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What do you think of PCTools' Spyware Doctor?

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nosh:
I've used trial versions of Spyware Doctor & Counterspy a few months back. They're both good apps but I recall Spyware Doctor having the best detection rate & Counterspy bogging my system down a bit.

Curt:
...  I ... do all my surfing in a sandbox ..-howiem (June 16, 2007, 10:14 PM)
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HOW does one do this; surf in a (virtual) sandbox? :tellme:

[Edit: that question was not too smart formulated. I have been told about Virtual Partitions (vp), but I have not yet any understanding of HOW you get the downloaded/installed stuff FROM the vp    TO the not-virtual disk. Am I to install twice? Or is there some kind of button saying KeepThis / DumpThat, or what?

Darwin:
Curt - you need to download and install somethig like tzuk's Sandboxie, which creates a space on your harddrive that it controls. Instead of changes being made to your "real" OS installation and registry, changes are made in a virtual model of it contained within the sandbox. None of the changes can affect anything outiside of the sandbox. What's great is that you can also use sandboxie to install and test software if you're at all worried about the software messing your settings up. When you're done surfing, or testing software, you just delete the contents of the sandbox and everything is gone.

There's an alternative that works in a very similar way and which a lot of people here prefer but for the life of me I can't remember what it's called (AVS something or other!) - someone will no doubt be along shortly to tell you about it.

Carol Haynes:
I think you mean Altiris SVS. There is a community site called Altiris Juice with discussion forums and helpful information.

This has now been bought by Symantec (death IMHO) but still seems to be available and is (or was) free for personal use.

nosh:
Any obvious reason why it's preferred over Sandboxie?

Edit: From a PC Mag review of Altris SVS 2:

Going out on a limb, I installed some sample spyware using the SVS global capture mode to test whether I could clean up by rolling back changes. It didn't entirely work. Altiris representatives confirm that SVS isn't designed as a security product; for secure and complete rollback to an earlier state, they recommend Altiris Protect. And speaking of security—do not virtualize antivirus and other security products. Also, SVS doesn't run in Safe Mode, so don't virtualize any tools you might need in that mode. 
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