Die, Spyware, Die!
As we discussed in our recent antivirus roundup, “Virus Stoppers,” several antivirus products are effective at fighting Trojan horses and backdoor programs–typically classified as spyware–as well as adware. So the question arises: Are specialized antispyware tools particularly effective at fighting today’s threats? To find out, we looked at six well-known programs. We tested five–Grisoft’s AVG Anti-Spyware 7.5, Microsoft’s Windows Defender 1.1, PC Tools’ Spyware Doctor 5.0, Safer Networking’s Spybot Search & Destroy 1.4, and Webroot’s Spy Sweeper 5.5–on Windows Vista systems.