SillyDog701

[Fulvio]

I have one major gripe with 8.1 antispyware. It gives some "problems", but I don't see any way to identify them. Where are they, are they somewhere on the hard drive, etc. It is interesting that it tells me that I have a "Drop Spam", and what it does is Adware, and also an Advanged KEYLOGGER, which is, of course a Key Logger.
I am not impressed by a program which finds spyware, and gives me no clue about it, like Adaware and Spybot S&D.
Is there any reason to trust this program?

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322) Netscape/8.1

[James]

Hi Fulvio

Why don't you either download a trial version of CounterSpy and run that OR download the free spyware program from MS (MS Anti-Spyware) and see if you can't single out that keylogger and get rid of it?

As for NS 8? I got rid of mine. Just didn't see any advantage to running it anymore.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.1) Gecko/20060111 Firefox/1.5.0.1

[Fulvio]

James,
a full scan of Adaware finds nothing, and nothing is found by Spybot S & D. I, just, don't trust the NS8.1 thing. I remember that when I had AOL, they had a Spyware scanner, which kept finding some Keylogger, and believe it or not, when I removed I could not log in AOL.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.1) Gecko/20060111 Firefox/1.5.0.1

[macallan1824]

I have one major gripe with 8.1 antispyware. It gives some "problems", but I don't see any way to identify them. Where are they, are they somewhere on the hard drive, etc.

The 8.1 spware seems to be a copy of Version 5 of CAs PestPatrol, (see this message) usually a chargeable product, its inclusion in 8.1 at no charge probably explains the rather simple UI compared to the full PestPatrol product...

a full scan of Adware finds nothing, and nothing is found by Spybot S & D. I, just, don't trust the NS8.1 thing.

This cnet review from Nov came across similiar behaviour, PestPatrol finding items, not detected by the other reviewed products........ but they still ranked it 2nd of out the 5 tested....
Given their change in view on S&D since its last review, this seems a market where using a few products is probably a smart move. It seems choice & competition are producing better products......

Lets just hope MS don't stifle all this with a bundled product that they leave to 'wither on the vine' once they've inhibited competition.... ala IE (et al)

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20060111 Netscape/8.1

[Fulvio]

It is possible that the 8.1 AS has something. I remember when I had AOL, and they came out with an inline AS beta. and, several people were impressed by its finding more problems than any other program,
I think that this AS is the same, basically, and, it does find items which are not reported by the AS which I have (add Spyware Blaster and Microsoft AS beta). What I don't like is the fact that it gives little information about the problem. Other programs can give a lot of information. The last two items were described as Drop Spam (Adware) and Advanced Keylogger (Keylogger), and they were two Registry items. Nothing else was found.
After a long search, I came out with information about Drop Spam from McAfee and Advanced Keylogger from another site. Putting the two pieces of information together, I came out with only one possibility, i.e. the eMusic IE toolbar, which I had installed after 8.1. I use it, and IE for only one reason. I get a free download.
It is possible that it was the cause. I removed the Drop Spam, and, I got the download. I cannot test the keylogger till tomorrow. But, why do I have to rely on guesswork? We will see.

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322) Netscape/8.1