Spy vs. Spy

Justin told me that he ran Ad-Aware and Spybot on Merin’s computer last weekend, and that he was shocked to see how much spyware (check out this article for more information) was on her computer. He said that it had so much crap on it that it crashed while he was running the anti-spyware programs. I just worked on my BOE’s computer with these same programs and here’s the results:

Is it me, or does the little bug icon look like the spider-shaped trackers that Spider-Man uses to track bad guys?
Ad-aware: 191 programs detected
Spybot: 88 programs detected
Total: 279 spyware programs on the first go. It is truly strange to be in a place where I probably have the most experience working with computers. “Scary” is probably a better word than “strange”, on second thought.
Results for the chugakko are as follows-
Ad-aware: 169
Spybot: 46
Total: 215
On this computer Claria/Gator was installed, and accounted for more than half of the spyware objects detected by both programs (and not all were detected on the first try).