Microsoft's Windows Defender Beta 2 blows Webroot SpySweeper away in my free anti-spyware test

This weekend I tried out a couple of free downloadable approaches to remove some pesky spyware. Webroot SpySweeper gave me a textbook experience of how not to attract customers, while Microsoft's Windows Defender was perfect.

I tried Webroot first because they have more spyware experience and I was familiar with the product from prior use. Starting the scan was easy – I just clicked on the “Start Spyware Scan Now” link. After 10 minutes of installation and 35 minutes of scanning, SpySweeper told me that it had found a few things and would I like them removed? Not so fast! You have to buy the product to remove spyware that the free scan found. Now I'm ok with that as a business model, but please tell the user first! Nowhere does it say that removal is extra. I ended up wasting an hour of my weekend on a marketing trick. Trust me I am not pleased with Webroot right now.

That led me to try the Beta 2 release of Windows Defender. I did not try this first as I was afraid I'd get bogged down in all kinds of licensing snafus (paperwork with license keys are long gone). I am here to report that I got none of that aggravation. What I got was an easy download, a quicker scan of the system and removal of whatever it is that it found. All symptoms of the infections disappeared – nice! My recommendation if you'd like to scan your machine is to give Microsoft's Windows Defender Beta 2 a try. I'd be interested to hear if your experience was as good as mine.