Antispyware

Privacy Guardian

In this age of Internet and online transaction everybody concerns for privacy and protection of sensitive or private data. Now with the revolutionary software “Privacy Guardian” you can ensure about your online tracks and activities are kept private.Privacy Guardian protects your sensitive and private data by deleting all Internet activities and browser history. Everybody knows that when a person visits a website, its information is stored in different location such as system registry, cookies, web history, and index.dat files on the hard disk. In most cases the users are not aware of these hidden files and it can be a potentials risk for an Internet user, particular if your PC is shared with other people.

Another important benefit of using Privacy Guardian is that it scans your system and removes all unnecessary and unused temporary files. This not only increases your hard disk space but also provides better performance for your PC.

Privacy Guardian Features:

• Supports different operating systems like; Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003.
• Deletes all recycle bin contents, temporary hard disk files, document history, and PC tracks.
• Permanently deletes all traces of your web activities or web history on your PC including cookies, system cache, browsing history, and index.dat file.
• Improves system performance by restoring valuable hard drive space
• Make deleted files unrecoverable using regular methods by implementing US Department of Defense standard (DoD 5220.22-M).
• Cleans the history of more than hundred third-party programs, including P2P applications, image viewing, and chat history.
• Supports different browsers such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape Navigator, and Opera.  

Besides this, Privacy Guardian is able to delete common Windows tracks, and also has plug-ins for common non-Microsoft programs that leave usage tracks, such as Adobe Acrobat, Word Processor and popular download accelerator products. The plug-in, which are not included in the third party list, can be downloaded with Privacy Guardian update feature.Downloading Privacy Guardian

You can download the latest version of Privacy Guardian from its publisher’s website, PC Tools, who also publishes Spyware Doctor. The latest version of Privacy Guardian is 4.1.0.37 and the file size is just 3.8 MB. Privacy Guardian will run in Windows® Vista, Windows XP, Windows Me, Windows 98 and Windows 2000.

This trail version is free without any time limitations; however if you need to enjoy all the features of Privacy Guardian you need to buy the software as some important features are available only for registered users. Trail version can only removes a limited number of privacy issues from your PC. So become a registered user to enjoy all the features of this great privacy software – Privacy Guardian!

McAfee VirusScan Plus

The redesigned McAfee VirusScan Plus application has three tools for security purposes that include an anti-virus, firewall as well as anti-spyware and there are also utilities to monitor system performance. These features are adequate without being outstanding and may not quite match those of competitive anti-virus software such as Norton and Kaspersky.

You can either download McAfee VirusScan Plus from the McAfee site or purchase it in retail outlets, though be prepared to experience a bit of difficulty when it comes to setting up the application because you need to first install Download Center which will analyze your system and then you can choose which product to download. In addition, you need to have Download Center connect via the Internet for further downloading that includes individual items such as VirusScan, SiteAdvisor, Personal Firewall as well as Security Center, and it can even take you an hour to download everything.

McAfee VirusScan Plus is also resource hungry taking up seventy-five MB of space on your hard drive, though it is half of what is required when using Norton, and in the bargain McAfee VirusScan Plus runs considerably more services and agents, and takes up a huge chunk of services as compared to Norton. However, McAfee VirusScan Plus will run on XP as well as Windows 2000, as compared to just Windows XP for Norton.

To get down to the interface, there is the initial Protection Center interface that has two panes, one on the left for navigating the various tools, and the right hand pane that shows system status. While navigating with McAfee VirusScan Plus you will see a couple of tables of content with one showing basic features while the other one lists advanced tools. The best part is that the overall feel is that of a whole system and not of many stand-alone systems put together.

The Security Center that has undergone some design changes is more of an advertisement for the product, and you may find that when there is a component missing, you are connected to the online store of McAfee allowing you to purchase the missing component, rather than simply explain why the component is not there.

McAfee VirusScan Plus also has more in the form of system diagnostic tools that allow you to shred your deleted files and which even allow you to perform defragmentation of your hard drive and there are even some tools for different network monitoring, and the wonderful SiteAdvisor that is a great anti-sphishing tool.

The performance of this software is quite good and is an improvement over previous versions cutting down drastically on processing times for scanning files, and so McAfee VirusScan Plus should be given above average rating.

Trend Micro Internet Security 2008

Those of you who have had previous experience with Trend Micro Antivirus and Antisypware products will notice some major gains after the introduction of Trend Micro Internet Security 2008 that makes this product more useful in the home and also in the office. You would like the rather intuitive interface and you can choose to configure your application the way you want it so that users have full control over this software which is a welcome change from other products like the Norton Antivirus 2008 that lacks such features. In addition, it also betters Norton Antivirus 2008 by providing support for AOL and also Yahoo instant messengers which Norton does not.

The trouble is that there is no independent data about the effectiveness of Trend Micro Internet Security 2008 when it comes to protecting your PC and so it is hard to make comparisons with other antivirus software. And, it is also quite resource heavy requiring hundred MB for installation as well as 256MB of RAM though it does work across all versions of Windows and if you are using Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail from Vista or Mozilla Thunderbird then you are in business because Trend Micro Internet Security 2008 will scan your incoming emails and generally protect your PC.

As mentioned, the interface is rather intuitive and it is rather simple though a welcome changes when you think about the rather overbearing feel of a Norton Antivirus 2008 package. You can access the features in the left hand margin while all of the details are available on the right. There is also the occasional pop up window that comes up where you can set configuration options that allow you to control the alerts’ level which means you can choose to get individual alerts or in groups which is especially suitable for the more advanced user.

The scanning that Trend Micro Internet Security 2008 performs is streamlined and all of antivirus, antispyware and also anti-rootkit scans are integrated into a single engine and after the scan is complete you get the result regarding each and every threat. Also, the Changes scan provides you with feedback regarding changes to registry or to other main program files.

It is similar to Kaspersky as well as Norton antivirus software in that it makes use of heuristics of an enhanced variety and an example is Trend Micro Proactive Intrusion Blocking which in effect blocks proactively any possible threats. But, what is especially pleasing is its ability to clean up a number of different files including those in the cache and browser as well as Word’s last viewed file. Performance is excellent and the scanning is performed quickly and thanks to a number of improvements in this product, it is rather worthwhile anti-virus software that could do your PC a world of good.

Spyware Doctor 5.0

Spyware Doctor 5.0 is one of the latest versions of Spyware Doctor, developed by PC Tools – a reputable name in the arena of computer security. Spyware Doctor 5.0 is simply an anti-spam and anti-spy software tool that clean as well as remove malware and spyware from your PC that have been detected via a scan, including trojans, potential spyware, ad ware, trackware, spybots, keyloggers, and other malware. In short, this advanced tool enables you to detect, remove, and clean the identified spyware.

Majority of firewalls and anti-virus software cannot fully safeguard your PC from the many of the spyware as well as privacy threats. Since spyware is mostly packaged with software downloads, it may appears to be legitimate software and hence once installed it becomes quite difficult to detect and clean it. Here comes the importance of a state of the art spyware removal tool like Spyware Doctor 5.0. Spyware Doctor 5.0 offers three-way spyware protection via scanning, real-time threat blocking, and immunization. Perhaps, for this reason, this anti-spyware has become much popular among the millions of users to safeguard their system against adware, keyloggers, and tracking threats.

Features, among many others, of Spyware Doctor 5.0 are detection and removal of malware infections including browser hijackers and dialers, rootkit scanning, detection and removal of ADS, and spider scanning technology. The tool also comes with a variety of other sophisticated features such as:

• Hosts Scanner, with capability to scan the Windows Hosts file
• Most sophisticated scanning tools, like file scan, memory scan, registry scan, browser helper objects scan, and cookie scan
• State of the art Browser Defaults
• Kernel Level Process Killer technology
• Patent pending keylogger guard tool
• Effectual Browser Guard to detect and remove unwanted Browser Extensions and Browser Helper Objects
• powerful Immunizer tool to guarantee safe browsing
• Process Guard tool
• Startup Guard tool
• Easy to use Popup Blocker
• Features to quarantine as well as undo items that have been removed
• OnGuard system, which is especially designed for protection against malware infections.

Now we will discuss what is new in Spyware Doctor 5.0 when compared to other versions. Foremost is that this version is available with an optional upgrade to utilize a powerful AV engine, for which you needn’t have pay anything extra. Intelli-scan, lower usage of resources, faster start time, new as well as updated Guards, Vista Support, enhanced multi-user support, self-protection, and full global white and black list support are the other specialties of this anti-spy software tool.

It is estimated that every week, more than a million people download this award winning anti-spyware software tool in order to protect their identity and ensure security of PC. Hence, it is no wonder why Spyware Doctor has been consistently awarded Editors’ Choice by leading PC magazines across the world.

McAfee Internet Security Suite

If you take a close looks at the McAfee Internet Security Suite you will be pleased to learn that it is eight products rolled into one and its main features include anti-virus, anti-spam, anti-spyware, anti-phishing and even firewall protection as also ability to enhance performance of PC and exercise parental controls. What’s more, it even boasts of a rootkit detection scanner that it calls McAfee X-Ray for Windows.

The first problem you may encounter with this particular software is that it is not so good when handling other installed software on your system such as anti-spyware (third-party) and it is also resource hungry; even more than Norton Internet Security. You could also fault it with the level of ease of use which persists despite having redesigned the interface and the problem is that it is hard to balance the tools and also have them readily accessible.

Still, you can pay about fifty dollars for a single user copy or sixty-nine dollars for one that supports three users which prices are more or less what you would pay for Norton, and if you shop around on the internet you could even get a better deal. Once you get your copy of the McAfee Internet Security Suite downloaded and installed, you can then get down to checking its features such as its interface that have since been standardized as well as simplified and which are integrated so that you don’t have to move about looking for different features. So, you can use one particular table for those tasks that you commonly use while another table could be used if you are an advanced user.

The McAfee Internet Security Suite has feature for backup and also recovery and there is also a feature for maintaining the system that you may not find in competing products, though Virus Map is a feature that is rather superfluous. You can also burn your McAfee Internet Security Suite copy to disc or even save it on your hard disk which is certainly a useful feature which comes in handy should something drastic occur. Also, you will appreciate the Maintain Computer offering as too MacAfee QuickClean that removes cookies and other junk from your browser and any applications that have deleted are also removed from the system registry by using this feature.

If you don’t want anyone to be able to read your deleted files you can overwrite those deleted files with ones and zeroes by using the McAfee Shredder feature and there is another free resource called Eraser that you can also use. So, what you will come to like about the McAfee Internet Security Suite is its interface what includes SiteAdvisor and also the backup and recovery tools as well as data shredder.

What you won’t like is the download that requires completing two steps and its inability to play properly with other anti-virus applications and it is also quite resource heavy. Still, the McAfee Internet Security Suite has some good features and it will provide you adequate protection and can be used if you don’t have any other option.

Antispyware/Adware Review 2007

Here is a brief peep into the salient features of three top antispyware/adware programs available in the market today.

PC Tools Spyware Doctor 5.0

PC Tools Spyware Doctor 5.0 is the best anti-spyware tool at present. Best performance coupled with excellent features and support makes it the best buy in the league.

Interestingly, in trials, it caught a major percentage of adware than spyware. But still, this statistics is able to put it ahead of other popular anti-spyware/adware softwares. Also, the spyware doctor has successfully found out additions made to the HKLM and HKCU Run registry, and prevented adware/spyware from changing IE start and search pages. However, in trials, it had failed to detect changes made to the Hosts file, something spyware does so in common in order to direct the browser to a malicious webpage. Other features include blacklist-based antiphishing protection and 24 hr customer support.

The interface is user-friendly, and installation is quite easy too. If it has any downside, then it is the Spyware Doctor 5.0’s tendency to brand friendly cookies as malicious. The Spyware Doctor 5.0 costs $30. For an additional $10, it also offers antivirus protection.

Grisoft AVG Anti-Spyware 7.5

In tests, Grisoft AVG Anti-Spyware 7.5 performed very well, but it has failed to detect newer threats on the basis of their behavior. In that sense, it is less intelligent.

The Grisoft AVG Anti-Spyware 7.5, in trials, has caught hold of almost all spyware, adware, both active and inactive, and keyloggers, bank-related spyware programs, and rootkits. However, it had failed to detect additions to HKLM Run keys.

On the downside, it does not offer antiphishing protection, and there is no POP3, IMAP, and SMTP scanning either to block email perpetuated spyware threats. Also, there is no option to set a system restore point should any useful file gets deleted during cleaning.

On the user front, it has a user friendly interface, backed by efficient customer support.

Webroot Spy Sweeper 5.5

Webroot Spy Sweeper 5.5 faltered a bit from its 5.0 version in that it had struggled to remove spyware and adware in trials even though it detected them promptly. Its detection of inactive rootkits and password stealing spyware in tests was not up to the mark either.
However, the Webroot Spy Sweeper 5.5 had successfully detected additions to HKLM and HKCU Run keys, changes to internet explorer search and start pages, and Hosts file.

On to its other features, the Webroot Spy Sweeper 5.5 provides a one-click access to system scan and its 12 Shields feature is not only easy to set up, but also provides real time protection for monitoring browsers, e-mail attachments, startup programs, network connections, and the other system areas that are prone to spyware/adware offences.

On the downside, the Webroot Spy Sweeper 5.5 had flagged some harmless cookies as malicious. But, then this issue is present in most of the anti-spyware programs these days.

The installation is quite easy, so is the simplicity of using the interface.

The other anti-spyware/adware tools that are worth trying out include the Microsoft Windows Defender 1.1 and Lavasoft Ad-Aware 2007 Plus 7.0 (XP version).