Spyware Assassin - A Scam!!!!

[dbnnet]

A U.S. court has ordered Spyware Assassin and its owner,
Thomas Delanoy, to suspend its activities. The company is
also required to give back all the money it made from selling
Spyware Assassin.

Free spyware scans offered by Spokane, Washington-based
MaxTheater Inc. turned up evidence of spyware even on
machines that were entirely clean, and its $29.95 Spyware
Assassin program did not actually remove spyware.

(Source - Yahoo News)

[peered95]

This just brings up the topic of: can you trust software.........
TO BE CONTINUED

[antowan]

Yikes! Spybot S&D still rocks!

[ic]

Actually there are quite a few packages & online scanners out there that are complete & utter fraud apps.

You need to be verrry careful & read reviews before installing or even running anything that is supposed to be free of or removal of malware.

Another thing to watch out for is downloading from untrusted sources - rather try downloading a package or updated version of a package from the company that produced the thing - there are loads of people out there that put up a bogus link to download popular s/w and it turns out to be an installer for malware.

Try checking the Digital Signature on downloaded installers - if it doesn't have a Digital Signature think twice about running the thing.

<added>
Yep, I agree 100% with Antowan, Spybot S&D is what I use, I also have Lavasoft's Adaware SE installed, as well as some anti-malware protection in CA's eTrust EZ Armor.</added>

[Gooku]

Business Ethics is an oxymoron Says some Americans

How true !
:-)

[Celemasiko]

Americans have NO Internet Ethics....

[Gatecrasher]

You need to be verrry careful & read reviews before installing or even running anything that is supposed to be free of or removal of malware.



Unfortunately, there are even fake review sites... It's a minefield out there.

You have to adopt the attitude of distrusting everything.

The best defence you have is an intimate knowledge of every process and service running on your tasklist.