Reader Comments

Yawn!

I hope they fix their auto-update, because it hasn't worked correctly for the last 2 releases. And all these conspiracy theories about MS "suddenly" downgrading their rating of Gator software are bogus: In January the AntiSpyware product detected the software, but you still had to ask it to remove the junk. Rather use Ad-Aware: it works properly, unlike the MS product which is free but basically useless. http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

Question regarding this software... Microsoft's Anti-Spyware beta is formerly Giant Company's Anti-Spyware tool. (if you don't believe me, just look at your running processes. The anti-spyware runs gcasDtServ.exe and gcasServ.exe, gcas standing for (G)iant (C)ompany (A)nti (S)pyware, is my guess. Given that this was a fully developed and commercially available product before M$ whipped out the cheque book, why has it spent so long in beta??

It's not a secret that Microsoft bought the product from Giant... There have been many news around that earlier this year.

Yer you muppet

"And all these conspiracy theories about MS "suddenly" downgrading their rating of Gator software are bogus:" -- WRONG. If you read MS's own accord of the issue they basically snooze some answer about letting the vendors have a re-evaluation of their product so their not considered sypware. Most believe that MS is going to buy Gator / Claira and thats the reason it has been changed to "Ignore" insetad of remove. -Gator is still MalWare so who cares what Gates says on that.

Just in time: informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=166400349 "A bug in Windows that went public last week may be worse than originally thought, Microsoft confirmed Saturday in a weekend advisory. One security analyst fears that the vulnerability -- which for now looks limited to a denial-of-service attack -- may soon be found to cause more severe problems for Windows users. According to the Security Advisory posted Saturday, the bug in Windows Remote Desktop Service affects not just Windows XP SP2, as originally thought, but all the supported editions of Windows, including Windows 2000, Windows XP SP1, Windows XP Professional x64, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 SP1, and Windows Server x64." Another critical exploit found in Windows code, just goes to show, security through obscurity just does not work. Where is the outrage?! "Windows is a security nightmare." - Paul Thurrot

"Where is the outrage?!" You again? Security bugs crop up in operating systems all the time. Including Linux, and Mac OS X. Why WOULD there be outrage. Do you honestly believe that an Operating System can be totally, completely, 100% security bug free? You clearly just WANT there to be outrage, because you don't like Windows. Meanwhile, those of us with common sense, will just wait for the patch, install it, and carry on quite happily using Windows.

Paul, stop copying information off Steve Dodsons blog and claiming you were in contact with company over this.

I have tried using Ad-Aware, not bad for being a free product. I have also tried using Microsoft's new product, not as pleasant. My favorite is Computer Associates' PestPatrol Anti-Spyware. It isn't free but far beats the competition with detection and removal. I've been in the business long enough to know that "free" is NOT a good substitute for quality.

I have tried using Ad-Aware, not bad for being a free product. I have also tried using Microsoft's new product, not as pleasant. My favorite is Computer Associates' PestPatrol Anti-Spyware. It isn't free but far beats the competition with detection and removal. I've been in the business long enough to know that "free" is NOT a good substitute for quality.

"the company told me", "I have been in contact with Micro$oft" and "I can tell you exclusively" are three of Paul's favorite phrases.

You complain about Paul and rip on his quality. So why read his column... I know; he's good!

Apple Computer's share of the personal computer market jumped 33 percent in the U.S. during the second quarter, to 4.5% from 3.7% a year ago, as reported by IDC. There were 658,000 units shipped in Q2 2005 compared to 495,000 in the same quarter last year. The increase puts Apple in fourth place among manufacturers. Worldwide shipments of personal computers had a 16.6 percent growth in the second quarter. PC vendors shipped a total of 46.6 million units in the second quarter, up from 39.9 million units last year. “This kind of growth in the PC market is just amazing,” says Loren Loverde, director of IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker. “At some point we expect the flood of consumer and portable demand to let up, but so far falling prices and demand across regions and market segments continues to support growth. Such consistent growth raises the prospect that the recent replacement wave is being supplanted by growing adoption that could sustain higher growth into the future.”

Hey, Yawn guy..........shut the *** up already!

Read it and weep Micro$oft fanatics, evidence the iPod Halo effect is in full swing: iht.com/articles/2005/07/19/business/pcsales.php Apple passes Lenovo in U.S. computer sales "SAN FRANCISCO Apple Computer moved up a notch to become the No.4 seller of personal computers in the United States in the second quarter as Macintosh sales soared by one-third, according to two reports. Apple won 4.5 percent of the market to trail Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Gateway, the market research company IDC said Monday in a report. IDC's rival Gartner put Apple's share at 4.3 percent. Mac shipments rose 33 percent, almost triple the 12 percent rise in overall U.S. sales of personal computers, IDC said. Apple said last week that Mac shipments had reached a five-year high, spurred by an accessory, the iPod digital music player."

I started out using Adaware & Spybot S&D together and had pretty good results in the beginning of spyware wars. I threw the Microsoft beta into the mix and was able to find and fix more of the side effects and restore browser settings. Not bad for free stuff though. I started running into more & more machines that just had to be reloaded as spyware matured. I'm now running Smantec AV Corp v10 which treats spyware the same as a virus. No machines that were loaded with it at the outset have become infected. No Ambiguous tray pops about setting changes. I have loaded it on machines post infection that I would have had to reload and have gotten good (not perfect) results. Binet (doesn't remove shell extension, have to do manually) and marketscore (Can't delete dll, will try in ERD Commander enviroment) are particularly nasty. Overall the job gets done faster (enough to justify the price) than using the other 3 to clean a machine. Best of all I can deploy it and the end users can't screw with the settings.

Oh boy... the unrelated inaccurate Apple spam begins...

"Read it and weep Micro$oft fanatics" Weep? Lol. If I ever weeped from anything I read here, it would be a case of extreme pity for people like you :P.

>Hey, Yawn guy..........shut the *** up already! I read your post. Then I yawned and went back to bed. Get over it. Its a game of first post just using Paul's favorite term. So go fu*ck yourself or play the game.

--" Its a game of first post just using Paul's favorite term. So go fu*ck yourself or play the game."-- Yes, let them play their game. Mac users only have like, what, six games to play on their Mac, and that is one of them... *rotfl*

better then the widows game. find the virus. or how about. run for your life, its MSBlaster.

Anyone else find it really hysterical that Windows is so poorly designed that its creator has to sell an anti-spyware package just to keep it clean?

According to Reuters, Mac marketshare went up to 5% just last year! With increased sales expected this quarter, it's goinåg to go up even more. Coupled with having 16% of the world's install base of computers, Microsoft is running for cover and abandoning .NET in Longhorn.

"And all these conspiracy theories about MS "suddenly" downgrading their rating of Gator software are bogus: In January the AntiSpyware product detected the software, but you still had to ask it to remove the junk." Uh, how does that make it bogus? Microsoft changed the recommended action for one of the most notorious pieces of software to "Ignore" instead of "Remove," right around talks to purchase the company. Irregardless, it's a crappy anti-spyware product if it isn't going to even recommend removing Claria junk.

To those saying that this software is 'useless' I would point out that it's extremely well done and, unlike other products, runs both in realtime, and preset autoscan. Yesterday, it caught a 'remote control'hack on a friend's (business!)computer -which was easily deleted. If it had stayed -he could have been in deep trouble. It doesn't yet detect all forms of spyware -but hey folks, it's still in beta!

Beta or not, many nitwits (including some who troll here) think it should be perfect. Show me a program that is perfect, or bug-free. It's not possible. Programs are created by humans. Humans aren't perfect.