Adware, key loggers, and other spyware can send personal information about you out to the wired world, as well as make your machine run sluggishly. Spyware-removal tools are as important as firewall and antivirus packages these days. We covered nine removal tools in our April 22, 2003 issue, but we never thought our last-place entry would improve so much within two seasons. Webroot’s Spy Sweeper 2.1 (yearly subscription, $29.95) is now a viable choice.
The slick new version sets up by default to run when Windows is started and will prevent your machine in real time from installing or activating spyware.
When a snoop is found, the program identifies and defines it to the user and prompts for permission to scan and quarantine it. You can then decide whether to delete it and other offenders permanently. Spyware you may have to live with is also identified. For instance, Spy Sweeper tells you that Cydoor Peer-to-Peer Dependency is necessary to keep Kazaa or a similar client running.
A subscription product, Spy Sweeper automatically updates itself with what seems to be a wonderfully current database. The program found a couple of spyware apps and traces that even our previous Editors’ Choice, SpyBot Search & Destroy, left happily running on our test systems (although these do not seem particularly malicious).
