I'm glad I'm using b2evolution for my Blog engine. Their built-in Antispam features make it really easy for me to keep my blog comments clear. A couple of clicks and my whole blog is cleaned - and it links back to the b2evolution website so other users can automatically use each others entries to make cleaning even quicker.

It's a real pain to have to code these sorts of features into our software. I'm quoting on a website development job now. A good 10% of the cost is just for security features to avoid getting spammed (or worse). It's OK for me as the recipient of the cash but not nice for the poor customer...

A customer complained today of Outlook sending out 100s of emails without his permission. He was confused as his copy of Norton Internet Security was up to date and couldn't find anything wrong.

Before calling us, he did the right thing and disconnected himself from the Internet (in his case, by switching his Firewall to stop all traffic in and out of Outlook).

After switching off Norton, we first used Ad-Aware Personal to check for Spyware and found:

• Win32.trojan.downloader
• coolwebsearch
• transponder
• vx2
• admess
• alexa
• winfavorites

We then installed AVG Free and ran a full system scan. We found:

• downloader.tibs
• trojan.horse.clicker

After cleaning the user's system and restoring the correct Firewall settings he was back in business.

The Moral: Don't always trust Norton Internet Security. This isn't the first time we've seen this problem and we've had others where Norton has inappropriately interfered with the correct running of a system.