Please read this carefully. It's not the usual yada yada.

This is an open debate, everyone is allowed to post here as long the statement is constructive. In other words, please use some points to support your choice instead of mentioning the name of text editor alone.

This poll is intended to gather comments on the most common spyware cleaners, rather than mentioning each and every spyware cleaner in the market; Thus, please do not post something like "How about <insert anything that is not in the list> ? " There is always a choice called "Others (Please State)"

I also understand that most of you are using more than one spyware scanners to complement each other, this poll is not intended to discuss the best security package but rather to let you choose the spyware cleaner that you think is MOST reliable.

Your choice can be judged from either the cost, effeciency, accuracy, memory consumption, definition updates frequency, or GUI of the spyware cleaner. You are more than welcome to contribute if you have other criteria to judge the spyware cleaner.

This thread will be archived at Essential Reviews and Guides forum when the timeframe for this poll ends (15th November 2005) for future reference. The winner of this poll will be given "LYN First Choice Award" in the Common Software Links thread to reflect its popularity among LYN forumers.

Microsoft Antispyware - free and has a real-time scanning that actually works unlike the paranoid Spybot S&D TeaTime.

Ad-adware - most reliable in deep scanning backdoor and trojan and they seems to have the most updated source all the time.

Spyware Doctor of course (although it's not totally free). It can detects anything that MS Antispyware, Ad-aware & Spybot can't detect.

Microsoft Spyware Tool - Serioulsy , one of the greatest tool ever. Even its in the early beta stages , it seriously does a good job and it does not eat that much of CPU Usage. Normally , anti-spyware applications do drain a lot of CPU Usage. But it seems , it just works fine with Windows. I heard numerous of complains with Spybot S&D , that it crashes and it detects false spywares..But it seems , M$'s Spyware is just simple to use for those newcomers , as it just helps them out and as well as for experts..

[OFFTOPIC] w00t..mac rocks..no spywares*[/OFFTOPIC]

Agree with tat... And ad-aware is more stable and can detect spywares where Spybot S&D cannot... Thats y I like tat...

And it takes less memory...

how bout spysweeper?? heard that it is good too

The good thing of Microsoft Antispyware is that it run scan all time and it can scan computer all the time. If there's any suspected software, it will ask you.

However, Microsoft antispyware may sometimes detect a program as spyware. One of the example is opera's banner. (Now no more since opera remove it's banner and official become freeware).

Ad-aware, in the other hand, is efficient and fast, but sometimes it may bypass some spyware compared to microsoft anti-spyware and spybot search and destroy. Overally I think that Ad ware is still the best.

does all antispyware remove trojan horse??

i have tested a couple of anti-spyware
1. anti-spyware intergrate inside zone alarm pro
2. ms antispyware
3. webroot spysweeper
4. spybot s&d
5. adware personal SE

ok, i will rate according to the no. beside from
my favourite --------------------------> the worst i think
4--->5--->3--->2---->1

Why adware personal SE is my top choice :
It is able to scan advertisement cookies which other fail to do so... For example doubleclick.net which is installed when you surf friendster. However the update server is problem matic. And it as some additional add on like startup checker, uninstaller, and some basic shredder. Great for something which is free

Next adware personal SE,
2nd best, i dont enable real time protection as i wont sacrifise performance for security for my pc. The scanning is reasonably fast. Hmm , the problem is i always get "zero" spyware result from "most of the scan.

webroot spysweeper,
works nice on everything, except, very slow scan(too detail maybe), and resources hungry. Can cause "lag" when try to open out the windows minised on the customisation status tab

Ms anti-spyware,
since the 1st day i install til today, still zero result. after 3 months of usage. i dont believe that my pc is "that clean"

zone alarm antispyware,
crap, disabled

I am using SpyBot S&D and Ad-aware. But S&D cannot detect keylogger while ad-aware can. I am using S&D's immunize function.

Spywareblaster
- since after using it , ad-aware detected lesser threats .
So i think it does prevent any spyware to penetrates my system .

Ad-aware SE
- using it to clean spyware everyday .

Esset NOD32 is actually a antivirus but capable of protecting pc from spyware. it blocks spyware/trojan.. bla bla bla... more aggressively than ad-aware and webroot. so far no spyware/trojan/bla bla.. manage to get installed in my pc.. hahaha

forget to mention too ewido suitware is very comprehensive, but suck up lotsa memory

My Choice is ad-aware Personal SE
because..
1) User Friendly
2) Reliable ( i've tried other anti spyware but i found this the best..........)
3) FREE
4) Up-To-Date

Yahoo Spam Blocker is enough for me

i dun think ad-aware se is powerful enuf to handle those annoying adware / malware. It failed to remove ZestyFind from my pc

Spy Sweeper is sweet enuf to remove ZestyFind once and for all

I'm using ad-aware for ages and supporting it till the end.