SUMMARY: Today we are going to tell you about some of the best Spyware remover programs available for you to download, how to use those programs, and also how to monitor processes which are running on your computer to establish if the processes are a security risk or not. After you’re finished with this guide your PC will be free of Spyware and running the way it should without any nasty programs running in the background chewing up your computer performance and violating your privacy.
Developer Homepage:GIANT Company Download:GIANT Company (15 day trial) Buy:Regnow ($29.95) Our Rating: 9.5 out of 10 Our Summary: GIANT AntiSpyware comes with a very stylish GUI with many options such as scan scheduling and very in-depth information on each Spyware program found. You also have the ability to protect your system in real-time against Spyware along with access to the Advanced Tools section.
The next Spyware remover on our list of programs is called GIANT AntiSpyware by GIANT Company Software who is based out of the United States. GIANT offer a free 15 day trial which allows you to use the program as if it were registered. The good news is in the two days we had this software installed, it has provided us with two definition updates each day. When we first installed the program, the software had already updated the definitions database which was pleasing to see.
GIANT AntiSpyware easily has the most pleasing and soothing GUI of all of the Spyware removers we have looked at inside this guide. On the first load of the program things can be a little overwhelming because you have a window with a stack of options but after a short while you get used to everything.
When you first load the program you are greeted with the screen above. It is a summary of previous scans and provides links to some of the other features in the program which we will take a closer look at shortly.
Under the Spyware Scan section you have the ability to run either a quick scan or a full system scan. If you are using a Spyware remover program for the first time, you should run the full system scan which will take between 5 and 10 minutes whereas the quick scan only takes a couple of minutes.
As the scan is taking place you can see which Spyware programs have been detected and how many of them are in memory, files, the registry or cookies in the Spyware Scan Progress bar on the right hand side. The GUI is simply lovely to work with.
After the scan is complete, you are provided with the screen above which provides a simple summary of what was found.
The next screen displays in-depth information about the Spyware found, threat levels and so forth. This program actually removed full programs such as Imesh and Kazaa and even detected perfectly fine programs such as VNC.
It would be well worth checking through what was found before going ahead and removing the problem Spyware. Once you have decided what programs you want to get rid of or ignore, just click the Continue button and the Spyware will be removed. Some Spyware will already be running in memory and as a result won’t be able to be removed until you reboot, as you can see in the screen above – which is perfectly normal.
Where GIANT AntiSpyware excels itself over other Spyware removers is the fact that it goes deeper and offers a set of “Advanced Tools” as you can see in the screen above. The one which stood out for us was the Secure File Shredder which properly removes files from your system by using the US Department of Defense recommendations for secure file destruction. You might think when you delete a file from your PC it is gone but it isn’t really – if someone wanted to find it bad enough, they could.
Like Ad-Watch in Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware, you have real-time protection in GIANT AntiSpyware which monitors certain parts of the system (just like an anti-virus program would) to stop infections of Spyware. If you intend on running the real-time protection, remember your system will run a little slower just as if you were running an anti-virus program.
Finally we have the SpyNet AntiSpyware Community which is a wonderful idea. Since many new Spyware programs are finding their way onto the Internet on a probable daily basis, you have the option of running the SpyNet AntiSpyware Community feature which sends back new Spyware information from your PC to a central server, this in turn allowing GIANT to maintain more precise definitions files so you have a better chance of catching Spyware running on your PC. We checked out at least 20 different Spyware removers and no other program we looked at had such an intelligent feature as this.
Overall - We found GIANT AntiSpyware to be one of the best (if not the best) Spyware remover programs available. It comes with a very stylish GUI with many options such as scan scheduling and very in-depth information on each Spyware program found. You also have the ability to protect your system in real-time against Spyware along with access to the Advanced Tools section which includes some very handy programs to complement the program, not to mention the intuitive SpyNet AntiSpyware Community.
We are giving GIANT AntiSpyware our highest rating of 9.5 out of 10 - If it was free, we would have given it a perfect score but even at $29.95 it is very well priced. It will be our Editor’s Choice for the time being.
