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About the only thing to rival the growth of spyware and adware - some 90 per cent of computers are said to be infected - is the number of programs to aid their removal.
A quick search of the Web will produce up to 30 software vendors, a market industry watchers estimate is worth US$3 billion a year. All of them promise to rid computer users of malicious code, so how do you compare them?
Fortunately, most of the titles are available free for download on a trial basis.
Microsoft - which many criticised for doing too little to fix vulnerabilities - is now giving away software designed to ward off internet annoyances.
The beta version of its Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware is available at www.microsoft.com/athome/security. Microsoft's technology comes from Giant Company Software, which it acquired only last month.
Another anti-spyware product released in the past week comes from Computer Associates. The eTrust PestPatrol 2005 program comes in both enterprise and consumer versions and is available for trial at www.pestpatrol.com.hk.
A selling point, perhaps, is that home computer users get the robustness of an enterprise solution in a consumer package.
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