Spybot Search & Destroy Now at Version 1.5

Spybot Search and Destroy is now at version 1.5 with new features and improvements to the program. Updating and the Immunization feature are the best improvements in my opinion. Support for Firefox Immunization has been added. Of course the scanning and spyware removal has been improved as well, but that works in the background where you won't notice as much. Windows Vista is fully supported now, and Windows 95 support has returned. Not sure who is still using 95 but Spybot is probably the only option you have for antispyware on that old OS.

Here is a list of some of the changes:

• Restored Win95 compatibility
• New Immunization for Firefox & Mozilla
• Fixed HyperThreading issues
• Improved 64 bit immunization
• Support for multi-line bookmarks (IE 7 / Vista)
• Improved Immunization for Opera
• New warnings about missing admin rights on Windows Vista
• Improved SDHelper dialogs and block/allow choices
• New confirmation dialog for system restore points
• Added support for renaming services before stopping/killing/deleting them
• Improved hosts file location algo

There are many more. You can see them and screen shots of the program on the Spybot 1.5 info page.

One thing that I would change is that Tea Timer is enable by default when installing. In the older Spybot 1.4 install, it was not checked. Now it is checked and will be enabled after the install is complete. While Tea Timer is a good resident protection program, it can be a bit overwhelming for some people.

Another recommendation is to undo the Immunization in 1.4 and uninstall it before installing the 1.5 version. While not required, Immunize adds alot of entries to the registry and the newer version may handle them differently. Also, if 1.4 hasn't been updated to the latest Immunize data, there could be entries left on your system that should have been removed already that 1.5 will not. While I am not aware of any entries that would do this, better safe than sorry.

Overall, this is a good update to Spybot and everyone should update to version 1.5. You can download it from Spybot's download page as well as major download sites like Download.com.