When it comes to things like this, most people haven’t a clue what they’re talking about. The best way to protect your computer is to use light software that prevents problems from happening at all. About the worst products I’ve ever seen are McAfee and Norton. I’ve seen Norton itself destroy people’s systems, ironically. I used to be a tech support/repair guy before I set out on my own and became a professional developer/programmer. I JUST fixed our plumber’s computer for free, in exchange for free plumbing. Norton was the WORST thing on that computer, with the Total Security virus in close second. I really question the ethics of Symantec Corporation. They seem more concerned with keeping Norton on your system and causing problems to convince you that you must buy more upgrades than with protecting your computer.

But my systems have NEVER been destroyed by malware. Won’t say it can’t happen, but it hasn’t in over 14 years. I’ve always kept the same doctrine about security, though the software might change. My doctrine: prevent problems, so you don’t have to fix them. For the last couple years, I’ve been running AdAware exclusively. I also use Firefox with the NoScript add-on. True, I’m an advanced user, and I’ve got some additional protection software I’ve made myself, so I’m less prone to attack than the average joe. But my family uses the same basic protection, and they don’t even have problems. They are some of the most computer illiterate people you’ll ever meet, and are always downloading music over things like Limewire (a hotbed for malware if you aren’t sharp).

Bottom line is, AdAware does NOT suck, and people don’t know how to do real benchmarks to compare AVS. m00nbl00d hit the nail on the head above. You might use AdAware for a while and be disappointed that it rarely finds anything other than cookies, then uninstall it for something else. Then you might think the new AVS is better because it finds serious problems often. But you’d be wrong. AdAware blocks junk in the first place, and it WILL find things (extremely serious and even minute things) when it scans, IF it ever got on your computer. If you want to do a real test, create a virtual computer or get a sacrificial lamb to test on. Use the same malware for the benchmarks, and see which software is the best at both prevention AND removal. If you want to take it even further, write your own simulated viruses, and add them to the definitions. See what kind of flaws and exploits you can find in the AVS. If you can’t at least (somewhat) standardize your benchmarking tests, you might as well get out of the review business. You’ll just be bashing people’s products with unfounded bias (like was done here). You wouldn’t want anyone to do it to you if you were a developer.

Just my 7 cents…

I’ve seen the previous testing against Spybot – Search & Destroy, and you made it be seen like it sucks, as well.

Spybot, protects the system, by offering 3 different methos of protection:

- By blocking access to malicious domains, by placing entries in the HOSTS file and in the web browsers (IE, Firefox and Opera, and more to come.)

- By setting kill-bits, which will prevent malicious software from installing, in the first place.

- By detecting malware

No such testing was performed against Spybot. Nor, against Ad-aware.

I also don’t understand why people always test antimalware tools, in an already infected system.
The point of security tools is to prevent such from happening, in the first place.

You guys say that Ad-aware and Spybot, suck, but, do they really suck?

I’d like to see a test done to see which ones would protect your systems better, from becoming infected in the first place. Perhaps, both Spybot and Ad-aware wouldn’t turn out to be that bad.

Also, I believe 100% that those two free products, would protect people’s systems better than the free versions of SAS and MBAM would, uh?

Also, why do you test products against different samples of malware?

Why don’t you test the products against the very same samples?

Why is it that in most of your testing, at the end, you always check the VM with SAS and MBAM, to see if anything is still left? Why not with any other tool?

Why, while testing MBAM and SAS, haven’t you checked the VM with other tools, to see if anything else is still on the system?

To make SAS and MBAM stand better?

Then you come and say that this and that products sucks, while making other products look great.

I know you’re not a professional, nor make a living out of this, but, if you want to make such testing, then make it for real.

Regards

This is even better

Keep it on the mind the next time

Thanks for the videos I love this website .

Personally i thought ad-aware 2009 became much better. I heard i hase a huge database, like 2 million threats, and good heuristics. + the ad-aware team is realy dedicated in there work, like comodo is so we shouden’t just say it’s useless..