Jackie said:
MS AntiSpyware reports the system is clean. 2 minutes
later, ran SpyAudit from webroot. It reports 1 trojan, 3
Adware & 12 cookies.
Either webroot is trying to get me to buy Spy Sweeper or
there is a significant deficiency in Microsoft's
AntiSpyware product.
What gives?
Microsoft AntiSPYWARE detects SPYWARE, not *trojans*. Cookies aren't
spyware. Adware isn't necessarily spyware (presenting banners in
freeware that you elected to install is adware which may or may phone
home with info regarding your activities). You gave no specifics so
don't expect an equivalent reply.
Did SpyAudit actually tell you on what it triggered when it purportedly
declared that you had these items? If so, did you check if you actually
had them? Perhaps they provide manual eradication instructions which
would delineate what it triggered on and what you need to do to remove
the item. If you don't find any of those items then it was a false
positive.
You really expect just one anti-spyware product to discover all malware
there exists that might infect your computer? Start employing other
anti-malware scanners to keep your system clean: Ad-Aware, Spybot S&D,
MS AntiSpyware, online PestScan, anti-virus program, a firewall with
outbound application rules, and some form of IDS (intrusion detection
system), like WinPatrol, Spybot's TeaTimer, or Prevx Home.
Webroot has their online pest scanner and it has reported 2 infections
that never existed on my system. Nothing of what was described in their
manual eradication instructions was found on my system and scans by
several other products turned up nothing, too. Spy Sweeper has had some
big blunders. It would detect spyware if you had a Finance folder under
your Favorites
(and its "fix" was to delete the folder so you would lose your URL
shortcuts in that folder). It would detect an INF file by its filename
rather than inspect its contents.
