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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Technology
Jack Schofield

Is it safe to run Spybot?

I have been recommended to download and run Spybot. Is this safe to do? Anne Barry

I have recommended SpyBot Search & Destroy many times in this column, but for maximum safety, you should download it from the official site at safer-networking.org/en/, which does include a hyphen. (There have been several lookalike sites and Spybot has also had its code misused.)

Spybot and Lavasoft's Ad-Aware were developed to tackle spyware and malware that anti-virus programs were ignoring, because they weren't viruses. I think Ewido (from ewido.net) now does a better job, though the free trial version only lasts 30 days. Either way, it's worth running Ewido's online scan, and also the free online scan at Trend Micro's Housecall.

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