Last week Microsoft threw its hat into the arena of spyware tools. Although it is still in beta, I found the Microsoft AntiSpyware Beta Tool to be an excellent tool with great potential. I tested it on several of my clients’ problem machines this past week, and I was very impressed with the results. I had a machine that had over 800 spyware processes and files. The machine was so slow it took nearly five minutes for a Windows XP machine to boot. After running the Microsoft tool, it was booting in under a minute. Like all spyware tools, it’s not perfect and does not find every problem. I used a combination of the Microsoft tool along with Ad-Aware for a very effective solution.

It has customary functionality such as the number of files scanned and spyware statistics, as well as a rating system for the files found. I expected these features, but what I didn’t expect was to be able to automatically get updates and schedule scans at designated times. My clients, like most typical users, are people who are either too busy or too forgetful to manually update their computers. These new features give me the ability to set up the tool, and clients don’t have to worry about ever updating or running it.

I have read several reviews in newsletters about this new product, and I don’t think anyone is really giving it a fair chance. The reviews that I have seen have been average at best, and all have pointed to the fact that it’s a Microsoft product and therefore can’t be the best product available. But let’s try looking at this with an open mind. None of the top spyware products available offer the functionality to auto update and allow you to schedule a daily time to run a scan for free. I don’t know whether this tool will remain free once it is out of beta, but if it does then this will have an enormous impact on the future of spyware tools. I expect that the accuracy of finding spyware is only going to get better, but what will set it apart are the “extras.” Regardless of whether Microsoft remains in the spyware game, other leading companies are going to have to remain competitive in the near future. Products like Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D will need to add this functionality that currently isn’t available in free versions of their products if they want to remain competitive. Even if Microsoft is out of the spyware business in a few years (although I don’t see this happening), competition is going to push the limits on all the leading spyware products. If there is one lesson that Microsoft has taught us it is this: when there is an opportunity to make large amounts of money, Microsoft is going to do what it needs to become the market leader. I think that before you judge this as another inferior Microsoft product, you should look at it without prejudice because it really is one of the better spyware tools available. [Chris Simonek]