Is SpywareGuard 2.2 still useful for computer protection?

SpywareGuard is a freeware program from Javacool Software, the makers of SpywareBlaster, MRU-Blaster, Doc Scrubber, and EULAlyzer.

The last version of SpywareGuard that has been released to date is version 2.2, dated January 22, 2004. There have been no further developments made to either the program or it's definitions since that time. Yet, there are people in the anti-spyware community who stand by the program. Why is that, you ask?

The reason that this senior citizen spyware fighter still has a following is due to the fact that it relies upon heuristic detection of known hostile behaviour, in addition to the installed (out-dated) signatures of (then) known spyware applications. So, although the signatures are way out-of-date the heuristics still work at detecting attempted changes to the Internet Explorer Home Page and other system changes.

It should be noted that the spyware business has not stood still and that many of today's tactics used to hijack your browser will slip past this old Guard. For what it is worth, if you are not using another anti-spyware program that monitors attempted changes to your browser settings, then SpywareGuard may be of use to you. It will probably stop most common threats to your browser settings, which is better than none.

That said, there is still the possibility of future develpoment of the program, according to the following Post, made on January 17, 2005, by it's maker, Javacool Software...

Posted on Broadband reports, on January 17, 2005:

Hi,

In fact some of spywareguard's strongest protection is indeed its Browser Hijacking Protection, which doesn't need any sort of definition updates.

The current real-time protection built into spywareguard 2.2 has been extended about as much as is possible - which unfortunately means a complete rewrite is in order to allow for future changes and updates. This is something I've been working on, but it hasn't been quick in coming.

This doesn't mean that the current real-time scanning is ineffective - rather that it should detect most variants of the items listed here: �www.javacoolsoftware.com/sglist.html (Note: This isn't a comprehensive listing, but it should list most of the major items.) This should include more recent variants of those items, even without database updates, but it won't detect some completely new items (i.e. completely new spyware/adware programs, as opposed to new versions of, say, "RapidBlaster"). That's the difference with the current release.

That said, again the most effective and useful protection for most users has probably been the Browser Hijacking Protection component (which alerts when various browser settings are changed in real-time), which doesn't require the database updates.

A new version of spywareguard, with some rather interesting new features, is in development. While I don't yet have a clue when it'll be ready for release, I can say that, regardless of how effective you personally consider the real-time scanning component, the current version of spywareguard provides some strong protection against Browser Hijacking - by alerting the user as soon as such activity is detected.

It isn't a catch-all or an end-all (nothing is), but it's meant to be an effective layer. The choice, as always, is left up to the user. I just give them that option (for free).

Best regards,

-Javacool