Antispyware software reviews
| # | Product | Overall Score | Download |
| 1 |
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware
|
4.4/5 Read more | Download 39.99$ |
| 2 |
Hitman Pro.Alert
|
4.3/5 Read more | Download 34.95$ |
| 3 |
Reason Core Security
|
4.3/5 Read more | Download 29.99$ |
| 4 |
StopZilla Anti-Malware
|
4.4/5 Read more | Download 29.95$ |
| 5 |
Hitman Pro 3
|
4/5 Read more | Download 24.95$ |
| 6 |
Super Anti-Spyware Professional
|
4/5 Read more | Download 12.95$ |
| 7 |
Lavasoft Ad-Ware Pro Security
|
4.1/10 Read more | Download 36$ |
| 8 |
ParetoLogic XoftSpySE Anti-Spyware
|
3.6/5 Read more | Download 39.95$ |
| 9 |
PC Tools Spyware Doctor
|
Read more | Retired as of 2013-05-18 |
What is antispyware software and what does it protect you from?
Going online without appropriate protection implies risk by default. If the Internet was ever a safe place to be, that was a long time ago. A lot of imperceptible things happen when you visit sites, e.g. tracking cookies get installed without your awareness, not to mention the hideous spyware whose direct mission is to get hold of your personally identifiable information (PII). If some of these nasty things succeed in getting through, it’s a piece of cake for cyber crooks to learn everything about you that you considered private and cherished so much. It’s needless to say what is likely to happen if your online passwords, credit card data or other types of banking information find themselves in the wrong hands. This is why it’s a definite no-no to be unprotected against the sneaky, yet potentially hazardous stuff like that. It should be your first care to guard your computer from unauthorized intrusion that may lead to privacy violation. Providing adequate assistance and defense in this regard is precisely what antispyware software is there for. It is intended to stand sentinel over your sensitive data so that you can confidently surf the web without worrying about being owned.
Antispyware programs review: things of primary value to consider
The variety of existing antispyware programs makes it quite challenging to pick the one that best suits you. To partly spare you of this hectic choice-making and the possible bitter ‘aftertaste’ of the wrong decision, we have singled out the most universally effective and convenient anti-spyware utilities offered by the industry-leading vendors. Here is the list of general criteria that determined our verdict:
- Usability: Clean and intuitive user interface, well-thought-out installation algorithm resulting in quick setup – that’s what the first impression about a piece of software is composed of. In other words, the smooth installation procedure should gradually transform into great experience as you’re using the program. The best antispyware products are supposed to be autonomous to a certain extent, which means the user shouldn’t normally be involved or disturbed unless some critical situation is encountered. Furthermore, we picked the applications that do not significantly affect system operability. Even if you are not using a mainframe computer – if you’ll pardon the exaggeration – you should have enough CPU resources left to run the processes you typically do. This particular criterion mainly applies to PC scanning and database update procedures. You don’t want a program that makes your machine freeze, so this criterion is a pretty big one for our analysis.
- Features: Apart from the conventional real-time spyware protection capabilities and intelligent behavioral analysis, it’s an additional advantage for this software category to provide the options making your cyber life easier, yet more secure and better organized. These may include email scanning, anti-phishing measures, e-shopping protection, event scheduling, checking removable media for threats, command line support, intrusion prevention system, etc. Although not critical, some of these extras will appear important to many users.
- Efficiency: This one is pretty simple: the more effectively an antispyware program does the protection job, the better it is. To be more specific, it should be implicitly capable of intercepting and terminating keyloggers, spyware, tracking cookies, dialers, trojans and other malign items designed to compromise user privacy. On the highly competitive present-day security software arena, mere post factum detection is not sufficient though – the product should have the guts to impede those threats from infiltrating the PC in real time. To address the intrusion problem, a two-way firewall might come in handy by filtering both inbound and outbound network traffic, so that’s one of the things that won’t hurt having at one’s disposal. The extent of a product’s ability to assure secure browsing by utilizing URL blacklisting techniques is yet another virtue to look at. Since drive-by downloads have been a continually growing issue, it’s definitely a benefit to have the targeted countermeasures in place for those as well.
- Support: Unless being left alone with current antispyware software usage problems is okay with you, pick the product that offers adequate and prompt support. We are sure the scenario above is a bad prospect and a road into nowhere though. Support agents should be easily accessible via phone, email or online chat to answer your questions and help you find your way out of non-trivial situations. Software documentation must as well be an open resource for every customer. We listed the programs that won’t make you feel abandoned when you need assistance.
