Any recommendations out there for good but affordable anti-spyware software? I already have some, but I need to come up with recommendations for a friend who’s on a tight budget.
I have four. The best is the free Microsoft Spyware Download. No problems since I started using it.
Microsoft. It is very good a detecting major threats, updates automatically, and scans in the background.
I loaded the Microsoft beta, it’s pretty good but I still seemed to pick up a few. Then I loaded Spyware Blaster at the same time as the latest MS beta update. Whichever one is doing it, I haven’t had any problems since. (Used to run AdAware and SpyBot weekly and find scads.)
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- From just about all corners I read that the Microsoft anti-spyware program is very, very good–so good in fact that it is assumed that they won’t give it away for free forever. If spyware is a problem your conputer regularly suffers, enjoy the MS program while you can.
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- Spybot S & D and Ad-Aware are probably the two highest-rated free ones after that.
- Many antivirus programs have anti-spyware utilities included as well. I paid for a F-Secure subscription and it included some anti-spyware deal that looks suspiciously like Ad-Aware. It also included some “Registry Protector” thing that notifies you if anything has tried to make an un-notified change to the registry.
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I’ve found that Spybot works well.
I don’t really like the Microsoft one at all; I think it crashes my computer.
I think Spybot Search and Destroy is excellent. I also use Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware.
The Microsoft one is a good, free choice. (Spybot and Ad-Aware are also good and free, so you can install all three.) You can also avoid a lot of spyware by not using Internet Explorer but instead using Firefox.
Webroot Spysweeper gets high marks from the computer magazines but is not free. A one-year subscription costs $30.