Spyware Question

[Buck Reid]

Looking for suggestions on spyware programs for Windows Vista. I used Lavasoft's Ad-aware with XP but it's not doing the trick with Vista. Wiz? Anyone? Thanks!!

[Gary Lee Gimble]

Buck, you can start here and I believe the price is right although I can't substantiate any long term credit worthiness. I have Vista on one of my lap tops with Windows Defender, so far so good, time will tell...

http://www.microsoft.com/protect/comput ... vista.mspx

[Wiz Feinberg]

Freeware product Spybot Search and Destroy 1.4 currently works with Windows Vista, requiring Administrator privileges for certain functions, but the upcoming version 1.5 will integrate much better for (Vista) semi-limited (Power) users, and will carry the "Works With Vista" logo.

Windows Defender, an anti-spyware program, is now a part of the operating system in Vista. Webroot's Spy Sweeper works with Vista also, and is commercial. I have links to Spy Sweeper and Spybot S&D on my blog

[Buck Reid]

Thanks guys!!

[Wiz Feinberg]

Contrary to what Microsoft says about Windows Defender and One Care Live, those products rate among the worst at detecting and removing new malware threats, simply because they aren't updated every day. New threats and variations of older ones are seen in the wild every day. The better security products employ staff who capture viruses and malware from infected emails and from hostile servers, reverse engineer them, write definition rules to detect and delete them, then push those definitions out, sometimes on an hourly basis. You don't get anything near that kind of updating from Microsoft, especially with Windows Defender. If you are lucky you may see one or two updates in a 7 day week.

This is why you pay for commercial security programs that actually deliver real protection. However, none are 100% at detecting and removing emerging/morphing threats and you must use self protection while browsing the Internet or downloading email.

[Jack Stoner]

Whiz, I'm using Windows Live One Care and it does update daily, not always on a weekend. I get a "baloon" notification when it's updated. It updates as much or more than Norton did when I had it installed.

[Wiz Feinberg]

Thanks for that update Jack. It was only two weeks ago that I saw Live One Care way down the list of anti virus apps, for it's horrendous failure to detect rate. Maybe Micro$oft got the message. However, anytime I open Windows Defender the last update is usually a week or longer in the past. When I check for new updates I rarely find any, unless at least one week has passed since the previous updates. That is simply inexcusable in this day and age, for a security product that claims to be able to protect a PC without any additional help from 3rd part apps.

Another thing that bugs me about "Defender" is that you cannot manually check for updates for it unless you are logged on as an Administrator. I run as a Power User (XP Pro), so I either have to rely upon automatic updates to run in the background and get applied after I log out, or switch to my Admin account and run manual updates from there.

[Don Sulesky]

I use AVG Free Edition which was installed by the tech when I had my computer repaired.
It updates my computer virus protection everyday at 8a.m. 365 days a year free. I've had no problems with it and it does not interfere with any of my programs. I also use PC Tools Firewall Plus which is also free with no problems.
Don

[Cal Sharp]

I wouldn't even connect a Windoze computer to the Internet unless I was behind a router. That's your best protection.