I like to think of myself as a geek. As a geek, I pride upon the fact that I have never been infected with a virus (besides cold, of course). Imagine my geek pride taking a hit when the bad guys came up with a new set of tools - tools to get past the geek barriers I had put on my beloved machines. This was of course long time ago and since then I have been periodically infected by spywares/malware/adware. Each time I find solace in the fact that I am not alone. My best friends till a week back were Adaware from Lavasoft and Spybot S&D. Both of them did an admirable job for finding the little pests hidden of my system and cleanse them.
Then came the big news. Microsoft, the company I work for, acquired GIANT Company, producers of GIANT antispyware software. Since I had never bothered to look beyond my best friends (Adaware and Spybot), I had no personal experience with GIANT, though I had heard that it does a good job. Microsoft has promised that it will make a public beta version available within a month. As an employee, I was privileged to get my hands on an MS-internal release of the software. With mounting expectations and trembling hands (ok, I am exaggerating a bit here), I installed the software. The first thing that struck me was the UI. Though it doesn’t seem as slick as Adaware, it is surprisingly easier to find your way through. It gives an impression that it was designed with utility in mind, sacrificing on visual appeal. It surely makes the job of me explaining to my parents on how to use it much simpler, with its large buttons, simple menus and good contextual information.
Since I had run Adaware a few days ago, I chose to do a quick scan rather than a full scan. And the results pleasantly surprised me (though it took quite a bit longer than the 2 minutes it promised me). I had around 8 spyware programs on my machine and one browser hijack. Best part about GIANT was the amount of information it was able to provide about each entry. I also loaded the real-time protection agents which monitor my machine for any system, application or internet changes and notifying any potentially hazardous changes. When agents finds a suspicious activity, a alert window appears in the bottom right corner of the screen which includes substantial amount of information concerning the attempted change and allows the user to make a decision whether or not to allow the action to complete. This is a killer feature, that distinguishes it from most of the free spyware programs (Adaware has a similar feature in the paid version). Just yesterday, I was surfing an obscure tech website when it prompted me to install a web toolbar. Even after clicking NO, it tried to install it. GIANT agent promptly displayed the alert window. Since it was my first tryst with real-time protection, I was impressed.
<Update> Investigating the issue of how the spyware was able to install even after clicking NO, i found out that there was an error in my IE security settings for ActiveX. There is a setting for Initialize and Script ActiveX controls not marked as safe (Tools->Internet Options->Security->Internet->Custom Level). As it turns out, I did not notice the NOT and thought it was for control marked as safe, hence setting it to Enable. Please make sure that (For Internet Zone) for all unsigned and unsafe ActiveX, you have set the option to either Disable (advisable) or Prompt. Thanks to Bruce Morgan from the IE team for resolving this issue. </Update>
GIANT also provides a set of useful tools to complement the spyware engine. Under Advanced Tools tab, you can find utilities like System explorer which allows you to configure your startup and browser add-on settings. It also has a browser hijack restore tool that can help you to reset your browser settings to default after it has been hijacked. It also has Track Eraser utility that allows you to delete cached information about your activities (documents accessed, temp files, cookies, google toolbar cache, etc).
All the hype and glory apart, GIANT, like most antispyware software, is not perfect. But it surely complements Adaware and Spybot very well. The security team in Microsoft is working hands-down on this product so that we can make it available to the general populace as promised. Given the prevalent problem of spyware, this is something everybody should be looking forward too. It may not be a complete solution, but it surely is an indispensable tool in my arsenal. I am proud to say that I have a new best friend.
<Update> I just came across Paul Thurrott's detailed review (with pictures) of the GIANT antispyware product (prior to its purchase by Microsoft). It goes in much more detail than I did in the blog entry. Be sure to check it out here.</Update>
If you have any good/bad experiences with any anti-spyware products, I'd love to hear about them. One can always have more friends :-)
Mayur Kamat| Program Manager |Rights Management Services
To err is human, to forgive Design
