Is Spyware Terminator good?

[Tony Houghton]

I'm looking for decent malware protection. I mainly used to use AVG, but
it didn't seem at all effective so I switched to Avast. It isn't much
more effective and has a ridiculouse GUI and intrusive updating. It
seems to be a bit better than AVG at detecting infections, but if they
were doing their job properly they shouldn't let the infection get onto
the PC in the first place.

I decided I'd have to pay for something better, and as I have 4 PCs to
protect I was thinking of using F-Prot, because it seems to be fairly
highly rated and you can use one licence on up to 5 PCs and it's still
cheaper than a single machine licence for NOD32 or Kapersky.

Then I started looking at free anti-spyware programs. At least one
review site said AdAware and Spybot had fallen behind the times and I
came across a strong recommendation for Spyware Terminator. It includes
real-time protection in the free version and also includes integration
with ClamAV so it protects against viruses as well. Is this likely to
offer good protection on its own or should I still buy F-Prot too?

 

[FredW]

Tony Houghton brought next idea :

I'm looking for decent malware protection.

It is up to you to believe any "review" you read,
but usually the "review" is sponsored by one of the contestants.

Maybe you can read this:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/page.php?id=20

 

[Victek]

I'm looking for decent malware protection. I mainly used to use AVG, but

it didn't seem at all effective so I switched to Avast. It isn't much
more effective and has a ridiculouse GUI and intrusive updating. It
seems to be a bit better than AVG at detecting infections, but if they
were doing their job properly they shouldn't let the infection get onto
the PC in the first place.

I decided I'd have to pay for something better, and as I have 4 PCs to
protect I was thinking of using F-Prot, because it seems to be fairly
highly rated and you can use one licence on up to 5 PCs and it's still
cheaper than a single machine licence for NOD32 or Kapersky.

Then I started looking at free anti-spyware programs. At least one
review site said AdAware and Spybot had fallen behind the times and I
came across a strong recommendation for Spyware Terminator. It includes
real-time protection in the free version and also includes integration
with ClamAV so it protects against viruses as well. Is this likely to
offer good protection on its own or should I still buy F-Prot too?

I use SpywareTerminator (ST). It appears to work as advertised and it's
"real-time shield" makes it the best freeware AS available. Be aware that
in early 2006 ST was added to the suspect list at spywarewarrior.com not
because of problems with the software, but because of concerns with the
company. It was removed from the list three months later. I mention this
because there are some people that still wont use ST because of this
incident and continue to tell others not to use it. I think people should
make up their own minds. If you want to find out more about this use the
link below and do a text-search on the page for spywareterminator.

http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm

By the way, the Crawler Toolbar comes bundled with SpywareTerminator, but
installing it is optional (watch for and uncheck the box during the
installation). I prefer not to use it, but have no opionion about it one
way or the other at this point.

 

[Victek]

Then I started looking at free anti-spyware programs. At least one

I use SpywareTerminator (ST). It appears to work as advertised and it's
"real-time shield" makes it the best freeware AS available. Be aware that
in early 2006 ST was added to the suspect list at spywarewarrior.com not
because of problems with the software, but because of concerns with the
company. It was removed from the list three months later. I mention this
because there are some people that still wont use ST because of this
incident and continue to tell others not to use it. I think people should
make up their own minds. If you want to find out more about this use the
link below and do a text-search on the page for spywareterminator.

http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm

By the way, the Crawler Toolbar comes bundled with SpywareTerminator, but
installing it is optional (watch for and uncheck the box during the
installation). I prefer not to use it, but have no opinion about it one
way or the other at this point.

Regarding your question about antivirus, SpywareTerminator does include
ClamAV, but if you're looking for freeware Antivirus go with Active Virus
Shield (www.activevirusshield.com). It is offered by AOL and is rebranded
Kaspersky 6.X Antivirus. Again, there is an optional AOL toolbar included -
just uncheck the box during the installation of you don't want it.

 

[Tony Houghton]

In <[email protected]>,

How does it compare with SpywareBlaster? That has a similar aim - to
prevent malware ever being installed - but seems to do it in a different
way by installing protection into IE and Firefox. Probably a good idea
to use both?

Regarding your question about antivirus, SpywareTerminator does include
ClamAV, but if you're looking for freeware Antivirus go with Active Virus
Shield (www.activevirusshield.com). It is offered by AOL and is rebranded
Kaspersky 6.X Antivirus. Again, there is an optional AOL toolbar included -
just uncheck the box during the installation of you don't want it.

Thanks for that. Being based on Kapersky should make it pretty solid,
but I hope it isn't going to want to reboot after every update like it
did after the initial one.

 

[Tony Houghton]

In <[email protected]>,

Tony Houghton brought next idea :

It is up to you to believe any "review" you read,
but usually the "review" is sponsored by one of the contestants.

Maybe you can read this:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/page.php?id=20

Thanks. For AV I decided to try AVS from AOL/Kapersky instead of
Antivir, the best rated on majorgeeks, but for anti spyware I looked at
SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard. The latter doesn't seem to have had any
updates since 2004, so should I consider it defunct?

 

[FredW]

Tony Houghton explained on 24-7-2007 :

Thanks. For AV I decided to try AVS from AOL/Kapersky instead of
Antivir, the best rated on majorgeeks, but for anti spyware I looked at
SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard. The latter doesn't seem to have had any
updates since 2004, so should I consider it defunct?

SpywareBlaster (and SpywareGuard) are passive, but preventive.
Other antispyware is usually repressive (afterwards).
I do not use SpywareBlaster as I use Mozilla Firefox and not IE.

For antispyware I use (all freeware):
- Comodo Anti Malware (ex BOClean) (preventive)
http://www.comodo.com/boclean/boclean.html
(BOClean was used and recommended by many people!)

Weekly I scan (= afterwards) with:
- AdAware
http://www.lavasoft.com/
- Spybot
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/
- SuperAntiSpyware
http://www.superantispyware.com/
(new in the field, very good results)

Additionally I scan with:
- A-squared Free
http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/
(second opinion, overlap between anti-virus and anti-spyware)

As SpywareGuard is not updated (any more?),
I would prefer SpywareBlaster, which I recommend to friends.
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareguard.html
(both from the same company)

 

[Tony Houghton]

In <[email protected]>,

I do not use SpywareBlaster as I use Mozilla Firefox and not IE.

I use Firefox too. SwB claims to protect that as well. Is it really only
IE that needs protecting because of ActiveX etc?

 

[FredW]

Tony Houghton was thinking very hard :

In <[email protected]>,


I use Firefox too. SwB claims to protect that as well. Is it really only
IE that needs protecting because of ActiveX etc?

In my opinion: Yes.

I use Firefox with "NoScript".
I keep cookies "until I close Firefox".
That should be sufficient.

 

[Victek]

I use SpywareTerminator (ST). It appears to work as advertised and it's

How does it compare with SpywareBlaster? That has a similar aim - to
prevent malware ever being installed - but seems to do it in a different
way by installing protection into IE and Firefox. Probably a good idea
to use both?


Thanks for that. Being based on Kapersky should make it pretty solid,
but I hope it isn't going to want to reboot after every update like it
did after the initial one.

I believe SpywareBlaster works by adding a database of bad Active-X controls
and sites to the registry so they are automatically blocked if encountered
by the browser. SpywareTerminator filters based on a database too, but also
has a HIPS component (Host Intrusion Prevention System) that blocks
suspicious activity and pops up warnings/permissions requests. I use both
and consider them complementary. There is also Comodo BoClean Anti-Malware
which is supposed to catch and kill malware in memory. I think it's a good
addition as long as it gets along with everything else. At one point it and
SpywareTerminator seemed to be stepping on each other so I've stopped using
BoClean for now.

Glad you like Kaspersky AVS. I can confirm that it doesn't usually require
a reboot after updates.

 

[Tony Houghton]

In <[email protected]>,

I believe SpywareBlaster works by adding a database of bad Active-X controls
and sites to the registry so they are automatically blocked if encountered
by the browser. SpywareTerminator filters based on a database too, but also
has a HIPS component (Host Intrusion Prevention System) that blocks
suspicious activity and pops up warnings/permissions requests. I use both
and consider them complementary. There is also Comodo BoClean Anti-Malware
which is supposed to catch and kill malware in memory. I think it's a good
addition as long as it gets along with everything else. At one point it and
SpywareTerminator seemed to be stepping on each other so I've stopped using
BoClean for now.

That's the trouble; some combinations get in each other's way :-(.

Glad you like Kaspersky AVS. I can confirm that it doesn't usually require
a reboot after updates.

I'm not so sure I like it now. I tried to uninstall it to try BoClean.
It said it needed a reboot at the end of uninstallation so I rebooted.
AVS came up again, completely unaffected by the uninstaller, but my
LAN driver had been deleted. Luckily the uninstaller worked properly on
the second attempt. Looks like it's more AOL than Kapersky.