Windows Defender
Microsoft’s free Windows Defender anti-spyware and -adware software ships as standard with Windows Vista and is available as a free download for Windows XP SP2. If Windows Defender had presented itself strictly as an anti-adware program, we’d be less hard on it, but Defender’s website asserts that the software provides ‘Spyware protection for free’, and in that respect Windows Defender 1.1 fails. Windows Defender did detect all 10 of the active adware threats it was exposed to. It detected less than 50 percent of inactive adware samples – hardly a stellar result. In disinfection tests, the program successfully removed 55 percent of adware files and Registry entries, failing to excise PremiumSearch (which messes with Internet Explorer’s home page and favourites) and Starware (which creates an IE search bar).