Spyware Guide

We have been asked countless times, “What is the best anti-spyware software on the market?” or “What should I run on my computer to keep it running at top performance?”

These questions are being asked more and more frequently due to the growth and popularity of Internet users. Unfortunately, as the Internet has seen tremendous growth over the last decade so too have the number of malicious computer programs. These problematic and sometimes downright nasty programs come in the form of spyware, viruses, trojans, spam and many others. One of the most common are spyware programs. Estimates show that over 90% of Internet users are infected with some sort of spyware if surfing the Net unprotected.

With more and more spyware programs being developed and placed on the Net by “bad people” there has been a huge increase in the number of anti-spyware software programs that have surfaced. As with anything that attracts a lot of attention, there will always be companies out to “make a quick buck” and not provide a high quality product.

Over the last couple years we have reviewed over 60 different anti-spyware programs. Most of them were what we consider “cyber junk”. Software cheaply made by companies just looking to take your money. Be careful of buying spyware remover software from Clickbank.com. All of the spyware products tested from here offer very little value. This software cost just as much as our recommended spyware blockers but don’t have nearly the customer support and research and development. In fact many of them, if not all, fall into the category of “cyber junk”.

Of the 60 or so we quickly weeded out about two-thirds. Of the one-third we had left only about half met our criteria.

Our criteria is based on six factors:

1. User Friendly: Whether or not we think the software is easy to use for not only the person whom knows a bit about computers but also the person who just learned how to use the Internet.
2. Effective Spyware Detection: This is used to rate whether the spyware blockers software was able to detect all of the spyware.
3. Effective Spyware Removal: This is used to rate whether the software could effectively remove all the spyware that was detected.
4. System Usage: This rates how much of your computer system is being utilized while running the software.
5. Scan Performance: This rating is for how fast the the scans of your computer can be completed.  This is based on the comparison of other top spyware remover products.
6. Software Support: This rates the level of customer support you can expect from the manufacturer of the software.

To be included in the top 10 or so the spyware blocker products had to have an Average Overall Rating of at least 3 out of 6 stars using the above criteria.

At this point we still didn’t feel the list was truly the ‘best of the best’.  When you think about any competition usually its only the top 3 positions that are recognized.  We had over 10!  So we again increased our Average Overall Rating score from a minimum of 3 stars to 4 stars.  This dropped the field of products down to four and this is where we have left it.