Defender Beta 2 (Needs some attention I think)

[Guest]

At this point, great program and I love it EXCEPT FOR ------ Why does it not
catch and stop adware, and the other types of low lovel junk that likes to
watch what you do on the Internet???????

Once a week I crank up my Spy Sweeper and run it and I always come up with
12-15 cookies that are the same each week and in my opinion that type of junk
should be stopped by Defender. Before I shut off Spy Sweeper and stopped it
from runnning in the background that program always stopped that type of
stuff !!!!!!

Yes I know it is Beta, but come on MS this is now part of OneCare Live to
which I have a paid one year subscription to and Defender is still not
catching and stoping these cookies from these very basic annoying types of
adware and what ever the other stuff is called.

If Defender is not going to stop this stuff/junk then will MS change the
program so I can run Spy Sweeper all of the time to catch and stop this stuff
and not cause a conflict with Defender and OneCare.

Maybe MVP Bill Sanderson would be kind enough to way in on this, if so thank
you very much Bill for any comments/background that you may be able to
provide.

 

[Guest]

Larry,
The problem is that there is a debate in the Anti Adware/Spyware world about
cookies. Cookies are not progams. The do not install software. The majority
of sites use them. They can't hurt your computer.

Windows Defender does not check cookies. Most of the Anti Spyware/Adware
programs that I use have the option to check for cookies or not. I usually
let the 1st Progam (Ad-Aware) take care of them when It does an on-demand
scan. After that the other programs don't find them.

But these programs are not proactive (real-time). They do not stop cookies,
they remove them after the fact. I would not want my Proactive (Real Time)
protection (Windows Defender) to waste its (and my) system resources and time
dealing with cookies. Since you should always have more than one type of
Spyware/Adware protection I would rather have the proactive one deal with
real threats and let the other programs deal with things that might have
slipped through or minor things like cookies when I do an on-demand scan.

?
Tim
Geek w/o Portfolio

Dell 280 Optiplex
3.2Ghz Pent 4, 1 GB Ram
Windows XP SP2 fully patched
WD Real Time Protection Enabled
WD CheckPoint in SysRest "Disabled"
WD Updates thru Windows Update (prompted)
No AutoScanning, Manual Quick Scan Every 2 Days
=====================================

 

[Bill Sanderson MVP]

This has been a debate since day 1 of the beta. Here's what the current faq
has to say:

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/about/faq.mspx


Q. Why doesn't Windows Defender (Beta 2) detect cookies? Does Microsoft plan
to detect these in future versions of the software?
A. Because many cookies are used for legitimate purposes, Microsoft plans to
refine the approach to cookies based on customer feedback received during
the beta period. You can currently manage cookies through your Web browser.


Each new version of Internet Explorer has improved cookie handling--and IE7
is no exception.

Personally, I don't worry about them, but when I do run another product that
makes specific recommendations about cookies, I do delete those recommended.
But I don't go out of my way to do anything about them.

Take a look at the slider on the Privacy tab in Internet Explorer, and
experiment with setting it at higher settings.

 

[Guest]

Hello Larry,

In addition to what Tim and Bill mentionedl:
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/cookies.htm

http://www.grc.com/cookies.htm

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...de/en-gb/secureie.asp#xsltsection126121121120

For the benefit of the community reading this post, please rate the pºst.

I hope this post is helpful.

Let us know how it works ºut.

Еиçеl

 

[Guest]

Great response and make perfect sense, thank you very much !!!!!

 

[Guest]

Thank you Bill, I appreicate your reply.

 

[Guest]

Thank you for your information and web links, I will review/read them all.

 

[Guest]

Tim --- I re-read your comments and also closely looked at your signature
information at the bottom of your reply.

Why are you of the opinion that Adware and Spyware even tho they are only
cookies cannot harm you? I'm probably a paranoid old geezer, but for some
reason I do not like to have that stuff in my computer.

Second -- What do you only allow WD to do Quick scan every two days? I have
my WD set for 8:00 AM Quick scan daily and then once a month I do a manually
generated full scan. Does the scanning process hurt the hard drive in any
way, or maybe better yet does it wear out your hard drive or potentially
damage it if you scan to much or to often?

Thanks again for your comments I love to get information from intelligent
people who have insight into what is going on.

 

[Guest]

Larry,
I think if you read the posts from the other folks in the group that
followed mine and follow the links you'll find out more about the role of
cookies.

As to when I choose to scan.
First, I never have anything do anything on its own. I like to watch it do
what it does so I can evaluate the process.

Second, the product is beta. False positives are always possible. I
usually like to run all of my other products first to see if they find
anything. If Defender found something that they did not I would suspect a
false positive. This is for two reasons , first they are not Beta, they are
established and stable (of course they can and have had false positives too)
and secondly my third point below.

Third, I don't get Spyware/Adware. I practice Super Safe browsing. My
machine is fully patched and I update my McAfee antivirus every time I go
online. If I were to go to sites that I thought could be dangerous
(Hacker/Cracker sites, free music, movie or screensaver sites, porn sites,
etc ...) I would switch to U3 Firefox on my flash drive which has no activeX,
no media plugins, and has java and javascript turned off. And of course I
would never allow a site to install Anything.
So a quick scan every couple of days is really "belt and suspenders" stuff.
One day Ad-Aware, one day SpyBot, one day Yahoo AntiSpy, one day Defender,
You get the picture. Defender is my only proactive (realtime) protection and
i really use it for that purpose.

And no I don't think you are hurting your hard drive with the scanning
schedule you are using.

By the way. In todays computer world paranoids are right more often than not.

?
Tim
Geek w/o Portfolio

Dell 280 Optiplex
3.2Ghz Pent 4, 1 GB Ram
Windows XP SP2 fully patched
WD Real Time Protection Enabled
WD CheckPoint in SysRest "Disabled"
WD Updates thru Windows Update (prompted)
No AutoScanning, Manual Quick Scan Every 2 Days
=====================================

 

[Guest]

Tim --- Again I think you very much for your insightful comments. I really
appreicate comments such as yours and someone who will take the time to share
information for the benefit of all, particuliarly those who are very
knowledgeable such as yourself !! I'm an old geezer and make every effort to
learn something new EVERY day.

 

[Guest]

Hi - you say you do a quick scan daily and a manually generated full scan
once a month. This is one of my pet peeves with this program -- I find that
I can only get a Full system scan if I schedule it for every day or one day a
week (the choice is for Full or Quick). If I click on Scan (now) for
spyware, it only does a quick scan (5 min. tops) and I have no choice as to
using quick scan or full system scan with the manually generated scan. I can
tell when it is doing a full scan as it takes a long time and keeps hitting
my 3 1/2" floppy drive over and over again even though it is not included in
my request. Where do you get the choice for a "scan now" full system scan?

 

[Guest]

I go to the Defender Home page and click on the small white arrow to the
immediate right of the word "Scan" and It gives me the option of quick or
full scan. I click on Full Scan and it runs, and to me it is a full scan
because is does take much longer to run than the quick scan.

 

[Guest]

I have MS Live OneCare which includes this program even though it is in Beta
(I signed up Windows Anti-Spyware then Windows Defender before I paid for
OneCare). It is weird that it took a while for MS to add the anti-spyware
program to OneCare even though the website showed it as included as part of a
comparison of products.

Thanks for the tip -- it should be on the program interface but any place I
can get it is OK. Really appreciate it!

 

[Guest]

Well, I couldn't find the stupid arrow or even Scan on the Windows Defender
Home Page but NOW I know where to find the choice on the program itself. I
am so stupid. Right next to Scan on the Windows Defender interface, there is
an almost hidden arrow to the right and a drop down box. I can't believe it.
THANKS.

 

[Guest]

Your Welcome !!!
--
Larry D

Well, I couldn't find the stupid arrow or even Scan on the Windows Defender
Home Page but NOW I know where to find the choice on the program itself. I
am so stupid. Right next to Scan on the Windows Defender interface, there is
an almost hidden arrow to the right and a drop down box. I can't believe it.
THANKS.