Desktop Armor: Waging War Against Malware and More Going Beyond Malware to Also Protect Against Annoyance-Ware Forrest Stroud
Going Beyond Malware to Also Protect Against Annoyance-Ware
One of Desktop Armor and Geek Superhero's selling points is that they go beyond just monitoring for and removing malware by also assisting in protecting the user from what we like to call annoyance-ware. This includes programs or utilities that install unwanted icons or favorites in your web browser. For example, installing America Online or AOL's Instant Messenger client will add a variety of unasked-for icons on your desktop (as many as 5 distinct icons) as well as a couple of quick launch icons and several bookmarks in your web browser. Desktop Armor alerts you to these additions and enables you to selectively keep or reject each of the changes.
There's a glut of applications and toolbar utilities offering popup blockers these days, and Desktop Armor and Geek Superhero are no different. They do, however, go a step beyond most tools by coupling 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 no-see-um bug so prevalent – and annoying – this time of year are designed to track your browsing activities by secretly setting cookies on your PC.
Desktop Armor also 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 (or misused) 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).
Overall, while we don't recommend using Desktop Armor or Geek Superhero as your sole means of protection against malware, especially if you believe your system has already been compromised, the initial releases of Desktop Armor does pack quite a few useful goodies in its anti-malware grab-bag. We're looking forward to watching Desktop Armor and Geek Superhero evolve and discovering what future releases of the products will have to offer.
Pros: Great collection of tools for combatting malware and annoyance-ware, blocks popups and web bugs, great for helping you keep on top of changes to system settings, inexpensive ($25)
Cons: Focuses on tracking changes to system settings, which means existing malware is not detected or removed; this also means program updates are essential — and even then, not guaranteed to identify all types of viruses and malware (especially newer variants), somewhat flaky comic-inspired interface for Geek Superhero edition (Desktop Armor version offers a more polished look and feel)
