Conflict with Opera

[Gene Goldenfeld]

I've found that there's a conflict between Spyware Beta 1 and Opera
(7.54, 8b1) when used with the utility Bookmark Buddy (formerly URL
Organizer). URLs take 3-5 seconds to start to open, instead of being
instantaneous. Based on a couple of short tests, this doesn't happen
with IE6. At first, I thought it was the real-time protection module,
but that's not it. It's been confirmed with BB's developer (and
reported to Opera). Thought MS should know as well.

GG

 

[Bill Sanderson]

Thanks for the report.

 

[Gene Goldenfeld]

Thanks for the report.

On second look, after uninstalling/reinstalling I deactivated the three
Real-time Protection pieces and there hasn't been a problem since.

GG

 

[Bill Sanderson]

You might want that real-time protection, though--that's a big piece of the
functionality of the program--I'd still call this a bug, and will try to
remember to check it out on the next release, if not sooner.

 

[Gene Goldenfeld]

Sure I want the rtp, but I don't want the hundreds of waits starting up
websites. In the meantime, wouldn't running the program everyday or so
nearly accomplish the same purpose? Previously, it ran for 30 mins, but
now it seems down to 5, which makes running it everyday practical.

Gene

 

[Bill Sanderson]

Take a good look at the descriptions of the monitoring checkpoints--as I
recall there are 50 something of them--all points at which software
integrates with the OS or with individual applications. It's pretty nice
getting notification immediately (well--sometimes it isn't as immediate as
it ought to be!) when something hooks one of these locations--do an app
install while Microsoft Antispyware is running to see what you hear about
that you wouldn't have otherwise had specific information about. When this
is a legit app you are installing yourself, this is probably noise. But if
you just clicked on "Click here to enter our fine website purveying the
finast warez" and suddenly something is being added to a startup item, you
might wake up.

Sure, scanning after the fact will find what's happened--if it is old enough
to already be in the definitions--but better to have stopped it in its
tracks on the way in the door.

 

[Bill Sanderson]

I don't want to leave the wrong impression--the perceptable waits are surely
unacceptable--if this isn't a bug, the program needs to be fixed so that
performance is acceptable--i.e. no perceptable performance issues.

 

[Gene Goldenfeld]

Given that it may be months before this delay is fixed... I'm not aware
that my computer has suffered from using other antispyware programs
periodically, so I'm guessing that it will make it until the problem is
resolved. Thanks for your advice.

Gene

 

[Gene Goldenfeld]

BTW, I started to dissect those multiple components of RTP, but when I
couldn't get some of them to reactivate and noticed how many possible
permutations there were, it seemed better to pass.

Gene

 

[Bill Sanderson]

I don't actually mean to suggest that you need to continue testing a beta
which doesn't perform acceptably on your machine. I've got it installed on
my mother-in-laws machine without the real-time functions running, simply
because at her age, she doesn't need any unexpected prompts popping up--and
I know there would be some. (and, fwiw, her machine came through clean on a
full scan.)

Yeah--theres a bug about re-activating some checkpoints--I haven't looked
into it but a number of folks have reported the same experience.

 

[Gene Goldenfeld]

I'm not sure who you're working for and if you are being paid to monitor
the group, yet I do want to say, Thank you for doing so.

Gene

 

[Bill Sanderson]

You're welcome! I'm not getting paid. I am a Microsoft MVP and have been
for a good many years. I happened to have the time free and an interest in
this topic--although I am by no means as expert as many other posters here
on matters of spyware removal.

 

[Gene Goldenfeld]

So, are you a conduit to the developers, or are they lurking on their
own?

Gene

 

[Bill Sanderson]

They lurk on their own--I don't know the precise mechanisms involved. If I
see something that I think is pretty high priority, there are other
communcation avenues I can pursue, but I actually have very little more
communication with anybody from Microsoft than the rest of us here.

I don't want to be a conduit, or to pretend to be one--they've got their own
systems for monitoring these groups and collating the feedback they get.

 

[Steve Dodson [MSFT]]

I will look into this a bit.

-steve

Steve Dodson [MSFT]
MCSE, CISSP
PSS Security

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