The best antispyware?

How about the best antispyware?
I use ad aware pro, with spyware blaster along with KIS 6.

 

I cannot say which is the best in all cases. I have used Spysweeper, Counterspy, Spyware Doctor, and SuperAntiSpyware. I also have Spyware Blaster.

Personally, for a stand alone AS, I prefer SuperAntiSpyware. I have not used KIS6 so do not know how its AS module performs. Probably, what you are using, with the possible addition of Spyware Guard is sufficient.

You might make sure your computer is clean, and after a few weeks download a trial of a good stand alone AS and scan. The results should tell you how well protected you are from spyware.
Ewido is a good AT and does pretty well as an AS.

Jerry

 

Hi, without any doubt I can say spysweeper. Try it.

 

i like superantispyware the best. they offer a free version for on-demand scans and their professional version runs lighter than some other AS.

 

For me,

Free : SuperAntiSpyware Free and Spyware Terminator

Paid : SuperAntiSpyware Pro and Spy Sweeper

 

I used to fans of SuperAntiSpyware, but I don't think it's good antispyware anymore. SAS find spyware only by name. You can change name of your exe file to any spyware's name i.e. gator.exe and SAS find it as spyware. Or you can change any spyware's name and SAS don't find it anymore as spyware.

Now I think the best antispyware is spyweeper

 

I wanted to address your statement above. SUPERAntiSpyware does not "just find spyware by name". We use an advanced system of heuristics, checksums, in-file scanning, unpacking and other techniques. Certain spyware files can be detected by name - you can see the same results with other scanners by having certain items inside your .EXE, or changing the name. If legit programs start trying to emulate spyware programs by name, content and behavior they will be detected by many anti-spyware applications.

We focus on real-world spyware/malware/adware removal - meaning that certain items are detected by name and location - if we find legit programs using those names and locations (which we have not) then we update our rules to either exclude the legit item, or we tighten down our definitions to be more strict on the actual detection.

Nick Skrepetos
SUPERAntiSpyware.com
http://www.superantispyware.com

 

My vote goes to Spy Sweeper.

 

There are several recommendations for Spysweeper. Has anyone used the free online scan from Spysweeper? Would you recommend that as well? And is that the same scanning engine as in the software? I think I went to use it once but if I remember correctly instead of just running from the browser like many of the online virus scanners you had to actually download and run an application. Thanks.

roark37

 

I personally wouldn't recommend SpySweeper just because it was a drag on my system. It made IE start times incredibly slow, and gave an extra half minute to my boot times for all the modules to load. It might just be my system though. However, with that being said, it is one of the better ondemand scanners out there.

 

What version you are using? The latest released version 4.5.9.709 has been quite stable in my system. The first 4.0.X version has a problem with the IE favorites. If you have a lot of bookmarks in the Favorites folder, you will get slow down in loading SpySweeper at boot times. The Favorites shield has a problem when you have so many bookmarks. But this has been fixed in the latest 4.5 version.

 

I've used Ad-Aware Plus, Spybot, Counterspy, Spy Sweeper and SuperAntispyware. My preference is for SuperAntispyware. I'll discount Ad-Aware and Spybot because i've found their level of protection not high enough, in that i scanned my system with them regular and they never found anything.Although subsequent scans with Spy Sweeper afterwards revealed some spyware. This happened fairly regular over many months until such time i decided to drop them and get KAV and BOClean and rely on weekly scans from Spy Sweeper. I could never get Spy Sweeper to run sweet in real time on my pc and Counterspy was a nightmare, constant lockups, heavy resource and BSOD's.

I've recently installed Superantispyware on my pc and this is running very sweet, is easy to use and as a relative newcomer to the AS scene is looking remarkably good. I'm using the Pro version and have no intention of dropping it. I still have a registered version of Spy Sweeper but this is redundant now.

muf

 

While I think that Spysweeper is an excellent AS if it runs on your system, it had a conflict with UnHackMe and of the two I had rather replace SS.
The other major problem for me was that whenever I called up another anti-malware program, SS opened also, and asked me if I would accept the other AM app.

I just found it too much trouble, and with the conflict I removed it. I still have a boxed copy of SS 4.5, but doubt I will ever use it.

Counterspy is the heaviest application I ever used, and knew about. It used from 90,000 - 101,000K of memory. I still have several months left on my license, but I removed it.

Spyware Doctor gave too many FPs.

SuperAntiSpyware on the other hand has run well, updates frequently, and has no conflicts with other anti-malware apps on my machines. The support is outstanding also.

Regards,
Jerry

 

And CounterSpy has bad customer service too. They simply ignore my e-mail without trying to answer my questions.

 

I will try Spy Sweeper, thanx.

 

It's not only Counterspy that has this 'problem'. Sunbelt does the same with Kerio. Sunbelt is not doing a very good job when it comes to customer service. You get more attention using free Comodo software for instance (for Sunbelt) and (for Comodo)

 

Spy Sweeper

 

I almost forgot my choice

I use Ewido for anti spyware plus Firefox

 

Customer Service and support from SpySweeper is much better than Sunbelt. And users of SUPERAntispyware are also saying customer support at SUPERAntispyware is also very good at other threads. Corporate image and support is important and it brings confidence to the customers. Really don't know why Sunbelt threat their customers like this.

 

Let's hope that SUPERAntiSpyware doesn't remove the threads at Wilders.

 

Are you having a little dig there EA?

 

Very funny , indeed


And about the topic - I definitely can't flag a software as the best just because there is noone the best . I clean infected machines everyday and I've been doing it from a long time but still there is noone that can definitely clean the machine from non-viral malware - those bad guys out there are not sleeping . I always use and recommend (and will say it is very good but not the best) :


Ad-Aware se Personal
Spybot S&D
SpySweeper
Panda TruPrevent 2006
NOD32 Anti-threat system
HJT
My mind and head

 

When members start mixing words like thread, threat and treat in a wrong way, I get confused as a foreigner.

 

Eric, Have you used SAS and what did you think of it?

muf

 

Although, I'm not really a scanner-fan, I think SAS is worth to have on your computer, because the author seems to do an extra effort to remove more sophisticated threats as well.
According my readings, scanners detect sometimes threats, but don't remove them always completely.
I think that some threats can't always removed with a simple signature, they require extra programming in order to remove them completely and not partial like some scanners do.
It's always reassuring to have a scanner that pays more attention to complicated malwares and I think SAS is such a scanner.

I used SAS for awhile, but I'm so carefull on the net that none of my scanners detect anything.
I'm so carefull at this moment, because I'm still working on my new security setup and my actual security setup isn't strong enough to fool around on the internet.