yahoo vs msas

[j thomas]

i have msas and i run a scan and no spyware found ...
when i run yahoo anti-spy i receive results found many
number of spyware in the register ... is msas only set to
detect microsoft programs?

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

Exactly what was missed?
Microsoft AntiSpyware does not detect cookies in this build.

 

[Guest]

Yahoo anti-spyware uses pestpatrol, which is possibly one
of the worst legitimate anti-spyware scanners out there,
it has an almost incomprehensible number of false
positives. They (the pestpatol people) also seem to have
a policy of never removing false positives, no matter how
many times they are reported. (they [the pestpatrol
people] once acknowledged that a bad detection I reported
was a false positive, but said they would not correct it
because they leave it up to the user to decide to remove
or not) It almost seems as if they are trying to make
themselves look better by seeming to detect "more" than
the competition.

I would LOVE to see MS-AS move away from the direction of
pestpartol and towards the direction of Ad-Aware SE.

 

[reasley]

I had a similar experience. Spyware Doctor 3.2 identifies
47 items and MS AntiSpyware finds 0. I didn't look
closely at the 47 items, they could be cookies. The net
result is the MS product doesn't inspire high confidence.
May be an upfront paragraph of what it does and does not
do would be halpful.

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

I agree in that it would be helpful if it were more clear MCAS did not
detect cookies.
Perhaps in Beta 2 there will be something more clear if cookies are still
not detected.
It would not surprise me if cookie detection was not a part of the final
build.

Cookies are really harmless text files easily controllable within Internet
Explorer.
Tools/Internet Options Privacy tab

One reason other spyware tools are so aggressive with cookies is it gives
them easy high numbers for spyware detection, better for their marketing.
Note your own statement about confidence.

I wish the detection capability was there for the benefit of less
experienced users, but for my computers, it will not change anything whether
the capability is there or not.

 

[monkeywrench]

"Harmless text files", not so much.

MS Anti-spyware's lack of cookie detection makes this product incomplete.
Cookies are indeed harmless text files, but they count as spyware, because the combination of the web browser you use and the websites you visit form a powerful tool for gathering information about what you do as you cruise the web. They are quite appropriately called "trackers" by other spyware detection products. Most web advertisers use cookies to collect statistics on visitors.
Not all websites use cookies, but every cookie is associated with a particular website, and there may be several cookies for a site or family of sites. Cookies are created and edited by the sites you visit, each time you visit. Cookies are stored in the browser's cache in your user profile area, under your login name. They can be set to persist for decades (gmail).
So an existing cookie is evidence that a site was visited by someone using that browser under your account, on that computer, at that time on that day.
Cookies can maintain persistent information about what you look at at a particular website.
Some cookies can pose privacy risks, as they may contain the username and password you used for a particular website, if you elected to "remember me?" on the site's login page. This certainly uniquely identifies you.

It would be great if we could just turn off cookies completely, but some sites refuse to work if you do this. The best you can do is to adjust your browser's settings to treat all cookies as "session" cookies - automatically deleted when the browser is closed. Some browsers let you decide the fate of cookies on a site-by-site basis, and warn you when cookies are created.

Current wisdom seems to be to use multiple spyware detection programs simultaneously. This means don't stop at MSAS, use Spybot Search & Destroy, as well as Lavasoft AdAware, for the best coverage.

For novice users, false positives are a hassle, but nobody believes anymore that using (and maintaining) a computer is easy.