Top 3 Anti-Spyware Applications

As most surfers will testify to, one of the biggest annoyances that have emerged in the last few years is the virtually unchecked growth of Spyware. The situation has grown so bad, that today nearly 1 in every 4 PCs is infected with some Spyware/Adware or Trojan. These infections not only annoy the users of the infected machine, but also present a great danger as they hook up these machines to huge botnets. These botnets are used for everything from launching DDOS attacks on websites to committing credit card frauds and other such mischief. In some cases, these spyware act as keyloggers on your machine and end up broadcasting your private data such as credit card numbers, passwords of your netbanking account and other personal details to malignant parties.

Keeping this in mind our focus this week, therefore, is on 3 anti-spyware apps that are free and offer a good range of features. Each of these downloads have been selected with care and are easily the most popular in their category.

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Spybot Search and Destroy

Publisher: PepiMK Software
File Size: 4919 Kb
OS: Windows (All)
Download: Link 1

Spybot S&D as it is popularly known has been around for a long time now. It was established at a time when spyware was still in its infancy. Since then its author Patrick Micheal Kolla has worked and refined this program to keep up with the ever-evolving spyware market. As a result even today Spybot S&D remains, one of the major forces in the fight against spyware. This wonderful and free program is capable of removing malware, spyware, adware and Trojans. It also gets timely updates, which include signatures for new Trojans/spywares, new help files and any new features that are necessary. All in all, it remains our first choice for spyware protection.

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Lavasoft Ad-aware SE Personal

Publisher: Lavasoft
File Size: 2788 Kb
OS: Windows (All)
Download: Link 1

Lavasoft like Spybot S&D, is another veteran in the fight against spyware. Since their inception in 1999, their popular software has been downloaded more than 200 million times and is today regarded as one of the definitive programs in the fight against spyware. The version we have chosen here is simply called SE personal and offers protection against dialers, browser hijackers and malware. Like Spybot S&D it offers timely Internet-based auto-updates to its anti-spyware database, has a very fast file scanner and actually offers a deep-level scanner that can root out even the most potent spyware. This is a good move, as deep-level scanners are normally not found in free products.

Though the program we are mentioning here is a free one and offers lesser features as compared to its paid versions, it is still full-featured enough to keep your system clean of most spywares and Adware Trojans. Such is its popularity that it has actually been included in Google’s software offering “Google pack” which were a set off essential software tools needed for running an optimized user desktop. After such a distinction, one can safely say that Ad-aware Se personal should be on anyone’s list for maintaining a clean PC.
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