I just got the September 2005 issue of
Consumer Reports Magazine in the mail today, and it has a large write-up about Viruses, Spam, and Spyware. Unsurprisingly, they mention that Apple computers are far less susceptible to this stuff, but do of course recommend that you stay on top of your updates anyhow.
Spam filters:
I wonder sometimes just how they decide what to test and what to leave out, but the top two email programs they liked were:
1) Microsoft Outlook 2003. (This is not Outlook Express, btw)
2) Apple's OS 10.4 Mail
Maybe they just liked these two programs because they usually come bundled with a new computer. Everything below is listed by their rankings in the ratings:
Add-on Spam Filters:
3) Allume Systems Spamcatcher 4
4) MailFrontier
The following didn't fare as well as the above in their tests:
5) McAfee Spamkiller 2005
6)PC Tools Spam monitor 2.5
7)Symantec Norton Anti Spam 2005
There were 3 others listed, but as Symantec's was only rated "good", I'm not listing stuff worse than 7th place.
Antivirus Programs:
1) Trend Micro PC-cillin internet security 2005
2) Kaspersky Lab Anti Virus Personal 5.0
3) Softwin SRL bit defender 8 Std.
4) Symantec Norton AV 2005
5) Alwil Avast! Antivirus (the only FREE one they reviewed)
6) McAfee ViruScan 2005 9.0
7) Panda Software Titanium AV 2005
8) Computer Associates eTrust EZ Antivirus 2005
The first two were rated "Excellent", the rest were "Very Good" except #8 which was rated "Good"
I have no idea why AVG Free was not rated. Everything I've read on the net in the past indicated that Alwil's Avast! is on a par with AVG, but that AVG had an easier to use interface.
Anti Spyware:
1) Microsoft Antispyware beta
2) Webroot Spy Sweeper
3) Computer Associates eTrust PestPatrol 2005
4) Spybot Search & Destroy
5) Ad-Aware SE Plus ( I think the free version is pretty much the same, is it not?)
The following were rated a bit lower overall than the above, for one reason or another:
6) McAfee Antispyware
7) Trend Micro PC-cillin
8) Allume Internet Cleanup
I can personally attest to the usefulness of Webroot's Spy Sweeper. I used to d/l the trial version every so often to clean up stuff that Spybot and Ad-aware missed. The last time I did that though, I had already gone to the website "Barney's Place" that Skank gave us a link to, and gotten Spyware Blaster and Spyware Guard. Since installing those two additional programs, Ad-Aware has never found anything nasty, and Spy Sweeper only found a couple of things.
They are not updated very often however. Spyware Blaster updates about once a month maximum. Spyware Guard has not had an update for ages, so I'm not sure if it is being supported any more.