MS Antispyware Beta vs. Ad-Aware SE Personal

[Ales]

When runing fullsystem Scan under MS Antispyware Beta
(with new definitions) no spyware is found. Then runing
Ad-Aware finds 6 data miners. What to do? Am I doing
something wrong or MS Antispyware is so poor?

Ales

 

[Mikolaj]

When runing fullsystem Scan under MS Antispyware Beta

(with new definitions) no spyware is found. Then runing
Ad-Aware finds 6 data miners. What to do? Am I doing
something wrong or MS Antispyware is so poor?

Ales

If you would just look at earlier posts before writing, you coud find the
information, that MSAS does not look for cookies and dataminest (in Beta 1
version) as Ad-Aware and other antispyware do.
It may change in Beta 2, however.

 

[Mikolaj]

Excuse me the typos

 

[Andre Da Costa]

"Tracking" Cookies in Anti-Spyware Applications
posted Wednesday, February 23, 2005 12:07 PM by stevedod
As a user of many anti-spyware applications over the years, one item has
always bothered me when removed by antispyware applications. That item is
"tracking" cookies. Many people in the industry know what cookies are, and
how they can be used, but I do not think my parents would know anything
about cookies. In my opinion, the industry has created a scare tactic in
order to make a "problem" seem worse than it really is. I see this a lot
when people are reporting that one program is better than another in respect
to cookies. I really do not see how someone can make that argument. I can
write a program which deletes n+1 files if I want until I reach a point
where there are no more files to delete.
So why is this a problem?? Users do not know what files are good or bad, and
therefore rely on the application to determine this for them. But if I am
the programmer for another application, I could delete all good and bad
files and then say... " We delete more files than Product X." The end user
then says... "Of course..I want the other product...more is better!!" These
users will then end up losing some settings which were never malicious in
the first place. This leads me to the last thought...
Cookies by themselves are not malicious; they are text files with settings.
Cookies can be a part of some application which calls on the text file in
order to send information to a 3rd party, but end the end, they are only
text files. In order for "tracking" cookies to be of use, a corresponding
application needs to be running in the background and grab information off
this file. I think this is where anti-spyware applications need to be
focusing their efforts - removal of the application which uses these text
files instead of blowing away all good and bad cookies.
I think the cookie argument will go on for a while, but as long as the end
user cannot discern what is good versus what is bad, the industry needs to
work on improving the logic of removing applications as opposed to deleting
all cookies.

--
Andre
Extended64 | http://www.extended64.com
Blog | http://www.extended64.com/blogs/andre
http://spaces.msn.com/members/adacosta
FAQ for MS AntiSpy http://www.geocities.com/marfer_mvp/FAQ_MSantispy.htm

 

[R. McCarty]

Interesting perspective. Cookies has always been an issue in my
opinion. Before IE provided more functionality with dealing with
Cookies, I purchased and used the program Cookie Pal.

Until recently, I had IE's override set to "Prompt" for 1st party &
"Block" 3rd party. Over the course of a years use, I had over 500
Cookies on my system. Recently, I decided to review all of those
and maybe re-work what Cookies can and cannot be stored on my
machine. I purged all the Cookies and P3P tables in the Registry
and went through each Favorite site one at a time. Out of 632 sites,
I ended up with only 99 static Cookies. There will probably be some
loss of functionality on a few of those sites, but nothing significant.
I rebuilt the Allow/Block table to keep allot of those questionable
cookies off my machine.

I also removed a handful of "Trusted Sites" from my Zone settings
and left all sites in the Internet Zone.

I'm not convinced that Cookie Analysis should be a "Default" action
with ASW. Maybe Cookie analysis should be one of the Advanced
Tools options.

 

[Grafis]

"Tracking" Cookies in Anti-Spyware Applications
posted Wednesday, February 23, 2005 12:07 PM by stevedod
As a user of many anti-spyware applications over the years, one item has
always bothered me when removed by antispyware applications. That item is
"tracking" cookies. Many people in the industry know what cookies are, and
how they can be used, but I do not think my parents would know anything
about cookies. In my opinion, the industry has created a scare tactic in
order to make a "problem" seem worse than it really is. I see this a lot
when people are reporting that one program is better than another in respect
to cookies. I really do not see how someone can make that argument. I can
write a program which deletes n+1 files if I want until I reach a point
where there are no more files to delete.
So why is this a problem?? Users do not know what files are good or bad, and
therefore rely on the application to determine this for them. But if I am
the programmer for another application, I could delete all good and bad
files and then say... " We delete more files than Product X." The end user
then says... "Of course..I want the other product...more is better!!" These
users will then end up losing some settings which were never malicious in
the first place. This leads me to the last thought...
Cookies by themselves are not malicious; they are text files with settings.
Cookies can be a part of some application which calls on the text file in
order to send information to a 3rd party, but end the end, they are only
text files. In order for "tracking" cookies to be of use, a corresponding
application needs to be running in the background and grab information off
this file. I think this is where anti-spyware applications need to be
focusing their efforts - removal of the application which uses these text
files instead of blowing away all good and bad cookies.
I think the cookie argument will go on for a while, but as long as the end
user cannot discern what is good versus what is bad, the industry needs to
work on improving the logic of removing applications as opposed to deleting
all cookies.

I've never seen an AS program delete all cookies, just highlight a few
from such past abusers of cookies as Doubleclick with the option to
delete (Doubleclick deserves every delete they get).
It is very hard to convince people that most cookies are inocuous and
that the real issue with cookies is storing your passwords and important
info in them as in the past IE has had security holes which allowed
access the the files, spyware or other malicious programs that once on
your machine might be able to harvest them in some manner (no idea, just
guessing!!) and if your computer is stolen someone has all your base so
to speak.

It will be very very interesting to see what programs etc. Microsoft
lists as Spyware and removes once this product goes live, lots of
pressure these days to be unlisted....

 

[plun]

Grafis explained :

I've never seen an AS program delete all cookies, just highlight a few from
such past abusers of cookies as Doubleclick with the option to delete
(Doubleclick deserves every delete they get).
It is very hard to convince people that most cookies are inocuous and that
the real issue with cookies is storing your passwords

Urrrrrk ! storing logins and passwords within cookies............
must be an MS invention ! I know that some sites using MD5 but
it is totally out of control to handle logins with cookies.

and important info in
them as in the past IE has had security holes which allowed access the the
files, spyware or other malicious programs that once on your machine might be
able to harvest them in some manner (no idea, just guessing!!) and if your
computer is stolen someone has all your base so to speak.

Yup, your PC can also be remotely controlled with a trojan. ZombiePC.

It will be very very interesting to see what programs etc. Microsoft lists as
Spyware and removes once this product goes live, lots of pressure these days
to be unlisted....

Well, MS tactic is to not list anything about defs/removals and maybe
its a good tactic for MS

And it is a big difference between tracking cookies/dataminers and just
cookies.

But do NOT store any logins/passwords within cookies these days.

IMHO

 

[Mikolaj]

Urrrrrk ! storing logins and passwords within cookies............

must be an MS invention ! I know that some sites using MD5 but
it is totally out of control to handle logins with cookies.

Hmmm.. as far as I know passwords to web pages are not stored in the
cookies, they are stored within the registry, in the Protected Storage
System.

 

[Guest]

I experienced the same issue. Antispyware found nothing, Adaware found 10
items and 22 MRUs.

I'm running multiple scan products because they all find items the others do
not.....................

What about a better immunization process?

Dave D

 

[Bill Sanderson]

So--check the 10 items and see if any of them are not cookies?

--