Two things are for certain if you run Windows XP or Windows Vista: Lots of memory and CPU cycles will be eaten up by anti-virus software and lots of memory and cpu cycles will be eaten up by anti-spyware software. These are necessary evils for all Windows users. I'm always looking for free or FOSS lightweight anti-virus and anti-spyware for my virtualized test Windows systems. I read good things about SpywareBlaster 3.5.1 recently. So, I downloaded it and gave it a try.

It has a somewhat busy interface. It looks like it modifies the host file to block potentially dangerous sites.And, it can block ActiveX installation in Internet Explorer. Its Firefox protection looks limited to blocking cookie tracking. I don't see a scan-on-demand feature that is available on other anti-spyware apps. So, I'm not sure what kind of reporting it provides. I'll leave it running for a few days. But, I suspect I will remove it by the weekend.