Microsoft Anti-Spyware > Giant

Giant

um wow this actually is pretty fing good spyware detection software.... it even lists real vnc (legit app thats free and found at www.realvnc.com but could be installed without your consent and used to control your computer and monitor your actions) which i've always wondered why that program hasn't come up in virus scans or spyware scans even though i use it for my own legit purposes it just as easily could be used to for illegal purposes. it also found 3 ie browser plugins that were spyware (mostly search redirections that the other 2, adware and spybot didn't pick up). luckily i don't use ie anymore (use firefox) so it wasn't a big deal either way. and it found some adaware references from 'minibug' (never heard of it) in the registry that weren't cleaned up before. it did however pick up kazaa lite/k++ (hacked version with removed spyware) as an adware bundler. i no longer use it but that could be a problem for those who do.

reply to tim_k
Giant used to charge US$30 for its product.

Giant user base will increase by maybe 1,000x maybe 10,000x if MS makes it available (under whatever new name) as a free download.

The user base will go up by even more if they make it a critical update.

And the expertise of the people installing and running it is going to go way way down (from security enthusiast level to regular Windows user level).

What this means is that MS is going to have to do very thorough testing to ensure it is relatively bug free and compatible with a very wide variety of other products -- much more testing than Giant would have done.
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(Virus&Hijacking FAQ + Submit suspected malware + Backups FAQ + Security FAQ TOC)

reply to Blisk
It would be difficult to use RealVNC maliciously without modifying the original codebase since it displays in the systray by default.