A free antispyware app (SS&D) fares awfully vs competitor for me

Until a few minutes ago I used Spybot Search & Destroy regularly for at
leats a year or so. Then, perhaps 20 minutes ago, I scanned my system
with the spyware detection and removal utility of the trial version of
Super Utilties (ver. 6.25) -- it found 49 instances of spyware! Before
removing the 49 instances, however, I AGAIN ran my SS&D -- as usual, it
detected that my Windows Firewal was off as well as, on this occasion,
an instance of Casal Media spyware. Disturbingly (in contrast to what
Super Utilities had found, *that* was *ALL* it detected.

I realize SS&D is free (ironically, I almost sent in a small donation a
few days ago but was too lazy -- now I WON'T) and that my copy of SU
will expire in less than 2 weeks, but JAYSUS!: compared to the *49*
spywares found by SU versus SS&D's pathetic *1* I'd have to say that
SS&D (for me, anyway) although free is virtually WORTHLESS.

I'd like to hear from others who've used/continue to use SS&D -- have
you ever compared it to other spyware killers? Did you find it as
lacking as I did or do you feel confident, based one xperience, in
saying it's compretitive with other anti-spyware apps?

guybannister58@aol.com

"" wrote:
>
> Until a few minutes ago I used Spybot Search & Destroy regularly for at
> leats a year or so. Then, perhaps 20 minutes ago, I scanned my system
> with the spyware detection and removal utility of the trial version of
> Super Utilties (ver. 6.25) -- it found 49 instances of spyware! Before
> removing the 49 instances, however, I AGAIN ran my SS&D -- as usual, it
> detected that my Windows Firewal was off as well as, on this occasion,
> an instance of Casal Media spyware. Disturbingly (in contrast to what
> Super Utilities had found, *that* was *ALL* it detected.
>
> I realize SS&D is free (ironically, I almost sent in a small donation a
> few days ago but was too lazy -- now I WON'T) and that my copy of SU
> will expire in less than 2 weeks, but JAYSUS!: compared to the *49*
> spywares found by SU versus SS&D's pathetic *1* I'd have to say that
> SS&D (for me, anyway) although free is virtually WORTHLESS.
>
> I'd like to hear from others who've used/continue to use SS&D -- have
> you ever compared it to other spyware killers? Did you find it as
> lacking as I did or do you feel confident, based one xperience, in
> saying it's compretitive with other anti-spyware apps?

Are you sure the 49 "finds" were legitimate?

Notan

Notan

Notan wrote:

>> I'd like to hear from others who've used/continue to use SS&D -- have
>> you ever compared it to other spyware killers?

Killers? O_o

Hopefully you "removing" actually meant "flattening and rebuilding the
compromised system" or at least the very same for the user's account if
you're not insane enough to run as admin user. If not, then please close
the door - from the outside.

>> Did you find it as
>> lacking as I did or do you feel confident, based one xperience, in
>> saying it's compretitive with other anti-spyware apps?

Lacking? There are so many false positives on clean system that I wonder
if these tools are good for anything but verifying that a compromised
system was compromised.

> Are you sure the 49 "finds" were legitimate?

How big is the chance that any such "find" is legitimate? Nearby zero.
My estimation is that about 30 where bullshit cookies^W^W"tracking
cookies", 3 are changed default settings in Windows Group Policy and one
is totally unrelated to any technical fact.

Sebastian Gottschalk

wrote:

> Until a few minutes ago I used Spybot Search & Destroy regularly for at
> leats a year or so. Then, perhaps 20 minutes ago, I scanned my system
> with the spyware detection and removal utility of the trial version of
> Super Utilties (ver. 6.25) -- it found 49 instances of spyware! Before
> removing the 49 instances, however, I AGAIN ran my SS&D -- as usual, it
> detected that my Windows Firewal was off as well as, on this occasion,
> an instance of Casal Media spyware. Disturbingly (in contrast to what
> Super Utilities had found, *that* was *ALL* it detected.
>
> I realize SS&D is free (ironically, I almost sent in a small donation a
> few days ago but was too lazy -- now I WON'T) and that my copy of SU
> will expire in less than 2 weeks, but JAYSUS!: compared to the *49*
> spywares found by SU versus SS&D's pathetic *1* I'd have to say that
> SS&D (for me, anyway) although free is virtually WORTHLESS.
>
> I'd like to hear from others who've used/continue to use SS&D -- have
> you ever compared it to other spyware killers? Did you find it as
> lacking as I did or do you feel confident, based one xperience, in
> saying it's compretitive with other anti-spyware apps?


What were the 49? Please post the list..."tracking cookies" are NOT
dangerous....


Imhotep

Imhotep

Imhotep wrote:

> What were the 49? Please post the list..."tracking cookies" are NOT
> dangerous....
>
>
> Imhotep

The printout I made looks like hieroglyphics to me -- you'd
understand. But many were, indeed, tracking cookies.

While tc's may not be "dangerous" in a way akin, say, to a virus they
can neverthless be an invasion of privacy (personally I hate 'em) and
I'm glad SU found and removed 'em from my system.

guybannister58@aol.com

wrote:

>> What were the 49? Please post the list..."tracking cookies" are NOT
>> dangerous....
>
> The printout I made looks like hieroglyphics to me -- you'd
> understand. But many were, indeed, tracking cookies.
>
> While tc's may not be "dangerous" in a way akin, say, to a virus they
> can neverthless be an invasion of privacy

No, this is exactly the bullshit, as the tracking simply doesn't work at
any sane webbrowser configuration.

Heck, even non-webbrowser IE's configuration is only broken if and only
if the tracker is actively lying about its P3P policy, and almost none
does so - and for sure none of those who owned the "tracking cookies".
This little misconfiguration can be easily fixed and is fixed in IE7.

You may call them "tracking trial and failed cookies" indeed.

And damn, why do you store random cookies? Just allow cookies
session-wise and only explicitly store some from a whitelist.

Most likely you've got the flash plugin installed? Did you ever surf to
Macromedia's Flash Configuration Website and changed the defaults? If
not, then you do have some real tracking pseudo-cookies that almost none
(if any) so-called security program cares about.

Sebastian Gottschalk