ms beta antispyware

[justwhenyouthought..]

Just tried the Microsoft beta antispyware . It seems to find all sorts of junk ! Anyone else tried it ?
Available at
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

[Evo]

Yes, and I'm reasonably impressed with it (although it has yet to find anything - hopefully because of what I do, rather than it being pants :rolleyes: ). It's easy to automate, and stays nicely in the background. Now hopefully it will stay free!

[Canary Boy]

I've started using it today and agree that it seems very good (it found stuff that both Adaware SE and Spybot missed). If you're running a firewall (I've got Norton) it may ask you if you want 'GIANTspywareupdater.exe' to access tinternet - it's the MS Spyware app. :oh:

[timbo04]

Not sure about Microsoft antispyware - I use adaware and search and destroy - I ran MS and it found nothing yet Adaware came up with 21?

[ORAC]

How do you remove it? All I know is my ZoneAlarm will now not start because of a "validation failure" of alert.zap, and I cannot remove and reinstall it because it says something else is using one of its components.

[Gouabafla]

The most recent Windows Secrets Newsletter reported that AdAware and SpyBot (a combination often recommended as the best way to deal with spyware) still miss most of the malware on a system. I've cut and paste a little bit of the article below but you can read the full thing at http://www.windowssecrets.com/050127/

I'm not sure what to make of this, but there is a follow up article at http://www.windowssecrets.com/050210/ which seems to underline their case.

I've generally found Windows Secrets to be worth reading - perhaps there is a place for a thread on good PC mailing lists.



Anti-adware misses most malware

By Brian Livingston

Now that 80% of home PCs in the U.S. are infected with adware and spyware, according to one study, it turns out that nearly every anti-adware application on the market catches less than half of the bad stuff.

That's the conclusion of a remarkably comprehensive series of anti-adware tests conducted recently by Eric Howes, an instructor at the University of Illinois.

Howes, a well-known researcher among PC security professionals, collected 20 different anti-adware applications. He then infected a fresh install of Windows 2000 SP4 and Office 2000 SP3 with several dozen adware programs in separate stages. Finally, he counted how many active adware components were removed by each anti-adware product...

[innuendo]

One of the things I found annoying was that after a scan my home page would be reset to the MSN homepage.

The solution to this, if it happens, was posted by one of the members of another forum:

"The problem with your start page being reset is most likely do to a setting in the "Advanced Tools - Restore Hijacked Internet Explorer Settings" window.

From the main AntiSpyWare window select: "Tools-Advanced Tools-Browser Hijack Settings Restore".

It is my understanding that any boxes that are ticked in this window will be restored to the settings shown when a scan is done.

ie. "about:blank" restored to "http://www.msn.com"

At the bottom of the "Details" window on the right you should see a selection to "Change the restore setting to a new URL...".

You can change any of these settings to reflect your own personal default prefs. Then tick the appropriate box to allow AntiSpyWare to to protect your personal settings."

After thinking about it I assumed that the program may cover the possibility that the home page it sees could be a hi-jacked one and you need to tell it otherwise.
So far I have not had any real problems with it and between AdAware, Spybot and the MS program they all seem to catch something that the other misses.