I have spent no small amount of time in this blog discussing anti-spyware. Why? Because spyware is everywhere and can sneak into your computer without you even noticing it. And if you get enough of it, your computer will slow to a crawl, if not crash.
The bad news that's now starting to come out is that most, if not all anti-spyware programs do not catch all the spyware in your computer. Now that is not a comforting thought! The reason is that new types of spyware are coming out far faster than anti-spyware software writers can keep up.
One software engineer did a test. He tried out the latest version of Spybot and picked up 14 instances of spyware. He then downloaded a 30 day trial of Spy Sweeper and picked up 56 instances (over 1,200 traces in all). Quite a difference. With two sweeps of Spy Sweeper (the second in Safe Mode), the computer was clean.
And just to show you how fast spyware multiplies, when this same engineer download Spy Sweeper, it came with 4,000 spyware definitions. At the end of his 30 day trial, the program had updated his software to include over 34,000 definitions.
PC Magazine has recently published a review of 9 different anti-spyware software packages. Because Microsoft's new software is still in beta, they did not include it with this round of testing, but you can click on a link in the article and see their first reaction to it. By the way, the Editor's Choice was Spy Sweeper.
You should strongly consider reading this article for yourself. To see it, go to:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1758380,00.asp
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