Registry Cleanup Software Comparison

Selling antispyware software has become a golden mine for many companies and independent application developers. The buzz all over the Web doesn’t stop – it’s just evident that everybody by all means should have a superb antispyware protection. However, I’m sure not that many people understand what spyware is, why it is dangerous and how a reliable antispyware shield should be set up.

In its early days spyware was a term to refer to malicious programs that were used by marketing companies or cyber criminals to collect certain types of data about infected computer. From surfing habits to installed software, from ad-clicking preference to favorite online shops, spyware gathered all types of information to relay it to spyware originators. It was somewhat easy for Internet surfers to name threats – virii and spyware – which were potentially dangerous.

But then things changed, and today spyware is more of a commonly accepted notion to refer to various types of evil intrusion and malicious programs. Inside the “spyware” concept you’d find Trojans, adware, browser hijacks, aggressive pop-ups, toolbars, redirects etc. In fact, there’s a more suitable term developed and put into practice – malware. But because spyware has existed for so long, it’s common to use this word to name quite different web threats.

Hence the resulting myths.

1. A lot of PC owners believe that antispyware is a security program that is capable of removing all those threats. In fact, there’s no more universal cure than antispyware (except perhaps for Internet Security Suites). But depending on who creates and maintains antispyware solution, its scanning engine may or may not target particular types of malware. Relying on any single antispyware in blind belief that it would protect you from everything is a guaranteed way to get your PC into serious trouble.

2. Freeware programs are insanely popular not only because of their cost, but also because they often provide better functionality than commercial software. You will find office suites and DVD burning software, all kinds of data recovery programs and thousands of screensavers available at no cost. Therefore there exists an impression that free antispyware is just as easy to find and use. But this is far from being true. Most dangerous trojan viruses are bundled into innocently looking and attractive “free antispyware suites”. There’s a whole segment of the market that offers “free antispyware scanners”. The catch is that those scanners don’t remove what they detect – they ask you to purchase a license key to remove pests. And yet another catch is that detected threats can be fake. Yes, imitating infections to show a scan result is a very popular approach to get the user into “buying mood”. Finding a truly safe, legitimate, reliable antispyware scanner with removal option is not an easy task. I still cannot count more such programs than I have fingers on both of my hands. So a safe approach here would be to make some sort of investigation before downloading and installing any given free antispyware. There’s a huge risk hidden in the word “free”.

3. Another common misconception is that free antispyware differs from commercial programs in cost only. But the difference lies deeper than that. Very few applications will provide real-time protection – as the name implies, it is the key to staying safe. Automatic updating is not common in free antispyware either. Free scanners often detect fewer types of threats. Antivirus modules that now are built into popular antispyware programs are never added to free editions. In general, free antispyware usually exists as trial versions of commercial software or as on-demand scanners (e.g. Lavasoft Ad-aware, SUPERAntiSpyware Free, a-squared anti-malware free etc.)

4. On the other hand, even savvy web surfers believe that antispyware protection is more of a trend and not a necessity. They install antivirus and never care about antispyware because don’t think it’s important. But studies show that virus attacks and severity of danger caused by them means little when compared to results of spyware infection. Stolen credit cards numbers, dead-slow systems, corrupt registry and unbootable Windows – this is a common outcome for a computer with inadequate antispyware shield.

Knowing antispyware myths is important, but it is your primary interest to estimate the risks of not running proper protection and, if needed, choose a suitable antispyware.