For whether you can prevent spyware problems with external applications, I think you can't. And I don't think the current anti-spyware tools will be effective, just as I don't think antivirus tools are effective. Look at the current state of viruses. For all the AV tools out there, we STILL get hammered with virus outbreaks. If AV programs were effective, we'd at least see the virus problem being held steady. Instead, every year it gets worse and worse. Anti-spyware tools will go the same route: lots of yammering about how effective they are, but every year spyware will become a bigger and bigger (and more profitable) problem.

If you want to stop this stuff, you can't apply Band-Aids, or play whack-a-mole with the latest one to pop it's head up. You need to make the environment itself hostile to viruses and spyware. External tools are simply the carny barker offering you the latest and greatest hammer "for just another fifty cents!" while someone else dials up the speed on the moles.

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