YES, you do ! ( And you need a good one )

After recent incident of hacking of my email account, first thing I did was to buy “Spyware doctor” ( an Anti-spyware software ) to help me out.

If you are not using one yet, THINK AGAIN.

I wrote in my previous post that I will be doing some research on available products in market. I did some and here is quick summary

  • Available products

Boy! there are so many. Not surprising that so many companies are working hard to fight spyware and from business perspective there is enough market as well as challenge to solve spyware issues. It provides encouraging environment for both - Hacker and protectors :)

Almost all of anti-virus companies offer anti-spyware software or application as part of complete Internet security suite. However, there are many companies, which just focus on anti-spyware.

  • Here is long list I found
    • Ad-aware SE [ Company: Lavasoft ]
    • Spybot S&D [ Company: SaferNetworking ] - Free software. Works well.
    • Pest Patrol [ Company: CA ]
    • Spy Sweeper [ Company: Webroot ]
    • Windows Defender [ Company: Microsoft ]
    • CounterSpy [ Company: Sunbelt]
    • AntiSpyware [ Company: McAfee ]
    • Anti-Spyware [ Company: TrendMicro ]
    • Spyware Doctor [ Company: PC Tools ] - I personally tried this.
    • SpyCatcher [ Company: Tenebril ]
    • Spyware X-term. [ Company: StompSoft ]
    • X-Cleaner [ Company: Xblock.com]
    • SUPERAntiSpyware [ Company: SUPERAdBlocker ]
    • ewido anti-spyware [ Company: ewido/Grisoft ]
    • Ashampoo AntiSpyware [ Company: Ashampoo ]
    • ZeroSpyware [ Company: FBM Software ]
    • Spyware Fighter [ Company: SPAMFighter ]
    • Spyware Terminator [ Company: Crawler]

    Spyware Doctor did over all good job and found couple of spywares, which can be potentially harmful. It instantly fixed it and now I hope they will not come back.

    • How do they work ?

    I will be posting this in separate post or page.

    • Detailed comparison/Review

    Guess what ! There are many good folks out there who are trying fight spyware and doing something about it. I found that few others have already done detailed analysis of products available in market.

    I found following comparision page quite informative on SpywareWarrior’s website

    http://spywarewarrior.com/asw-features.htm

    Based on this page and work done by Suzi Turner, here is recommended list.

    In addition, there are other “freeware” scanners that you may find useful:

    Spybot Search & Destroy - If you are techy, I am sure that you will know this one :) . In “free” category this is the best I have seen so far. If you don’t use ANY anti-spyware as of now, PLEASE, at least start using this one.

    Be Safe

    Filed under Spyware & Malware, Virus protection