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Current Issue: Volume 130, Number 1 July 14, 2009

Features



Microsoft offers helping hand to Windows users

Posted 02-02-2005 at 4:11PM

Dan Leyzberg
Staff Reporter

The term “spyware” is all too familiar to most Microsoft Windows users. Until this year, not a single Microsoft finger was lifted to help Windows users who were buried under a seemingly endless pile of spyware, adware, and other forms of malicious scripting. However, that has changed as of January 6, when Microsoft officially released a spyware removal and protection utility, dubbed Microsoft AntiSpyware (Beta 1). This comes after the December purchase of Giant Software Company, the original developers of this anti-spyware utility. The beta version of Microsoft’s product is available free for download at

http://www.microsoft.com/spyware/.

Microsoft’s AntiSpyware offers some particularly useful features past the expected system scanning. For example, real-time protection tools can act to warn you of potential problematic software that you might accidentally be installing. Also included are a few advanced utilities, among which is a remedy for Internet Explorer homepage hijacks. The system scans can be scheduled based your preferences, and the default settings will run an automatic scan every night at 2 am. I was very pleased with the detailed descriptions of potential spyware that it detects.

The list of problems is organized nicely, and the descriptions offer just the right sort of information for you to make an intelligent decision. The threat ratings (chosen from “Low,” “Moderate,” “High,” or “Severe”) also serve as valuable information.

However, in the time that Microsoft left its customers without an answer to their spyware woes, a number of third-party applications had been developed and have proved very effective. The most notable of these being Spybot: Search & Destroy and Ad-Aware, both free, regularly updated, and highly regarded anti-spyware utilities.

In fact, running either of these alternatives after using Microsoft’s AntiSpyware (Beta) can reveal hundreds of pieces of malicious code that were missed by Microsoft’s product. This identifies the weakness of Microsoft’s offering: The competition will remove nearly all spyware problems, where as AntiSpyware tends to detect far fewer; sometimes as few as half of all existent problems.

It warrants mentioning that Microsoft AntiSpyware shows off an unusual degree of beauty and completeness that is not typically found in Microsoft software. The layout is exceptionally well done, the menus are brief and concise, and the options are both plentiful and well-organized.

Each part of the window provides detailed information right where you would expect to see it, as well as offering additional useful information in tool tips if the cursor hangs over one of many items. The software has an overall appeal to it that is uncommon for Microsoft, and is certainly miles ahead of the interfaces of its two chief competitors.

Despite the positives that it has to offer, I cannot entirely recommend this product as a solution to the ever-present problem of spyware on Windows machines. Unique features and friendly interfaces aside, the functionality of the program is not as complete as its competition’s. In its current beta form, AntiSpyware simply does not serve to remove all of the spyware and adware that could potentially be present on your machine. Microsoft is improving the software that they are building towards a final (non-beta) version, which they plan to sell to Windows users. It isn’t likely, however, that Microsoft’s end product will be worth the cost, considering the available freeware that can perform the same task.



Posted 02-02-2005 at 4:11PM
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