Surprising Statistics

I don't run anti-virus software on my home computer. There are two reasons for this. First, I'm a little arrogant and feel that I'm smart enough to be able to manually avoid infection. For the most part, this is true. For the times when this has not been true, I'm not afraid to format my hard drive and reinstall the operating system and all of my software. I do this as a matter of course about once a year, anyway. I also keep my data backed up and seperate from my software.

Ad-ware, mal-ware, and spyware are a different story. I've had to run anti-adware software on my home and office computers from time to time and have been surprised at what they find. These little nasties sneak in when you're not looking. What's more surprising, however, is how much the anti-adware software doesn't catch.

Today, I received a copy of the Windows Secrets Newsletter that states that "nearly every anti-adware application on the market catches less than half of the bad stuff." This is based on a study done at the University of Illinois using 20 different anti-adware applications.

The gist of the article is that adware developers are moving faster than anti-adware developers and it is resulting in poor results from the anti-adware software.

The most surprising part of the article is this:

...the computer press often recommends that the two anti-adware products that should be used together are Ad-Aware SE Personal and Spybot Search & Destroy. That preference may have become the conventional wisdom because both of these products have low-end, freeware versions. PC World, PC Magazine, and other publications have recommended this combination as recently as June and August, respectively.

Ad-aware and Spybot may have been a great combo back then. But adware apparently moves much faster than these two companies do. According to Howes's data, the two programs together barely removed half the adware components on an infected PC:
            Ad-Aware SE Personal plus...        Total Adware Fixed
            Spybot Search & Destroy                    54%

There is good news. One package, Giant AntiSpyware, successfully removed 63% of critical components it detected. Interestingly enough, Microsoft purchased Giant Company Software and now offers spyware removal software (as a beta) based on the Giant technology*. Even better, the author found that Giant AntiSpyware and Webroot Spy Sweeper ($29.95), in a combined attack, increased the success rate to 70%.

I had been hesitant to try the new Microsoft removal tool because I tend to shy away from beta software (and, let's face it, the MS track record is not encouraging) but I think I'm going to give this a spin. I'll let you know how it goes.

-----------------------------------------------
* the tests use the version of Giant AntiSpyware that was available in October and not the newer Microsoft beta version that's currently available.