About The Gooroo Spyware Removal Effectiveness Test

Based on user feedback, the Gooroo team has created a testing methodology that can be used to objectively compare the effectiveness of various spyware removal products. Each product will be tested and the results displayed prominently at the top of each product review, as in the figure to the right.

Although the test was designed to be an objective measure, it was also designed to overcome some of the marketing ploys commonly used in the industry. For instance, spyware manufacturers typically report the number of “spyware traces” that their programs protect against. These figures are now ranging as high as 100,000, despite the fact that industry experts believe there to be only 15,000 (at most) spyware programs in existence. The reason for the discrepancy is that a single spyware program usually has ten to twenty “traces” associated with it. A secondary reason, no less misleading, is that most vendors count “cookies” as spyware. As we discuss elsewhere, this is not technically true, nor are cookies a serious invasion of privacy.

How the Test Was Constructed

Every month we assemble a test PC with many different spyware files (“bait”) loaded on it. We then scan the test PC with each product and examine the log files. We record the test results and start over with the next product. Each product is tested from a clean OS install image to ensure that each product starts on even ground.

The products are graded on the following basis:

Detection – the ability of the program to detect our bait using any means at its disposal.
Removal – the ability of the program to completely disable the program.
Cleansing – the ability of the program to completely remove all traces of the program.

As we learned while conducting our tests, just because a product can detect spyware doesn’t mean it is necessarily effective at removing it. Furthermore, many products fail to remove all traces from the hard drive, despite the fact that they’ve effectively disabled the software. The remaining traces continue to consume disk storage space even though they are no longer being used.

After scoring each individual category on a scale of 1-100%, we gave each category the following weight to come to an overall score:

Detection – 25%
Removal – 65%
Cleansing – 10%

The overall score is given a descriptive name as follows:

0-19 Abysmal
20-29 Awful
30-39 Bad
40-49 Poor
50-59 Average
60-69 Fair
70-79 Good
80-100 Excellent

Recent Changes

We've greatly expanded the number of spyware bait programs in the December test. Previously, we tested against only the most common spyware programs. Our new test incorporates a number of new and relatively uncommon products. For this reason, most of the testing results declined in December, but overall, any score of 80% or better is still an excellent result.

Limitations of the Test

The test does not award points for removing cookies or registry entries. This is by design – cookies are for the most part hardly a threat, while most modern spyware will continue to run without its registry entries (and usually rebuild them in the process).

Most importantly, this test measures only the spyware removal capabilities of the product. It does not measure important product and company attributes such as speed, support, price, or user interface design. It is for this reason that the products are not necessarily recommended in order of their testing results. If you are looking for a program based purely on its effectiveness, the scores will be a good guide. If you are also looking for good customer support, frequent updates, and a solid refund policy, then look in the order of our recommendations.

Which Spyware Programs Do We Test?

We feel that it is important not to disclose the exact files and spyware programs that we use so that spyware vendors can not simply update their products to defeat our test. By keeping the exact files we test against confidential, the only way that vendors will be able to score better on our tests will be by improving the overall functionality of their products.