We're excited to tell you that we have improved the scanning for rootkits. Beginning with the first updates in march we have added new anti rootkit plugins for Spybot - Search & Destroy. Apart from that we have also developed a new tool - the RootAlyzer

Rootkits are a technology that is more and more often used by malware to hide themselves on system level, making themselves invisible to standard tools. Our new plugins help Spybot-S&D to detect this malware, and our RootAlyzer shows you anything that uses certain rootkit technologies, even if it's not in Spybot-S&Ds detection database.

You can apply the new plugins for the rootkit search by just updating your Spybot-S&D as usual.

The RootAlyzer is a single tool which goes through the file system, the registry and process related lists. When you start RootAlyzer, it performs a very quick scan of a few important places, taking about a second on modern machines. To check the full system, you have the possibility of choosing a Deep Scan.

Currently, the RootAlyzer is a work in progress (with a new project tools category in our forum to track bugs and feature requests), but it's already helping to easily locate most of the current malware rootkits. It is compatible with Windows NT/2000/XP/2k3 and Vista. If you like to check out the new RootAlyzer you will find it in our forum.

Spybot-S&D 1.5 has quite a lot of advantages over version 1.4: improved compatibility, more effective detections and new functions. Between all the positive feedback we received, there were also some things that needed to be improved: the immunization sometimes needed to be applied twice before sticking, many users wanted the file shredder back, and it was impossible to remove entries from the user blacklist in the Internet Explorer plugin. But first of all, we apologize for the long starting time of Spybot-S&D 1.5.1 to all users. This item has been fixed now in this new version 1.5.2.

We are convinced that you will work with the best Spybot ever: Spybot-S&D 1.5.2 has all advantages, but no handicaps over all previous versions!

Throughout the next days our partners and ourselves will provide you with version 1.5.2. This version will also be available through the integrated update within the next days.

We moeten toegeven dat het een aantal keer uitgesteld werd, meestal omdat we steeds nog een nieuwe mogelijkheid in ons hoofd hadden die we wilden implementeren, maar nu is het er toch eindelijk: we zijn zeer trots dat we de beschikbaarheid van Spybot - Search & Destroy 1.5 kunnen aankondigen. Deze nieuwe versie bevat een heel aantal verbeterde detectiemechanismen (welke in delen reeds beschikbaar werden gemaakt in de gewone 1.4 via updates tijdens de voorbije maanden), verbeterde ondersteuning voor besturingssystemen (integratie van Windows Vista, opnieuw ondersteuning voor Windows 95, meer compatibiliteit met Wine, ondersteuning voor bootable Windows CDs), verbeterde ondersteuning van browsers (bv voor immunizering) en veel meer. U kan hier een overzicht van de meest opmerkelijke veranderingen terugvinden.

Downloads zullen in de komende dagen beschikbaar worden en we zullen proberen de lijst met download mirrors up to date te houden met wie reeds de nieuwe versie heeft.