Lab

Anti-Spyware Software

Spyware and adware are a growing threat. Simply browsing the wrong website can cause your system to become infected with software that will, at best, annoy you with pop-up adverts and slow your system down. If you're unlucky, you will encounter spyware capable of stealing personal, financial details.

As we went to press the MySpace website, which acts as an online social hub for millions of users, had just recovered from a spyware infestation. The site itself didn't send the spyware to users directly, but some of the banner adverts it displayed did. Using a relatively recent Windows security hole, the spyware installed itself on over a million systems.

Website adverts are often delivered to users using third-party advertising companies, and if a rogue advert is provided by one of these it may appear on hundreds of sites. These sites could be completely respectable, so restricting yourself and your family to the wholesome parts of the internet is not enough to protect your computer from spyware.

Most anti-virus programs aren't geared up to the spyware and adware threat, although some are moving in this direction. While gathering samples for this test, the anti-virus program (Kaspersky Internet Security 6) installed on the research system regularly alerted us before the anti-spyware software had a chance to do so. In many cases, though, you will need a dedicated anti-spyware program to protect yourself from infection and to remove spyware and adware if it has already made its way on to your computer.

RESIDENT EVIL

As with anti-virus software, anti-spyware utilities have two general ways of protecting the system. Commercial software provides so-called resident protection, which means that it sits in the background and monitors files that are copied to the system and run. This real-time protection is essential to keep your system up and running smoothly, although it can slow down Windows - but not as much as a spyware infection would.

On-demand protection comes with both commercial and free utilities, and works by allowing you to scan a system that may already be infected. The scanner attempts to pick up malicious files and entries in the Windows Registry, and may also check web browser cookies. Take cookie alerts with a pinch of salt. They are nowhere near as critical as rogue executable files that are set to run automatically every time Windows boots up.

Our comparative test of anti-spyware software includes a mixture of free utilities and commercial programs you have to pay for. In general, the free ones are on-demand scanners and with one you have to upgrade and pay a licence fee to obtain real-time resident protection.

FINE LINE

It is getting harder to distinguish between spyware, adware, viruses, Trojans and keyloggers. Some of the bad files we used to test the anti-spyware software are readily available on the internet and can be downloaded to give access to free software, video clips and other downloads. We would classify these files as adware and when they prove hard to remove, they become spyware.

We have also included a rootkit from our anti-virus test in Shopper June 2006, which could be classified as a Trojan, a backdoor or even a keylogger, because it performs multiple functions, none of them good. The reason it forms part of this test is that downloading adware can be just the start of your problems; once it has a hold, it could expose your PC to all sorts of files. Some of these will be Trojans, backdoors and rootkits, so it is reasonable to expect an anti-spyware program to detect these sorts of threats.