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Counterspy any good?

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m_s:
I've just heard of Counterspy for the first time - from a thread over on Wilders Security (where I have started another thread with this title, but I am interested to know what people here at donationcoder think too). I've downloaded the trial and ran a scan. It looks a whole lot like MSAS, but it caught five things that MSAS has missed in all recent scans (including CoolWebSearch, which I find a little difficult to believe, since I scan regularly with various bits of anti-spyware). I have read reports on this forum of false positives, so I'm a little unsure: is Counterspy any good? I would love to have something really good that would allow me to run fewer things ongoingly... I know that's probably everyone's dream, but if Counterspy isn't that dream piece of software, does anyone have any other recommendations?

Carol Haynes:
My experience with CounterSpy was rubbish.

If I had followed the software advice (which told me I had over 100 things wrong with my computer) it would have completely hosed my system.

I spent ages checking every single warning (all of which were rated 'serious', 'severe', 'leave this and die a horrible death' ... OK maybe not the last one) only to find that not one single entry was even an issue. OK there were a handful of cookies (but all spyware apps use them to make them look as though they are doing something) but the rest were totally legitimate pieces of software (or related DLL files).

I emailed Sunbelt and was told they 'do get the odd false positive' - but over 100 on a clean system !!

Personally I no longer touch Sunbelt software as they seem to me to becoming all marketing and not much useful substance.

By the way the passing resemblence to MS AS is no coincidence they are both based on the same code base.

For the record other products I use (without the Senbelt haslles) are:

Webroot Spy Sweeper
Microsoft AntiSpyware
Spybot Search & Destroy
Lavasoft AdAware SE Pro
Pest Patrol

The last two are (IMHO) pretty defunct these days as they seem to lack any teeth, and Pest Patrol is a real shame since they sold out to Computer Associates.

Just my 2p, what do other people think?

mouser:
If I had followed the software advice (which told me I had over 100 things wrong with my computer) it would have completely hosed my system.
--- End quote ---

i wish your statement was broadcast on speakers to the public once per day -
i have not used a single registry cleaner that didn't flag as should be removed and volunteer to remove entries that were important and needed to run certain apps.  i would just advice people be very careful about accepting recommendations from these tools.

m_s:
I messed up a system real bad the first time I ran a 'registry-fixing' program, so I'm extremely careful now.  I really wish that I had checked the details of the CoolWebSearch alert I got from Counterspy, but I was a bit jumpy I think, because I know that's a nasty one - so I deleted it, whereas I quarantined the other things.  I'll check on those later, and see if they really were problems...

Carol Haynes:
The big problem with a lot of Spyware removal programs is the method they use for detection.

CounterSpy is particulalry bad at this.

The way most work is to build a fingerprint for each pest and then look to see if that fingerprint is present on your system. A reasonable method you might think but a lot of these programs take only one item from the fingerprint to start ringing warning bells. This is where CounterSpy falls down really badly.

Their thinking is "File x appears in pest y's fingerprint, file x is present therefore you have pest y". The trouble is file x may be used by any number of useful pieces of software (esp. if it is a DLL file). This method of detecting pests marks down any software containing file x as spyware.

The other big grumble I have is that all of these products (and some AV software) idenitifies certain types of application (such as any form of password retrieval or key logging software) as dangerous. OK we know that password retreival applications have the potential to be used in naughty ways, but to delete them without any warning (as NOD32 does with NirSofts mailpass application) is pretty unforgivable.

My other pet hate is the way a lot of programs overinflate the threat to get users really worried about things. Everything is labelled "serious threat" or "severe" even when they are at most a minor threat. Tracking cookies are a good example of this. It doesn't do any harm to delete them but ultimatelythey don't do anything especially harmful. I have seen security websites recommend turning off cookies altogether - a great solution that has the added advantage that it will break most of your favourite websites (or at least seriously compromise their useability) and make browsing a tedious and irritating experience. This is a good example of where the so-called cure is worse than any potential problem you are trying to get rid of!

The net result is the 'boy who cried wolf' syndrome. When you get a really nasty threat you have become so relaxed about responding to dire warnings that it is likely to be allowed to slip through!

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