Everybody's hyperventilating about how SP2 “breaks stuff” today — here's a typical article that ran last night. I wish they'd describe this in less dramatic terms. 'Turns out they're talking about the impact of having the firewall turned on by default, instead of turned off (which is the default up until now). So a better version of the headline would be “XP SP2 needs to be reconfigured if you use certain apps” or some such…
Which got me thinking — why doesn't Microsoft bundle anti virus and anti adware software in too? Sure, it'll annoy the companies that have made a business out of fixing MS flaws, but so what? 'Sure would make life easier…
Assuming this will never happen, here are the (free – well, donations-accepted) packages I currently use.
Spybot Search and Destroy – anti adware/spyware software.
I was pleased to see that Consumer Reports just gave Spybot the nod as a “good thing” in their latest issue.