Reviews - Anti-spyware group test - Espionage exposed. As spyware and adware become more pervasive, Nigel Whitfield explores 12 of the latest packages that can help you to combat the threats to your PC.(Aluria Spyware Eliminator 4.0, Lavasoft Adaware SE Plus, Bulletproof Soft Spyware/Adware Remover 9.2, McAfee Antispyware 2005, Microsoft Antispyware Beta, Noadware 3, Paretologic Xoftspy 4.15, PCTools Spyware Doctor, Spybot Search and Destroy, Symantec Norton Internet Security 2005 Antispyware Edition, Webroot Spy Sweeper 4, Yahoo Toolbar with Antispy)(Product/Service Evaluation)

Publication: Personal Computer World

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COPYRIGHT 2005 VNU Business Media Europe

Viruses are one of the more obvious threats to computer users on the Internet, but there are some programs that are arguably just as much of a nuisance, and more likely to end up infecting your system - spyware and adware.

Unlike viruses, these programs might not destroy your data, but they can be intrusive in other ways, slowing down your PC, popping up unsolicited adverts when you're surfing the net, and in some cases sending data that identifies you personally to companies that want to build up consumer profiles, so they can bombard you with even more junk.

While everyone recognises the need to have anti-virus software, when it comes to protection from ads, many people don't go much beyond turning on pop-up blocking in their browser. These days, that's not nearly enough and it's surprisingly easy for your system to become infected. You can even do it unwittingly by installing 'free' software from the Internet that buries a clause about ad software deep in the conditions you agreed to.

When you do have to clear up an infection, you'll find plenty of anti-spyware products available, claiming to resolve the problems, or prevent you from being infected in the first place. But how well do they really work? Can they remove the most persistent problems, and are they simple to use without being intrusive? We've put 12 through their paces, to find the best way to keep your system clean.

Aluria Spyware Eliminator 4.0

Price: $29.99 (approx [pounds sterling]17)

Contact: www.aluriasoftware.com

Overall: **

Aluria offers a free tool on its website, but it's simply for scanning and reporting, directing you to a web page showing what's been detected. It listed one of the lowest number of items found in our tests.

Spyware Eliminator is part of a planned suite that will include anti-virus tools and a spam filter, which you can try alongside the anti-spyware. We didn't test those elements. A common interface allows access to all three components, with a slick look and automatic updating and scheduling. Despite the information in the readme, some advanced options weren't turned on by default.

A home page protection option lets you reset your browser home page and should prevent it from being changed, so we used that after our initial scan and remove. There are settings for broadband and dial-up users, but it's not clear what the difference is; we used the broadband option. You can also check for Winsock problems, but we'd rather see that done automatically.

Scanning time was fairly slow and, like the free scanner on the Aluria site, it only spotted five items, plus several cookies. Home page protection only seemed to work after a couple of attempts. And, though it's little consolation if you don't want any pop-ups, we did have to surf more before intrusive ones appeared.

OVERALL: A slick interface, but relatively slow scanning speed and it only detected a few pieces of spyware.

Bulletproof Soft Spyware/Adware Remover 9.2

Price: $29.95 (approx [pounds sterling]17)

Contact: www.bulletproofsoft.com

Overall: *

Another program that scans free, but needs payment to fix anything, Bulletproof Soft Spyware Remover also rejoices in an interface that, by default, features crawling spiders, presumably to make you think about spyware. It listed 1,444 items found on our test PC, by counting every cookie, file and Registry entry separately, rather than grouping them with the infestation they related to.

In terms of the number of things found, it was around average, though the presentation of results lacked clarity and simply gave an overview of the class of threats, rather than threat-specific details.

There's a separate area in which things like browser 'helpers' are listed, which isn't immediately obvious, nor is the separate hijack scanning tool. Unless you're fairly sure you know which Registry keys or toolbars you want to keep, both have the...

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