Why I Use & Recommend Webroot Spy Sweeper Anti-Spyware

Too often product recommendations are doled out without a convincing reason being provided for that particular choice. In the article that follows I provide a glimpse at the sort of research that should go into choosing the best product for a particular job.

This article is an edited extract from
“Chapter 15: Trojans & Spyware”
from my security e-book
“The Hacker’s Nightmare”

Two of the programs we’ll cover are anti-spyware applications, so first let’s resolve the question: “Why two different spyware killers?”

Experience has shown that no matter how good an anti-spyware application is, no software of this type can ever be consistently 100% perfect. Each product may well detect malware that the other will miss.

Most of the better anti-spyware applications will happily co-exist with each other—though I wouldn’t push that assumption too far; stick with what I recommend and you’ll be adequately protected without going overboard. In my research it was abundantly clear that the majority of security-educated people will run two anti-spyware applications in tandem.

So, what to recommend?

In the recent past the usual recommendation from “those in the know”, myself included, was to install Spybot-S&D and LavaSoft AdAware. Those two programs were widely considered to be the best of their type, and it was believed that together they would detect the vast majority of adware/spyware intrusions.

I have no doubt that those were once well founded assumptions—but things have changed. Adware has become more sophisticated, new detection software has appeared, and some of the “old faithful” programs have failed to keep pace.

It wasn’t until a qualified independent researcher conducted thorough head-to-head testing of all the major anti-trojan/anti-adware scanners that we got wise to the true picture.

Eric Howes, of the University of Illinois, compared and tested more than 20 of the most popular and best respected anti-adware applications, against hundreds of actual adware threats. Howes conducted his tests over a period of several weeks in October 2004, and his results were reported in a number of technical publications and websites. The results took a lot of technology professionals by surprise.

LavaSoft’s AdAware came in third and Spybot-S&D was equal seventh. Not too bad, you might think, for a couple of free programs, but the disturbing thing was the detection rates.

Spybot detected a mere 33% of the hundreds of adware components tested for, and AdAware didn’t fare much better at 47%. Those two together, a combination that was often recommended by experts, could only come up with 54% of the total infections.[1]

Howes’ investigations were thorough and extensive, but there is no need for us to discuss the findings in depth. Suffice it to say that my anti-spyware recommendations today owe much to Howes’ research and, more recently, to testing laboratories that now take spyware seriously and regularly update and re-run their tests.

With critical tools like anti-virus and anti-spyware applications, where reliable performance is everything, it is no longer wise to be guided by the personal preferences of any individual—expert or not. Personal preferences are fine with general applications, but with critical, performance-oriented software tools you must be guided by reputable testing. Probably the best respected testing lab is that run by PC Magazine.

Eric Howes woke us up, but we shouldn’t take his original results as a timeless guide. The landscape changes rapidly in this area of software.

Howes found that Giant AntiSpyware had a detection score of 63% and Webroot Spy Sweeper was next best with 48%. Combined they had a rate of 70%, by far the best of any possible combination of two packages.

Giant Software was acquired by Microsoft in December 2004 and the version of the software that was tested by Howes became Microsoft AntiSpyware, which has since been renamed again to Windows Defender. At this time Windows Defender is a free download. Webroot Spy Sweeper is an inexpensive commercial product.

Since Howes’ original tests, reports from testing labs such as that run by PC Magazine, indicate that Webroot Spy Sweeper has improved significantly and, based on the figures, it seems clear that Webroot Spy Sweeper is the #1 anti-spyware/anti-trojan application by a fair margin. Its performance has remained exceptionally high over quite a long period, so I think it’s safe to say that its success is no transient flash in the pan. The developers are obviously an industrious bunch who are in for the long haul.

Given its history of being at the top of the heap for some time now, Webroot Spy Sweeper is the obvious choice as our main defense against spyware (which includes many trojans that will sneak past anti-virus scanners). If that changes I’ll place an update on The Hacker’s Nightmare™ private members’ web page. But look…

As with almost any category of software, and as was demonstrated by Eric Howes, all spyware detectors are not created equal. In fact, some are next to useless, and cost or a name brand are not reliable guides to performance and reliability. So please understand…