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April 22, 2003
By Cade Metz
For this, our first head-to-head roundup of spyware detection and removal applications, we found that the space isn't as mature as we had expected: Many of the applications were unstable and seemed to cause more trouble (or at least more remarkable trouble) than they solved. Only one, PepiMK Software's SpyBot Search & Destroy (our Editors' Choice), actually managed to destroy the spyware and adware it detected without leaving much detritus behind.
We'd like to see this space evolve into a more organized, standardized field, as the antivirus field has done, where definitions of the offenders are known, agreed on, and perhaps shared by a central body. This would aid identification of offending applications—and perhaps free up the vendors to develop better methods of removing all the many files, folders, DLLs, and Registry keys that their unpleasant targets currently leave behind on people's systems.
In the meantime, SpyBot Search & Destroy is the best of the bunch. And as a free application (with a voluntary donation requested), it's far more worthy than competitors that cost upward of 30 dollars.
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April 22, 2003
By Larry J. Seltzer
You have to love Ad-aware's tag line: "The morning after pill for the Internet." It's also easy to love the price of the basic version: free. The Plus version can block spyware in real time, while the Professional version has more detailed configuration options—scanning systems across a network, for example. Solid detection and removal abilities are obscured by an awkward interface.
Ad-aware 6's straightforward interface identifies the vendor of the file and the type of attack (for example, data miner) but at times becomes overly modal, limiting your options to too few situation-specific buttons. When looking at scan results, for example, you have little choice but to click on Next and proceed, although you can deselect objects to proceed without removing them.
Ad-aware found a respectable amount of our spyware and removed most of it. On the other hand, although the program claims to remove Trojans and key loggers, it left NetBus and NetObserve intact. And although it claimed to have removed Alexa, the Alexa toolbar was functioning afterwards, apparently still sending back information.
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The first thing you notice about PepiMK Software's SpyBot Search & Destroy is the price: free.
SpyBot's user interface borrows from Microsoft Outlook's left-side "Outlook bars." The Excludes page shows an extensive list of spyware, key loggers, Trojans, and so on, and here you can specify items you don't want removed. The Tools page includes a number of utilities not found in any of the competition, such as a list of Browser Helper Objects in your system (BHOs are extensions to Internet Explorer, such as the Google Toolbar and CommonName).
SpyBot is the only program here besides SpySweeper to warn that removing adware may disable the ad-supported software it came with. SpyBot detected every spyware program we knew to be on the test systems and left behind few identifiable remnants. The key loggers and Trojan horse were a different story: SpyBot's fair-size lists of such elements didn't include our key loggers (NetObserve and WinWhatWhere) or our Trojan (NetBus 1.7). SpyBot wasn't perfect at removal, either; for example, although the Alexa Toolbar was removed, it remained in IE's list of toolbars to display.
Besides finding spyware, SpyBot can check for system problems (faulty Uninstall information, broken links, and so on) and history lists that record information you may not want stored.
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