Sivran said:
"For a complete description of the TAC please see the following link:
http://www.lavasoftnews.com/ms/tac_main.shtml
(See dslr thread linked above for full post)
For XP users, Microsoft Antispyware is available as freeware. Microsoft Antispyware is basically rebranded Giant Antispyware, the highest scoring anti-spyware app in exhaustive tests conducted by Eric Howes.
For the rest of us wondering who to turn to, there's still Patrick Kolla's Spybot Search & Destroy (http://security.kolla.de), Webroot's Spy Sweeper (~$26, http://www.webroot.com/), and McAfee Anti-Spyware, which has gotten good reviews so far."
Hmmm... that Lavasoft link is an interesting one, fascinating to see how they have to "score" a program to determine if its spyware or not. Sometimes it might not be obvious.
This sort of back and forth oneupmanship of various spyware blockers is common. You should browse the reviews on Download.com for the respective programs. The comments are bourderline libel. I thought it was simply dirty competition between companies. But now I see that there are minor differences between the apps, and people are applying conspiricy theorys to them.
For what its worth, I use both Adaware and Spybot. I don't think I'll trust M$ to keep their spyware remover clean of nepotisim for their pet companies.
There's more to keeping your system clean of course, as the Lavasoft link highlighted. You don't have to take any companies word for it as to what programs are clean. For example, I really liked a JPEG viewer called Ifran View. It was small, free, and did the job. But Adaware was flagging it. The author said it was a flaw in Adaware. But a little Googling led me to discover that one of the plugins, for an obscure image format, was causing the program to "phone home" off and on. So I used my firewall to block Irfan View from connecting to the internet. Its pretty amazing how many programs try to connect when they really have no reason to.