Brent,
The news about Spybot was in the news a couple years back when all the malware and malicious ad companies went on a sueing spree because they were being unfairly targeted by the anti-spyware vendors. I first heard about it through The Langa List newsletter put out by Fred Langa. It was also a story on www.cnet.com and a few other tech news sites. Even Adaware and Windows Defender have delisted various adware and spyware (not viruses and trojans, theres a difference).
I don't believe that they were unleashing trojans and viruses on people just adware they all seemed to be delisting for awhile. I should have been more specific in my post and I do apologize for my lack of brevity. It was one of those days. Actually a friend of mine knows Patrick Kolla and I think Fred Langa knows him as well. A very cool guy I've been told. M$ delisted claria for awhile while Adaware was delisting various things on a regular basis. Researchers find these thing out.
In the early days Steve Gibson ( www.grc.com ) was very fond of Adaware. Adaware came about when Steve Gibson first wrote his opt-out program and from there adaware picked up and moved forward. But now they've fallen from grace in his eyes for that same reason. He also liked Zonealarm and used to reccommend it but no longer does so. If you listen to Steve and Leo Laporte's Security Now podcast they've talked about all this but I don't remember which podcast exactly because theres almost 100 of them now. Security Now podcasts are at www.twit.tv and www.grc.com/securitynow by the way the one with eEye Security's co-founder Marc Maiffret is #91 if you haven't heard it. It is interesting!
Also I remember right around 2002 or 2003 Adaware was almost sued out of existence but they managed to survive. I'm sure if you Google some of this stuff its still out there on the net. Ars Technica is another place you may find this info as well as technorati. I hope Spybot is on the up and up again but when he started detecting cookies that was about all I could take. I moved on so to speak.
Ok on the bypass note. I used to have Zonealarm and got fed up with it and tried something else. My Windows firewall was disabled so when I uninstalled Zonealarm I was getting the bypass message in Spybot, it really is only telling you your firewall setting has been changed. Usually to off or not being monitored. I'm sure some spyware could do that but from my experience its usually something the user did and easily fixed by going to the security center in the control panel.
By the way grab a coffe or something this is gonna be a long post if you want the facts.
Lets go back in time a few years to a little company called "Giant software". They had a great product called Giant Anti-spy I think was the name. Microsoft bought them and it became Microsoft Anti-Spy which eventually became Windows Defender. Microsoft bought them so they could get all their adware and spyware they were using delisted from the product and put it out under the Microsoft brand. Windows Defender won't detect anything Microsoft does but will hit all the competition.
Lets go back a few years again to a product called "Pest Patrol". Another fantastic product absorbed by Yahoo. And what is Yahoo? Another advertising company. And why did Yahoo buy them? To get their adware and spyware beacons and whatever else they use for marketing purposes delisted. Yahoo's pest patrol or spyware toolbar or whatever they call it these days will not detect anything Yahoo does but again will nail the competition.
My friend the list goes on and on and on and on. This stuff is my hobby and I persue this type of information relentlessly with a passion. I just find it very interesting to learn about all this stuff it facinates me to no end. I have no reason to make it up.
I'll give you a list of products that in my opinion are useless. I will not use them and I will tell why for each one. They are in no particular order just as they come to mind and it will probably not be complete either.
Adaware - I first went off Adaware a couple years back when they just vanished. There were no updates and no info at their site. They also shut down their forums a few times so as not to deal with the backlash from users. They were very inconsistent and very unreliable. Then they came back rejuvenated and won back some old users and attracted new users. Vanished yet again. There were no updates for weeks and months at a time. Then came the lawsuits that almost put them under. Then they started delisting some things they used to flag as adware and spyware. Enough was enough for me.
Windows Defender - Useless as far as I'm concerned. I had this for 2 maybe 3 years and in all that time it never found anything when other programs had found issues. One time WD found something called Glacier on one of my PC's and I couldn't find one thing on the net about it and none of my other programs reported it either. It also sent my boot time through the roof and shut down time as well. That was it for Defender. With Blink as my sole security app I'm booted in about 90 seconds as opposed to 4 or 5 minutes with all the other stuff I used to run. I like that!
Spybot S&D - A few years back it was like Adaware in the reliability department. Weeks and months with no updates and no word on what was happening. This was a time when he was being drug through the courts as well. But he pulled through. What really put me off Spybot was when it started reporting cookies. I don't need to sit through a 20 or 30 minute scan to find out what cookies are on my computer. I can do that in seconds myself. Sorry time to move on.
Spy Defence - Crap absolute crap. Everestlabs put this jewel out and it just vanished as well. All it ever found was a few cookies as well.
AVG Anti-spyware - Again don't make me sit through a 45 minute scan to show me my cookies.
Zonealarm - It has really lost focus on what it originally did which was to firewall a system. Its become a resource hog be all end all do everything under the sun massive overbloated pig to put it bluntly. It turned most of my PC's into frozen molasses on a January afternoon. If you just use the free version which is still the full version but crippled. The free version is not to bad as a firewall but everything else about it is crap.
Yahoo Anti-spy - It was good when it was Pest Patrol. I just don't trust them anymore. I don't trust Yahoo basically for all or most of the reasons mentioned elsewhere in this post.
Anyway that's enough its getting to late here where I am. The bottom line is use whatever you like. If your PC is running fine and theres no problems by all means use whatever makes your boat float. These are my opinions only as you wanted me to share them so that's all I'm doing.
I'm not a Blink fanboy by any means. If I find cookies in their scans Blink will be history as well. To me when software makes me wait for 30 or 40 minutes and reports what cookies or MRU's are on my computer, that is a huge insult to my intelligence. As I mentioned eslewhere the anti-malware vendors have turned everything we do into a threat of some kind. Its ridiculous and ludicrous and we should hold them accountable and demand higher standards. Right now I'm getting that from Blink. They are not insulting me by detecting all these crazy things and perceived threats about cookies and MRU's and my web cache and all the monsters hiding there. I think you get my drift by now. Your best protection is your own brain. No software can protect you from you. You are your own worst threat and also your own best solution.
And I am getting very tired. I hope this answers your questions.
Cheers!