Rogue/Suspect Anti-Spyware Products and Web Sites

Spyware and adware is on the mind of most web surfers these days. As well it should be! These types of infections cause popup ads to appear out of nowhere, hijack your home and search pages in Internet Explorer, and phone home with specific details about your web usage, and sometimes with your user names and passwords to financial websites.

With all kinds of spyware, adware, sleazeware and other malware threats in the wild, people are constantly searching for solutions to rid their computers of these pests and security threats. The more prudent folks visit the well known and respected spyware fighting organizations, websites, blogs and forums to get the skinny on which programs work and which don't work as claimed, and what the latest threats are.

On the other hand, those who don't know about the support forums and websites wait for the first popup ad to come along that offers them a solution to their spyware concerns. The popup notice may look like a system message and warn the user that their computer is infected with critical system infections that it can remove - for a fee. They click on it, download and purchase the product, allow it to remove the threats it claims to have found, only to discover later on that it removed nothing at all, because those threats did not exist on their computer, but did not remove the threats that actually were on that computer.

This variety of spyware that pretends to be a spyware removal program, but isn't, is known in the spyware fighting community as "Rogue Anti-Spyware Programs." These programs use false positives to goad you into purchasing them. Programs that fit this description include SpySheriff, Spyware Sheriff, SpyTrooper, SpywareKilla, SpywareNo!, Spyware Quake, SpyAxe, SpyFalcon, SpywareStrike, and almost three hundred more programs just like these.

Eric L. Howes maintains a comprehensive listing of all known rogue anti-spyware programs on his website - SpywareWarrior.com - on the Spyware Warrior: Rogue/Suspect Anti-Spyware Products & Web Sites web page. There are currently 289 Rogue anti-spyware programs on his list! If you get a mysterious popup alerting you that your computer is infected, check his list before downloading that program.

Most recent additions:
SpyOnThis (5-7-06), Spyware Sheriff (5-7-06), Spyware Scrapper (5-7-06), Spyware Soft Stop (4-17-06), Ultimate-Spyware Adware Remover (4-17-06), InternetShield (4-12-06), X-Con Spyware Destroyer (4-2-06); 100 Pct.Anti-Spyware (3-31-06), Froggie Scan (3-29-06), Spyware Quake (3-25-06), BestGuardPlatinum (3-19-06), SpywareXP (3-18-06), Spyware Disinfector (3-10-06), SpyCut (3-10-06), PestWiper (3-10-06), MalwareScanner (3-10-06), Brave Sentry (3-9-06), Spy-Shield (3-6-06)

Most recent de-listings:
Spyware Terminator (3-9-06), Advanced Spyware Remover (2-3-06), Spyware Detector (1-10-06), Doctor Alex (12-24-05), AdwareAlert (12-15-05), SpywareKill (10-30-05)

Source:
Spyware Warrior: Rogue/Suspect Anti-Spyware Products & Web Sites

There is also a list of known good programs that actually do detect and remove spyware threats, in the trustworthy anti-spyware products section, further down the page. There are also excellent suggestions there for securing your computer and browser to prevent these pests from invading it in the first place.

SpywareWarrior also has a page that compares several legitimate, well known anti-spyware programs, to help you decide which is best for you, based on your budget and by their individual detection ratings. That page is here.