Labs

When we last tested this product, it was called ewido anti-spyware and it did pretty well defending against the relatively small number of threats we fired at it. The interface remains the same as before and the program includes a number of privacy-related tools such as options to shred files, avoid notifying Microsoft when an infection appears on the system and prevent the system appearing in other computers' My Network Places.

Initially, we had problems installing the program on our clean Windows XP test system. The program incorrectly detected that we were running a 64-bit version of Windows and

The interface is less clunky than that of AVG Anti-Virus Free, the free anti-virus program from the same company, and the underlying options are powerful, resembling those that are often found in anti-virus programs. For example, it can scan within compressed files, and this could be the reason why its scanning detection beats that of many of its competitors. That said, its real-time detection was poor and it failed to recognise any of the spyware while it was being downloaded to the hard disk.

Manually scanning the system diagnosed over 90 per cent of the files as harmful, which is a strong performance. Not only that, but manually scanning the remaining files diagnosed all but one as spyware. As non-business users can install this software for free, it is possible to combine it with AVG Anti-Virus Free to get decent all-round protection without paying a bean. If you want the best, however, you'll have to pay for Steganos AntiVirus 2007.