Adware may be affecting a customer

...but they claim they have anti-adware software

[AWildman]

I have a customer who is having problems with our online product that are consistent with those who have a piece of spyware on their computer. They say they can't possibly have spyware cause they are using Trend Micro Office.

Doing a search for said piece of software, I find that it says it protects against spyware, but says nothing of any capabilities to remove spyware already on the computer. Now, one would think that such functionality exists with this software, but that's another matter.

What I'm more concerned about is that I've not heard of this software and thus I don't know how good it is at keeping out spyware. Obviously, I have heard of, and use on a daily basis, AdAware and Spybot Search and Destroy. I know they work.

My question is, have any of you had any experience with this Trend Micro Office? I want to know how good it is at protecting computers from spyware in particular. If this software also has a problem with its virus detection, that's good to know too, in that I can point out that this software sucks at its primary purpose and thus may have a problem in other arenas (spyware protection) as well.

[encyclo]

hey say they can't possibly have spyware cause they are using Trend Micro Office.

And I can't possibly be burgled because I have a lock on my door... None of these products can provide 100% protection, and if your customer thinks they can, he probably doesn't keep his program up to date (or his anti-virus too, for that matter), and he might have neglected to imporve security elsewhere - like a firewall, etc.

All of these products react to known spyware stuff, but none of them can reliably detect unknown scumware/viruses. I reckon the guy's over-confidence has got the better of him.

[Sanenet]

Agreed - adaware and spybot both offer free versions, so tell the client to download them and test. Each program has their pros and cons, what one misses another will pick up.

[AWildman]

This customer is a real pickle! She is very insistant that she gets "many updates a day" to the software. I'm assuming that she has a firewall and they are running Win XP SP2.

I don't know if she'll be very receptive to me telling her to just humor us and download AdAware. I'd like to have SOME evidence, even if its only anecdotal, that her virus/spyware anti-virus program may not be up-to-snuff. Well, not that I WANT to find problems with her software, I just want to eliminate it as a possibility. I'm trying to keep an open mind about this. I know there are a TON of factors, but the rest of my team has pretty much eliminated those factors as a problem. Its down to there is spyware that this program hasn't caught OR something screwy with XP SP2. Before you say it, I KNOW, given that I'm talking Microsoft, there will be something screwy. :)

[txbakers]

Not every spyware program cateches everything.

I have three running at all times on my computers:

The Cleaner,
SpyBot,
Giant SPyware.

I'll run all three, and all three will find different crap living in my registry.

Sometimes they can remove them, most times, if the crapware has been embedded a while I have to find a registry manual fix for it.

Those adware/spyware guys should be forcibly drawn and quartered, and then the pieces tarred and feathered.

[AWildman]

Amen to that! Computers infested with spyware have been wrecking havoc on people who try to use our programs. When we have a customer who is actually cooperative enough to download and install AdAware, they are always amazed how much stuff is on their computer that they didn't know about. I wish those people would write testimonials for the rest of the people who don't get it.

I think I'll have my people tell this customer just what you all have suggested. Hopefully, she'll cooperate.

I've now made our customers sound like bad seeds! :) They aren't all, just that they are generally very technically challenged and need a lot of hand holding.

[txbakers]

those are my customers as well. Lots of hand holding, phone support at first, email after that, and finally their comfort level increases.

We run a state-wide contest management system and lots of folks are required to use it, even the technically challenged, so we have to make it transparent and easy.

Any popups or other oddities just spooks them.

[Chndru]

>>I have three running at all times on my computers:

It used to be like that for me.. till i switched to Firefox.
It's been a while since i touched any of them.. ;)

[AWildman]

I wish there was some way that our own products could check for spyware before allowing customers to use the program. I mean, we can continue to TELL people that their computers are infested with spyware, but some won't listen and we lose orders when people can't rid their computers of spyware or viruses. And it also isn't very user-friendly to operate on the idea that machines infested with spyware are the exception, not the norm. We really need to be proactive about this, but its so outside of the scope of OUR products that I don't know how well research into creating our own code to search for spyware will fly.

[vkaryl]

The IT guy at the place I just retired from removed Trend Micro stuff from the servers there last year. He replaced it with Norton initially (eh, what can I say - he has too much to think about....), but then after we "consulted" a few months back, migrated all the machines to AVG, AdAware, and Spybot S&D running concurrently.

My experience with Trend Micro (prior to us redoing basic security) was so dismal that I disabled it on my own work machine, and installed AVG, AdAware, AdsGone, and Spybot. Since mine was the only machine out of 70+ which did NOT get infestations and virii on a regular basis, that's what led to Eric discussing security with me....

They still haven't implemented FireFox instead of IE (another of my recommendations). Too bad, too.

[AWildman]

Hey, thanks vkaryl! I'll pass your comments on to the team.

And thanks everyone for your comments!