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| Anti-spyware scanner | Price/annual renewal (3/15/04) | Scans Registry/memory | Allows scan of select files/folders | Rate of detection and removal | Ease of use | Performance | Comments |
| Aluria Spyware Eliminator | $30/none | Yes/Yes | Yes | 29% | Good | Poor | Consistently left Registry changes behind and failed to detect and remove some infected files. Prompts for registration during setup, but allows registration only from the Help menu (after the program is installed).  |
| InterMute SpySubtract Pro Version 2 | $30/none | Yes/Yes | Yes (folders only) | 29% | Outstanding | Poor | The spyware detection was poor, but the comprehensive Internet and file-use history cleaning will deny much of your personal data to spyware. |
| Best Buy Lavasoft Ad-aware 6 Plus | $27/none | Yes/Yes1 | Yes | 57% | Outstanding | Good | Thorough in detecting spyware and easy to navigate, but it left some Registry keys behind after cleaning. Ad-watch performs real-time monitoring. |
| Network Associates McAfee AntiSpyware | $40/2 | Yes/Yes | No | 43% | Good | Fair | Achieved one of the higher rates of detection, cleanly removing any malware found, but the real-time monitor failed to prevent spyware infections from occurring. |
| Network Associates McAfee Internet Security Suite 6 3 | $70/$30 | Yes/Yes | Yes | 14% | Poor | Poor | Detected all Registry change attempts, but failed to catch changes made by spyware already on the system. Privacy Service failed to detect processes responsible for infection. |
| Panda Platinum Internet Security 3 | $80/$70 | No/Yes | Yes | 0% | Very good | Unacceptable | Ineffective spyware removal; unable to identify most spyware program files during scan of test set. |
| Best Buy Spybot Search & Destroy | Free4 | Yes/Yes | No | 57% | Good | Good | Free product has some of the best spyware detection and cleaning capabilities available, but memory-resident scanning ability is very limited. |
| Symantec Norton Internet Security 20045 | $69/$30 | No/Yes | Yes | 14% | Good | Poor | Identified nearly all spyware application files on disk but was ineffective at removing them. Does not scan the Registry, but does include an Internet privacy utility. |
| Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security 20043 | $49/$25 | No/Yes | Yes | 0% | Outstanding | Unacceptable | Ably detected spyware applications on disk but could not remove them. Does not scan for Registry changes. Firewall privacy controls block sending of personal information items that the user has predefined. |
1 Ad-watch, Ad-aware's memory-resident component, is available only in the paid version.
2 Network Associates has not yet determined a renewal policy.
3 Spyware scanner is part of a suite that includes a firewall and other utilities.
4 Software author requests donations.
5 Spyware scanner is a component of the suite's antivirus utility, which is available separately for $50.
HOW WE TEST: We test rewritable DVD drives under Windows XP Home on PCs with 1.67-GHz Athlon XP 2000+ processors and 512MB of DDR SDRAM. To test each drive, we use the bundled DVD video authoring, mastering, and packet-writing software; we use vendor-supplied media or Verbatim media. Tests conducted by the PC World Test Center. All rights reserved.