Choosing between Spyware Doctor Starter Edition, Windows Defender and Spyware Terminator is not easy. Spyware Doctor has the strongest detection but it’s heavy on resources and its weak active protection is a concern. Defender is also heavy on resources but has reasonable active protection. It’s detection however is mediocre.

As of today I think Spyware Terminator has the edge as the best balanced product of the three but it’s difficult to see how free product like this can remain viable, particularly in a high support product class such as anti-spyware.

However if you use an anti-virus product with good active protection such as the free version of AntiVir you may well be tempted to go with Spyware Doctor. It’s a product with outstanding detection and removal capabilities backed by regular and reliable signature file updates. Remember though, you’ll need a reasonably modern PC otherwise you will take a noticeable performance hit when you install Spyware Doctor. Note: Spyware Doctor Starter Edition can be obtained via the Google Pack but you can get it as a stand-alone download from here [4]