I don't have any lucky charmed item that can protect you from the misfortune of this Friday that also happens to be the 13th day of the month, and maybe some of you don't even need such a thing (I know some people that consider the 13th to be their lucky day of the month). While luck is usually random, and some think that various items can help it find you easier, the antispyware threat is all around, and you don't have to do anything special, because it's going to find you any way...unless you know how to protect yourself, of course.

Leaving behind radical measures like cutting off the network cable or start using other operating systems, you can get an antispyware tool and let it do its job, that of defending your system from spyware aggressions.

The defender I have here is called ContraVirus, with the latest version being 2.0, and its shareware version has a lot of limitations, that you should feel the need to register or uninstall the program pretty quick, I can tell you that, so no worries about the free trial period...To register and unlock the features unavailable in this shareware version, you have to pay 39.95$. The setup package is a little larger than 5MB and installing it is very easy. After this process is finished, the program's main interface pops up and a quick system scan is automatically initiated. These being said, it's time to move on and explore the interface and features available here.

The interface is excellent, and I don't have anything bad to say about it. The main window has a nice menu to its left with eight items - Home, Scan, Reports, Spywall, Process Explorer, Plug-Ins, Register and Help. The last two are out of question, because there's nothing special about them. These being said, let's start exploring this modern interface and discover the features of this program.

The Home area contains links that enable you to perform a quick system scan, activate the real time spyware protection called Spywall, or view the program's statistics such as reference file version, date and number of signatures that it contains, date of the last system scan and its details.

The Scan area allows you to choose one of the two scan modes available (quick or full) and start scanning your system for spyware. Everything inside this program is very easy to use and setup, so I can see no problems of use, in this area or anywhere else!

The Reports screen has three available items - the Quarantine Manager, Activity Log Archive and the Ignore List Manager. If you have any questions about their purpose, just look closer - the on screen information is all the basic assistance that you'll ever need with this program!

Next, the Spywall area should let you enable the real time protection...but it doesn't, because this program is not registered yet. Too bad, so let's move on...

The Process Viewer opens a new window with this excellent tool that allows you to view processes that currently run on your system and terminate suspicious ones.

The Plug-Ins manager lets you load additional modules that can help you extend your program's features, but...again, you have to buy the program to be able to do that.

Additional features include scheduling, procwall (a tool that blocks unwanted processes from running) and registry monitoring. Once you know these, you know everything you need to know, so let's move to the last step, the conclusions.

The Good

ContraVirus is a good solution for protecting your computer against unwanted guests - easy to use, fast and with a lot of features available.

The Bad

The shareware version of this program is a nightmare and it's almost useless, compared to what you can get from the registered one.

The Truth

ContraVirus looks like a worthy buy to me, but I must repeat - the shareware version is very close to useless, but gets through my filter and becomes a "worthy to try" software, and you know what to do: try it!