookie detection, so my guess is that a substantial part of the difference between the two databases are because of the cookie coverage that is still incorporated in CounterSpy. Beyond this, it is good to see that CounterSpy is actively investing in their product.

Rich

 

New test here

 

Very nice review for CounterSpy. Thanks for the link webster.

Rich

 

Yes, definite thanks the link as well, webster....very much appreciated.

CounterSpy does look like an improving product that is on the definite fast track, but ZeroSpyware also seems to have come out of nowhere and is making a fast charge. ZeroSpyware's reviews seem pretty positive and impressive as well, and it may be one to keep an eye on....just like CounterSpy already is.

I wonder if anyone has used both CounterSpy and ZeroSpyware and can compare the two?

 

I've never tried Zerospyware but have used Spysweeper and currently am using Counterspy. Both are very good but I found Spysweeper rather heavy on resources. I also found there customer support very slow to downright unresponsive. Counterspy customer support has been very responsive and the price can't be beat. Twenty bucks for the first year and just ten bucks thereafter for updates and upgrades. Hope this helps...

 

Thanks, Mongol. Ten bucks for renewal? Are you serious? Why haven't they (Sunbelt) made this well known....because before you just said this, I had not heard or seen ANYWHERE that renewal rates were that cheap.....

 

A real horror article, very interesting!

Very good advice in that article:

"Experts recommend that you employ two--or even three--anti-spyware tools. The more you use, the likelier they are to counter the individual biases of each anti-spyware company."

 

I tried double checking this because I read it in a review but they may have been wrong and I cant locate it. Heck I may of been wrong. But anyway even at 20 dollars annually that ain't bad for a pretty darn good and up n' coming program...

 

I think I'll put Sunbelt's "customer service" to the test....and email them about this to see if I get a response. It's pretty worthless posting over at their CC forum, because for some reason responses aren't exactly lightning fast over there....or even forthcoming at all sometimes.

 

From the Sunbelt website (the last FAQ on the page) http://www.sunbelt-software.com/CounterSpy-FAQ.cfm It confirms the annual $10 renewal.