Spybot S&D VS Desktop Armor

	Grade	Spybot	Desktop Armor
Features	25%	8*.25 = 2	5*.25 = 1.25
Efficiency	50%	9*.5 = 4.5	6*.5 = 3
Compatibility	25%	9*.25 = 2.25	7*.25 = 1.75
Final	100%	8.75	6

Spybot S&D Pros and Cons

Spybot Search and Destroy, or Spybot S&D for short, is a great utility for detecting and protecting yourself against almost every form of malware, including adware and spyware threats, keyloggers, trojan horses, and duplicitous dialers.

Spybot S&D offers great detection power along with extensive features and a dual mode, easy to use interface. The program is available as donationware, which means you can download it and use it and you have the option of donating money to the company, which you should donate to the company.

Spybot S&D's quick setup wizard gets you running and ready for your first scan of your system. The program offers users a choice of using a basic default mode that hides many of the more advanced settings and features, or an advanced mode that makes all of the program's settings and options customizable. Both modes come with the assorted obligatory anti-spyware warnings, some commands can create changes to your computer that cannot be changed back, which could render some adware or spyware-infected applications unusable.

Spybot S&D's advanced mode makes it possible to customize the program to what you want to do. It also puts all of the program's more advanced settings at your command, including scheduling and automation options, skins settings, exclusion options (for ignoring specific programs and/or cookies), and extensive logging and reporting capabilities.

Spybot is not without its flaws, Spybot can only permanent adware or spyware blocking, which only extends to IE, not other browsers; it doesn't scan for viruses or worms; Spybot S&D website also has limited bandwidth, making it inaccessible at times.

Desktop Armor Pros and Cons

Desktop Armor includes a tool for listing and managing the programs configured to automatically launch when Windows starts, another tool that displays how space is being used on your hard drives, and additional options for disabling rarely-used, loosely-secure Windows features such as Windows Message Service (WMS), the Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM), the Remote Registry Service, and Universal Plug and Play (UPnP).

Desktop Armor has a large collection of tools for combating malware and annoyance-ware, blocking popups and web bugs, Desktop Armor is great for helping you keep an eye of the changes to system settings, and it is inexpensive.

Desktop Armor goes a step beyond most tools by putting a popup blocker with a Web Bug Blocker that ensures your privacy by blocking the invisible tags or images commonly found on Web pages. These electronic versions of the not seen bugs, which can be so annoying, are designed to track your browsing activities by secretly setting cookies on your PC.

Desktop Armor as your sole means of protection against malware is not a good idea, especially if you believe your computer has already been compromised, the first releases of Desktop Armor does pack quite a few useful applications in its anti-malware programming.

Desktop Armor focuses on tracking changes to system settings, which means existing malware is not detected or removed; this also means program updates are essential and still you are not guaranteed to identify all types of viruses and malware especially new malwares.

Final Recommendation

Spybot is the obvious choice in protecting your computer from unwantedapplications and cookies. Spybot offers many features and an easy to use GUI interface, which can ease many people’s minds when they are on the internet. Desktop Armor is a good program, but it is more suited to watch over your system setting changes and to alert you of any that seem suspicious then protect your computer from malware and other bad-ware. Spybot offers protection from many different kinds of malware such as, adware and spyware threats, keyloggers, trojan horses, and duplicitous dialers.