The best antispyware program 399

I think the term "Spyware" has just about reached the end of useful life. It all really started as Adware and then sometime after the term Spyware was added to the mix to help describe things like tracking cookies and a few other "spying" like features. Thus became known the anti-Adware-Spyware apps. We've has computer viruses back since the early 90's. From them were born other sorts of nasties. Keyloggers, etc. What is a Trojan? A Worm? Any of these can spy on you and could also be considered Spyware. Many of todays "Freeware" Anti-Spyware apps simply are not capable of detecting the wide variety of today's "Spyware." Even Kaspersky seems to think there is While the Spywarewarrior site rating the Anti-Spyware apps mentioned in another post is still quite good it is now over a year old. Much has changed in the industry.

Much of it has all been blurred now because there is so much of it out there. Perhaps a more correct term should me "Malware." For a period most AV apps were not considered good at detecting Trojans. For those you needed a dedicated AT application like TDS-3, BOClean, Trojan Hunter or others. Many of the better AV vendors are now checking for more Trojan like activity. Some are even adding more of what they call "Anti-Spyware" checking as well. Even BOClean, known as a VERY good AT, is also a VERYgood Anti-Spyware app in it's own right. Depending on ones view point a good Anti-Trojan app could be considered more of an Anti-Spyware than todays dedicated Anti-Spyware apps.

Some people like the MS anti-spyware app which just now was released to Beta 2 and renamed as Windows Defender however both these apps while considered good AS apps don't even come close to catching the Trojans. They are good at monitoing system changes.

Here are some good links to some Polls for preferred apps being used taken on DSLreports.com:

It is really hard to decide a true "BEST" application. I myself wouldn't be without BOClean. It is simply one of the best preventative tools out there. It is an not an AV though. Even when the Sony rootkit stuff first was published BOC already had it covered several weeks before. The WMF exploit was coverd way in advance of it's release as well while all the AV vendors were left scrambling. Another example of a great app is Kaspersky AV. Not only is it argueably the best AV app but with it's extended databases it is a great AT-AS application as well. Ewido is also a VERY capable AS app. It is not an AV app however it does have fairly good AT qualities but I just don't think as good as BOClean. Ewido can be run for active scanning(paid version) or used for On Demand scanning(free).

My personal preference is to look at Trojans, Worms, etc as the worst nasties out there now and go from there with my protection scheme. By running BOC I have taken care of probably any Trojan infection as well as any Spyware infections. Viruses come second. I still use the freeware to take care of the little things like cookies, etc.

This is so subjective as to what you wish to spend and how much you wanna run in the background for active scanning.