Microsoft Anti-Spyware: What a joke.

[mobrien_12]

Well, we all know that MicroSoft bought an anti-spyware company to release it's own MicroSoft anti-spyware, and has been releasing free betas to users of it's operating system.  

Well, MicroSoft has been negotiating to buy Claria.  Claria is the company that used to be known as Gator.  They changed their name, probably because their reputation was so bad for creating spyware.  Of course, Claria/Gator/Scumbags argue that their software isn't spyware and sue people who say it is so I should probably call it SCUMWARE (bite me Claria).  From my direct observations in cleaning out spyware infected computers, their software slows Windows computers down so much that they become almost unusable.  

Nobody is really sure why MS wants this little POS company.

However, MS has apparently now downgraded all of Clarias threat designations in their Anti-Spyware program.  According to the e-Week Story:  

...four different builds of the Windows AntiSpyware beta detected the Claria products, but the default recommendation was "ignore."

What a joke.

[Lead Head]

i tried that once and it didn't have advance scanning options or stuff like Ad-Aware has, and i deleted it, buy personally i do not want something from microsoft SCANNING my PC

[Orethrius]

Hey Muzzy, care to explain how this is in step with their "altruistic endeavours" that surely don't affect the end-user?

[piratePenguin]

See, MS are in NO WAY interested in making a 'good' OS.
No fucking wonder. You'd think, with their resources, that their software would be golden. Far fucking from it! Largely because of shit like this.
:fu: Microsoft!

[Refalm]

Lavasoft has a similar agreement with another spyware company, and is skipping some spyware as well.

I guess you can only trust non-corparate programs these days, like Spybot (or not using Windows at all, which is much better anyway).

[Lord C]

lol MS Anti-Spyware is truely rubbish.

I ran it alongside Adware, Spybot S&D and Xipsoft, and it didn't pick up anwhere near the ammount of spyware the others did.

[Kintaro]

My spyware soulution beats everyones...
x11@kintaro:~$ uname -sr
Linux 2.6.10-5-386

[toadlife]

lol MS Anti-Spyware is truely rubbish.

I ran it alongside Adware, Spybot S&D and Xipsoft, and it didn't pick up anwhere near the ammount of spyware the others did.

Perhaps because Microsoft's product doesn't bother with cookies. Adaware treats cookies as 'spyware', which will naturally lead to many more hits.

[Lord C]

Perhaps because Microsoft's product doesn't bother with cookies. Adaware treats cookies as 'spyware', which will naturally lead to many more hits.

I wasn't talking about cookies.
Kthx

[toadlife]

Well, I've found stuff that MS Anti-spyware found that adaware didn;t and vice vera, so I don't think can say there is one anti-spyware app that is the end-all to spyware. I've also found that MS anti-spyware is better at removing the worst kind of spyware -the 'infectious' kind.

Of course I haven't had spyware problems in quite a long time. Perhaps Adware and SBSD have improved since then?

[simontag]

Well, I've found stuff that MS Anti-spyware found that adaware didn;t and vice vera, so I don't think can say there is one anti-spyware app that is the end-all to spyware. I've also found that MS anti-spyware is better at removing the worst kind of spyware -the 'infectious' kind.

Of course I haven't had spyware problems in quite a long time. Perhaps Adware and SBSD have improved since then?

Absolutely. I use spyware scanners every day. I work for CompUSA and we have no and I mean NO shortage of customers with Spyware issues. All day I take calls about it. Here is the longest but best, end all be all for spyware removal (in my humble opinion). Download and create a BartPE disc with the newest version of Adaware and any other spyware program you can get on there as well as Stinger and AVG for anti virus scanning. Boot off of the Bart PE disc (whilst doing it you are screwing MS cause they have WinPE which they won't let yall purchase and is basically what Bart was modeled after) Using it you are booting into a RAM disk clean version of WindowsXP - run your scans on the drive with all of your gear - you also if connected to a network have internet access and can update and DL anything you want. This will get all Spyware and viruses that are in the MBR and that have identifable code on the drive. However, it often times will miss stuff that has to be running in RAM to detect. You then boot up the machine and re-run them locally or run different programs. Yes run MS Anti Spyware it does work it finds tons of crap that Spybot, Adaware, and even the Retail SpySweeper misses. Or if you want to be snarky you can run from a network attached machine. Then enable the option in SpyBot to re-run after the reboot and it will run again after you restart finding even more stuff in RAM usually. Often times I will have to run 4 separate Spyware scanners to be sure. I also like TDS from diamond.cs. I do not like the MS Anti Spyware program but if it finds anything the others don't it is still worth the 5 min to run it.

My 2 cents.

tagurit

[Lord C]

Well, I've found stuff that MS Anti-spyware found that adaware didn;t ...

You would.