This weeks news start with our forums new Malware Removal Guides part. As you hopefully have noticed, we try to write down a few sentences about each threat Spybot-S&D detects. Thinking on how we could improve that service in preparation for Spybot-S&D 2.0, we decided to add more information. Removal guides are surely not a new idea, and not all can be really complete, since malware likes to use hiding methods that make them difficult to detect, and textual explanations already start to lack when it comes to randomized filenames. Still, some information is better than none, and we decided we'll just try and give our best in describing manual removal. Rolling out hundreds, if not thousands of guides will take a few days, maybe weeks, but you can already see the first ones here and comment here.

The Spybot 2.0 blog also has a new entry on usability for error handling concepts.

Spybot 2.0: Patrick Kolla, our chief software engineer, has started a series of small blog posts on features of Spybot-S&D 2.0, starting with a blog post about modularization, with more entries on various other topics already waiting in queue.

Recommendations: our page with recommendations about security software has been out of date for a while, so we decided to go ahead and rewrite it. You can view the new article here and comment on our blog here.

SpybotWiki: our wiki, which has been restricted to logins of forum users until the OpenSBI system was finished, is now open to all readers, forum account or not. Stay tuned for the final release of OpenSBI!

FileAlyzer 2: a first beta release of our file analysis tool created to help you understanding various file formats, and designed to support OpenSBI, is now available as the first of our tools to reach version 2.0. It's new multi-file interface allows you to easily compare multiple files, all detail pages have been updated to make use of XP/Vista style controls when available, and its speed has been improved to show up without delays now.

Download portal: now if you are wondering where to download FileAlyzer 2, or other betas, previews and smaller downloads, we have a new download portal available that replaces many download links on the website and in scattered forum posts. The FileAlyzer download page there is a good example for the useful details we added to most downloads - screenshots, supported Operating Systems, and hashes to verify your download.