It's not.... next week the other Windows guy and I get to redo the installation on every computer in the main lab because they're so infested with scumware. I wish it were a hallucination. You probably laugh at the lengths I go to to keep myself safe, but I do think it's necessary. Even if I only find a couple cookies and maybe one baddie a month, it's worthwhile.
But I've scanned with that stuff and I've never gotten anything. Many many moons ago I had Gator.... but I'm the idiot who installed it.
I've got a firewall and commercial virus scanner, I've got MS AS mostly out of curiosity, but it's never found anything, I leave it on because it's low maintenance and it doesn't bother me.
Granted, I am pretty limited in the kind of sites I go to, but ecurbh isn't. He surfs all kinds of murky places, and he stays clean too. I am very suspect that the freeware adware and spyware cleaners are some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. How's that for a conspiracy theory? ;~D
So you say they came down, picked you up and took you in the spaceship? ;~D