Adware vs Pest Patrol ?'s

[sirwolfie]

Is anyone familiar with both these programs? Share your thoughts. They cost about the same. Thanks

[jmatt]

I use SpyBot .


http://beam.to/spybotsd
What does SpyBot-Search & Destroy?

SpyBot-S&D searches your hard drive for so-called spy- or adbots; little modules that are
responsible for the ads many programs display. But many of these modules also transmit
information about your surfing behaviour and more to the net.
If SpyBot-S&D finds such modules, it can remove them - or replace them with empty dummies in
case their host software won't run with its bot removed. In most cases, the host still runs
fine after removing the bot.
For a list of 'supported' bots see the feature lists below. The Spybot-S&D interface is so
easy, that updates just require replacing a file of about 80k in size. Those updates are
distributed by my software mailinglist, over this page and are also available from inside the
programs update section.

Another feature of Spybot S&D is the removal of usage tracks, which makes it more complicated
for unknown spybots to transmit useful data. The list of last visited websites, opened files,
started programs, cookies, all that and more can be cleaned. Supported are the three major
browsers Internet Explorer, Netscape Communicator and Opera.

Last but not least Spybot-S&D contains some routines to find and correct invalid entries into
the registry.

[Strawbs]

Although I have never tried Pest Patrol , AdAware is known to miss some deeply buried (in the registry) spyware, Search & Destroy is more lethal and goes deeper.

For the setting up of Win-XP (if that's your OS) you should try XP-Antispy, the options allow you to view and disable just about all built-in spyware/tracking registry keys incorporated by M$ and third party programmers.

[Cluedo]

What browser are you using? That can make a difference. If you are not using IE then you may not want to pay for something that primarily catches IE based stuff.

I use AdAware, and just finished trying SpyBot and PestPatrol again. SB and PP didn't find anything except for a few IE temp files and a couple of cookies that AdAware missed. (But then I rarely use IE, and I don't fool around why "spyware" and file-sharing anymore. That can make a big difference also...what you download.

Try them all and see what you think. AdAware is pretty easy...and SpyBot is more complicated. But SpyBot catches a lot more. PestPatrol...it caught a few things in my registry...but they were false positives. And it also identified many of SpyBot's files as "trojans". PP also identified several other registry keys incorrectly as spyware or trojans.

Quite frankly I don't think PP is worth the price. SpyBot is freeware,but he does ask for a five (?) dollar donation (worth it IMHO).