Spyware Reviews - January 2006 |
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We gave top honors to Aluria Softwares Spyware Eliminator (read review). This product protects against more spyware than any other product on the market. Weekly updates and a reasonable price make it a good choice for nearly everyone. You also get a variety of "evidence eliminator" type functionality that you won't find in other spyware removal programs. Aluria offers a free scan to determine if any spyware is on your system. |
Try It Now!Lowest Price: $29.99 |
Below you will find side-by-side comparisons of the top spyware removal products. You can click through to read detailed reviews of the products, or scroll through to the end of this page to see summarized anti spyware reviews.
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PCTools Spyware Doctor 3.2 (read review)PC Tools Spyware Doctor 3.2 is an effective product that provides superior spyware removal capabilities, but there are some usability quirks to be aware of. |
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Webroot's Spy Sweeper (read review)Webroot's Spy Sweeper is one of the better products out there, with an impressive 73% removal rate. It even completely removed CoolWebSearch, something few other products do. However, it is a resource hog and the constant popup alerts make it difficult to keep this program running at all times. Spy Sweeper would make an excellent backup program to be run in conjunction with another spyware remover. |
ZeroSpyware 2005 (read spyware review)
ZeroSpyware is a very full-featured program and has by far the most attractive and usable interface out of the many products we tested. It is also unique in that it offers a link to customer support directly within the user interface. However, although it scored in the upper tier in terms of sheer effectiveness, it was far from perfect with only a 68% disable rate. We would recommend using this program in conjunction with a more powerful spyware remover, perhaps as an upgrade to Microsoft AntiSpyware.Microsoft AntiSpyware (read spyware review)
While once a top-rated product, Microsoft AntiSpyware is no longer effective enough to act as a standalone spyware remover. While it made a significant improvement to our spyware-infested PC, it couldn't eliminate all of the pop-ups and other invaders.Lavasoft Ad-Aware SE (read spyware review)
Lavasoft's adaware SE is a huge improvement over previous versions in terms of usability, but still lags behind in terms of sheer effectiveness. It is a better product than most others on the market, but its lack of scheduling ability, average real-time monitoring, and complex user interface detract from its sheer power.McAfee AntiSpyware (read spyware review)
McAfee Antispyware provides average protection against spyware. The product sports a beautiful user interface, but has a number of annoying installation and usability quirks. It is more expensive than other products, and McAfee's marketing team takes every opportunity to upsell you on their other software, which results in a product that borders on "adware" itself.Pest Patrol (read spyware review)
Pest Patrol is a good product with superior protection, although it is priced higher than our other top picks. We found that it had a somewhat confusing interface. It may be a better pick for business settings as it had an over-enthusiastic tendency to flag file sharing applications as spyware.NoAdware (read spyware review)
A controversial product, NoAdware is heavily advertised on the internet as an effective spyware removal tool. Our tests indicate differently however. We uncovered a product that was unable to detect real spyware on our computer, and instead tried to fool us with "false positives". Unfortunately, some of the spyware is claimed to detect were actually operating system files and legitimate software, including Apple's Quicktime player. We were disappointed with NoAdware and recommend that you stay away from this product.Spybot S&D (read spyware review)
Spybot S&D v1.4 leaves a lot to be desired in terms of effectiveness and other programs do a better job of restoring an infected PC to a healthy state. Spybot provides only average protection, infrequent updates, and non-existent support. Lacking so much as a scheduler, this barebones program is hardly worth the download.
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Last Updated on October 1, 2005 05:48 PM
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