Detections update 12/16/2010

[Gopher John]

I updated SpyBot Search & Destroy files yesterday on 12/15/2010. Today I installed Opera 11 final release.

I then ran the SpyBot S&D update check and there was a detections update 12/16/2010 with a size of 3MB. On running SpyBot Search & Destroy, it now checks for 778578 malware items, compared to over 1.3 million before. Was this a simple planned pruning of the detections?

[spybotsandra]

Hello,

The number of the fingerprints in the last update is much smaller than in the updates before.
This is not due to detections that have been removed.
The reason of this reducing is the fact that we have improved our detection rules.
The number of the fingerprints is not exactly the number of files and registry entries detected,
it's the number of detection rules. Sometimes there are more than one rule for the same file,
but often, one rule covers multiple files/entries.

Best regards
Sandra
Team Spybot

[Gopher John]

Thanks for the explanation. The timing and the count difference made me wonder what had happened.