Microsoft Tests a Windows Defense

For example, Defender blocked downloads of the Kazaa and BearShare file-sharing programs and the Zango "search assistant." But an instant-messaging program bundling the same Zango software went unnoticed until its setup started. The same happened with a screensaver harboring the "Best Offers Direct" spyware (unlike an earlier Defender release a few months ago). But after a few system scans and reboots, Defender reported the system clean; other anti-spyware tools agreed.

Then, to simulate the stupidest behavior possible, I visited a site advertising pirated copies of computer games and invited it to install a strange ActiveX program in Internet Explorer. This time, Defender first did nothing, then threw up a flurry of dialog boxes as it tried to remove the junk spawned by this download.

Restart followed restart as Defender kept finding new instances of this "Look2Me" spyware. Once or twice, it gave a "no unwanted or harmful software detected" verdict even as new ads popped up.

But one of the most popular spyware removers, the usually effective Spybot Search & Destroy, also gave this computer a thumbs-up. Neither that nor any other program I tried could expel this nuisance; after several hours I wiped the hard drive and reinstalled Windows.

You'd be foolish to rely on Windows Defender alone to rid Windows of spyware. But you'd be about as foolish to rely on any other single anti-spyware utility.

Keep a few on hand, but also use your own common sense and switch to safer software-- like the Firefox and Opera Web browsers, which lack the ActiveX feature exploited by the pirated-games site.

Or you could just get a Mac.

Even Windows users who can stay out of trouble on their own can benefit from Defender, however. With the change in its settings outlined above, this program makes it easy to restrain many installers' pushy habits -- for instance, the 11 system-setting changes Yahoo Music Engine's setup makes, most unrelated to playing digital music.

Meanwhile, Defender's Software Explorer (in its Tools screen) offers a helpful view of what's active on your computer. It lists all the programs running now, those that launch at start-up and those that connect to the Internet -- providing not just the usual cryptic file names ("S24EvMon.exe"), but also their full names, their developers' names, whether they belong to Windows, when they were installed and so on. You can shut down or disable most of these programs with one click -- though removing them may take a trip to the Add or Remove Programs control panel.

Microsoft says Windows Defender will be built into Windows Vista, the replacement for XP due this fall; I'd expect to see a finished version of Defender for XP and 2000 by then. But the spyware problem in Windows is a mess now, and Defender can help remedy that. It would be a mistake to ignore it just because of the "Beta" in its name.

Living with technology, or trying to? E-mail Rob Pegoraro atrob@twp.com.