Alternatives to Microsoft AntiSpyware - suggestions please

Suggestions for a good AntiSpyware program that as good as MS AntiSpyware please. I recently discovered that MS AS is causing a 5 second delay in opening Access, Word and Excel documents - quite annoying when you need to open more than a few of them one after the other.

 

Hi JLamy

Are you looking for something free like MS AS? Otherways you could try downloading and test Ewido for 14 days free.

http://www.ewido.net/en/download/

Very good program, better than MS AS IMHO. And it is updated every day. I have been running it for 1 year now and no conflict with other applications.

 

Yeah free is good. But if a paid product is specifically good for me then I would go for a paid one. Does Ewido do all the things MS AS do, like alerts to things being put into registry RUN, or browser hijacking etc.

 

Hi,

As you've posted in the AT thread can i ask if it's AT you really want, or more AS ?

The original and much thought of original that MS is based on is here

CounterSpy

http://www.sunbelt-software.com/CounterSpy.cfm

If it's AT then a2 is comes in Free and paid versions

http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/

There are always these two Free and paid versions

Spybot search and destroy

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/spybotsd/index.html

Adaware

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/


StevieO

 

This forum seemed the most appropriate for feedback on anti spyware as there is no "other anti-syware" section. I thought MS AS covered both trojans and spyware? I have spybot and adaware installed, but not running any real time monitoring. Are you saying that MS AntiSpyware was based on CounterSpy? I thought the Giant corp had their own code.

 

Anti-Spywares are normally discussed in the section Privacy Software and Issues. Don't you worry, I also didn't know this when I started as a new member.
As far as I know MSAS is based on Giant AS and CounterSpy is based on MSAS. MSAS and CounterSpy have both their own updatings.

 

For antispyware and related software, there is the forum called privacy & other anti-malware software.

Some spyware looks so much like trojan that it is assigned a similar name by many AVs, e.g. "TrojanDownloader.XX.YY" or "Backdoor.Agent.XX.YY" -- but in reality it is in the adware-spyware class and not the classic trojan backdoor or trojan horse. As for MSAS, Microsoft acquired GIANT Corporation the makers of GIANT AntiSpyware and MSAS is essentially the same as GIANT A.S. with some minor modifications. Hope that helps ..

 

A good free alternative to MSAS is Spyware Doctor. In tests it's rated right up there with MSAS, Counterspy and Spysweeper.
http://www.download.com/Spyware-Doctor/3000-8022_4-10377263.html

 

There's many different products out there to prevent spyware getting on your system. Each does there own thing.

As far as AS's go, I would think that Webroot SpySweeper and CounterSpy are the best. CounterSpy runs the Giant AS engine that MS bought. MS currently supplies it's signatures to CounterSpy, but CounterSpy also adds its own signatures. I'm not sure when that agreement runs out (MS inherited the agreement from Giant).

Ewido originally started as an Anti-trojan, and bought spyware signatures. It has a very good removal engine (removes spyware cleanly - seems better at removing spyware than CS and SS, but that's only my opinion), and it has a large signature database. I've never run the paid version, so don't know what it's RTS monitor is like.

Winpatrol is a very basic free IDS. Best thing about it, is it's easy to understand, and it has the best Startup (autostarting programs) Manager that I know of.

Prevx1R is the free version of Prevx1. You can choose between 3 different levels of customisability. It monitors more things than MS AS's registry protection etc does. However it's not a AS as such - it's a 'simple' Host Intrusion Prevention System <'simple' because the enterprise versions can run into the $100k+ mark>. Online Armor is 'similar' to Prevx1.

Then there are virtualisation programs like ShadowUser and Deepfreeze, with the idea being that after you activate them, your computer will revert back to the exact same state (as at time of activation) upon every reboot.

First Defense ISR has a similar function of reverting every reboot, but also has a disk backup function.

 

JLamy, since you said in your first post that MSAS was slowing your system, why not just go through the realtime protection and disable one feature at a time to discover what is slowing things down? Then you can disable what that feature is and you can keep the rest of MSAS active. Unless you really just want to get rid of MSAS anyway.