MS AntiSpyware - doing anything?

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I've been running MS AntiSpyware for a few weeks. Loads to the taskbar at
boot. All real-time agents are active. I run a full scan daily. During
this entire time, it has detected/blocked/removed absolutely nothing, zero,
zip. I also run Webroot Spysweeper. Scan daily (AFTER MS AntiSpyware), and
it usually finds one or two "threats". Ocassionally I also scan with
Lavasoft Ad-Aware (AFTER MS AntiSpyware) and it, too, finds stuff. I'm
impressed with how much MS AntiSpyware is supposed to be doing to protect my
PC ("59 checkpoints, etc."), but doesn't seem to have done squat. Thinking
of uninstalling to free up some bloat. Any thoughts?
 
I haven't read the reviews, so all I can say is that on my PC, MS Antispyware
has blocked/deleted absolutely nothing, which makes me very uncomfortable
when competing products are blocking literally dozens of "threats". Perhaps
the Spysweeper shields are "getting there first" so there is nothing left for
MS Antispyware to block. However, that wouldn't explain why MS finds nothing
on scans while others do (and they do so AFTER Antispyware has had first
shot). So I don't understand how the reviews could be favorable given my
experience.
________________
 
i agree with Blubby and the others they say the same.
why must we have many spyware program. We have one antivirus (see last
discussion over onecare live).
I like to have all my program by microsoft but ... msas found nothying.
Don't speak over cookies ... that's not the problem.
Th problem is that adware and spybot found problem and msas nothing...
 
If it isn't blocking anything or finding anything, you are doing everything
right. Most people, in fact--perhaps the vast majority of the 18,000,000
installs, probably fall into that category.

I take care of perhaps 4 dozen machines in various small offices, and of
those, there are just 3 in one particular office, where I've seen serious
spyware problems--significant--to the tune of hours of work cleaning the
machines, by hand generally, when nothing automated that I used spotted
everthing or was able to remove it.

Microsoft Antispyware's real-time protection is very real, and should stop
lots of drive-by installs, which are becoming less common by the minute, I
think, although there are spikes when new IE vulns are found and exploited
as is, in fact, now happening in a small way.

If you'd like to see a quick detection example on your own machine, here's a
safe way to wake it up:

Drop to a command prompt.

CD to your windows or winnt directory, depending on the windows version

md winlogon.exe <enter>

sit back for 10 or 15 seconds and see what happens.

When you get the red popup, do rd winlogon.exe <enter>

Then choose either choice on the popup--it doesn't matter--neither will do
anything useful or bad. Don't choose always ignore--there is a genuine
threat by this name, but creating a folder doesn't create it!

Microsoft Antispyware doesn't scan for cookies. This has been hashed out
forever in various groups, so I won't try to talk about it further. I'm not
convinced this is the best choice, and it could still change--but that's the
situation at this time.

Yes--there are no common definitions of spyware--it is every vendor for
themselves. Every product out there has some degree of false positives.
Some have this issue to the extent that they really constitute false
advertising, and they make Eric Howes' Rogue list. Microsoft Antispyware
has relatively few of these and they get fixed pretty promptly.

So--I'm not surprised that product xyz finds lots more items than Microsoft
Antispyware. And I'm even not surprised that sometimes xyz will find
something genuinely real and bad that Microsoft Antispyware didn't. I still
believe that at the end of the day, in a well thought out review procedure
against the real, nasty threats out there, Microsoft Antispyware will come
out among the top contenders. It has often been the highest rated, but
recently there are some newer products out there that are doing better. I
expect beta2 will improve on this showing, though.

--
 
Since Giant AntiSpyware DID detect and remove threats, and since MSAS IS
Giant AntiSpyware, my question is how high is your IQ?
 
Some of the "threats" that both Ad-Aware and Spybot detect are categorized as
minimal/negligable. These "threats" aren't even an issue, and end up
confussing people with what's really the problem.

Alan
 
I have pondered over the posts above and wonder if MS AntiSpyware is looking
after the Windows system files and not at users PC's and thats why other
spyware software finds threats and MS does not!
 
Alan, it is not necessary to diminish yourself relative other's IQ.
Such a remark adds nothing to the quality of this forum nor your credibility.
 
Blubby said:
I've been running MS AntiSpyware for a few weeks. Loads to the taskbar at
boot. All real-time agents are active. I run a full scan daily. During
this entire time, it has detected/blocked/removed absolutely nothing, zero,
zip. I also run Webroot Spysweeper. Scan daily (AFTER MS AntiSpyware), and
it usually finds one or two "threats". Ocassionally I also scan with
Lavasoft Ad-Aware (AFTER MS AntiSpyware) and it, too, finds stuff. I'm
impressed with how much MS AntiSpyware is supposed to be doing to protect my
PC ("59 checkpoints, etc."), but doesn't seem to have done squat. Thinking
of uninstalling to free up some bloat. Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
 
the key is "some" are negligable threats in Ad-Aware u can set to ignore
negligble threats and it still finds dozens more the MSAS which finds nothing
 
I have Lavasoft too. I run both, but I occasionally get intrusion alerts in
the Microsoft scan about the Lavasoft trying to intrude on my programs.
Don't know if I trust the Lavasoft. Any input there?
 
Blubby said:
I've been running MS AntiSpyware for a few weeks. Loads to the taskbar at
boot. All real-time agents are active. I run a full scan daily. During
this entire time, it has detected/blocked/removed absolutely nothing, zero,
zip. I also run Webroot Spysweeper. Scan daily (AFTER MS AntiSpyware), and
it usually finds one or two "threats". Ocassionally I also scan with
Lavasoft Ad-Aware (AFTER MS AntiSpyware) and it, too, finds stuff. I'm
impressed with how much MS AntiSpyware is supposed to be doing to protect my
PC ("59 checkpoints, etc."), but doesn't seem to have done squat. Thinking
of uninstalling to free up some bloat. Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

You should take a look at Spyware Doctor; out of Austrailia I think. I use
it and have cleaned out most if not all cookies. A great program.
pukey
 
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