Customer Reviews

PC Tools Spyware Doctor 2007

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(34)

 

 

I have used Spyware Doctor since version 3 -- almost three years now. I liked the interface and simplicity -- and the power. But as others have pointed out, including industry reviews, version 4.x was a HUGE drain on system resources. My PC's would take anywhere from 5-9 minutes to completely boot up, with Spyware Doctor using almost 100% CPU the whole time. Also, my computers would frequently "freeze," which turned out to be Spyware Doctor randomly zooming to 95-100% CPU for no reason at all.

But with version 5, things are so much worse. About 3 weeks ago, my PC's lost their ability to connect to the Internet. Browsing slowed to a crawl, with frequent timeouts and "server not found". I spent days on the phone with my cable company, and my router's manufacturer, trying to troubleshoot. I re-configured my entire home network over and over. I never made the connection between the onset of problems and my updating to SD5. It was only after finding the PCTools support forums that I realized the problem was Spyware Doctor.

I removed the program from my PC's -- and the problems were gone. I had full Internet connection and full speed again.

Spyware Doctor 5 is causing massive problems for users. PCTools rewrote the program from the ground up, the company says, to improve the resource drain caused by version 4. But apparently it was rushed to market even though beta testers reported many of these same problems for weeks.

I've uninstalled this software and am basically wasting my subscription and losing money. Other users are right -- PCTools does indeed "auto-renew" and charge your credit card without warning. This is a huge red flag. I lost hours, DAYS, dealing with the problems caused by this program. Many users have had to reinstall Windows completely.

It's easy to get caught up in the hyperbole and negative reviews. But don't just take these at face value -- read the Spyware Doctor forum at PCTools' website. These problems are real. And it doesn't look like they're going to be addressable anytime soon. They've issued a couple of version updates, even removed several of the program's protection "Guards", but these haven't fixed the problems. And they're not giving any kind of timeline or explanations to users.

My advice -- stay away for now. But keep up with the forums at PCTools' website. When they finally get the issues resolved, this should be a really strong spyware program.

* PCTools has also been criticized for offering a "Free spyware scan" on their website (actually a download of SD), which will find spyware on your system but refuse to remove it until you buy a subscription to Spyware Doctor. This kind of sleazy bullying isn't normally characteristic of reputable companies -- most will give you an actual free trial with functioning software.

I've been running Spyware Doctor for 4 years, and was having problems with v4 using massive amounts of memory. So I followed advice from the PC Tools homepage and loaded v5--BIG MISTAKE! Since installing the new version and downloading the updates (a bad experience in itself, filled with ominous error messages from Windows), I've had to reload the code, reboot numerous times, had 2 Windows crashes and if the OnGuard facility is left running Spyware Doctor consumes 98% CPU for 5 minutes on every screen scroll done reading html text on a site identified as trusted. Oh and the company quietly changed it's policy and has hijacked my credit card information in order to automatically renew registration. I won't be running any more PC Tools products.

I can't get the software to scan past 30%. The software locks up when I try to end the scan after being stuck at 30% scan.

The only way I can imagine that PC Tools won so much market share is that they bribed all of the major computer magazines. This is a common practice in the magazine industry, and is the reason why I do not subscribe to any computer magazines. All magazines lie, and most of the articles are thinly veiled advertisements. If you offer a magazine significant cashola for positive spin, you will get positive spin, not just in one issue, but all year long, and next year too.

Yes, the product works for its intended purpose: it removes spyware. However, the behavior of the product makes it just as bad as spyware. It's a resource hog. Everytime the computer boots, S.D. requires a few minutes to initialize. As if that defect weren't enough to prohibit your purchase, Spyware Doctor can't update itself automatically. Most modern anti-spyware products, such as Ad-Aware (a free program) are able to update themselves automatically. S.D. stands alone in this peculiar shortcoming. A manual process, requiring user intervention, and a substantial delay which will have the user staring at a screen, is required in order to update.

An additional punishment awaiting those who purchase this bloatware is that Spy Doctor will keep tabs on when your subscription is about to run out. When only 30 days remains, you will begin being punished. A little window pops up (you can't turn it off) every day on your Windows task bar. In addition to this, PC Tools will send you emails, at the rate of one every three days.

I am glad that they do these things, because it will result in fewer people purchasing their product. People are not, on the whole, quite as stupid and gullible as Pc Tools believes.

I originally bought spyware doctor last June (2006) after spyware got past my McAfee firewall and thought it was one of the best programs I installed for spyware. Like others, I started getting messages to update spyware doctor recently. I upgraded and started having problems. I have Windows XP Pro and Norton 360 installed as firewall, anti-virus and spyware. To make a long story short, the problems surfaced as anytime I left the computer and it went to the user logon screen, the screen was frozen and I would have to reboot. I searched the internet and found a few other complaints that sounded similar so I used Control Panel==> Add Remove Programs to uninstall the Spyware Doctor. That is the only thing I removed, I rebooted my machine and it now works fine. I'm not sure if its Spyware Doctor and XP or Spyware Doctor and Norton Symantec, but either way it caused my system to freeze. If you get the same problem I would remove Spyware Doctor first and see if the problem goes away.

The new product release is worthless - too buggy and slow to work. The previous releases were ok - they did find some malware and removed it, without interference in our system. However, despite the cute-sy interface, there are other software programs that provide the same (or better) anti-malware support.

Most importantly, this company has some shady business practices (like hidden yearly automatic renewal charges, installing google toolbar with download, etc) and no way to contact them directly other than their online contact form which never receives a response. Check out the Better Business Bureau to see their "unsatisfactory" report.

I am currently disputing a charge from this company on my debit card and have had huge problems - so far I have only been able to speak with Bridget at their third-party billing company who says they are not able to provide assistance with my complaint. There are other, more reputable companies to work with. This type of software is not worth the hassle.

I have been a Spyware Doctor user for 4 or 5 years. It was an excellent product at an excellent price through Version 4. Unfortunately, Version 5, now in its third or fourth revision, is not usable. It slows down the XP system, makes Internet Explorer so slow it is unuseable, and sooner or later locks up the system. I tried one more time today, May 5, 2007 and by downloading the May 3 newest revision. This new version locked up my computer during the startup of the system. I made it to Windows but about 20 seconds into the system startup it locked up. I had to turn off and restart and I was able to shutdown Spyware Doctor as it started up and disable it. (Yes, I did create a restore point before installing it but I didn't need it.) I am not a newcomer to PC's. I bought my first computer, a Commodore VIC-20 in 1982. Back then it wasn't unusual to buy a piece of software that barely worked or didn't work at all. Nowadays you just don't expect it with a product that has worked flawlessly in previous version. But the folks at PC Tools have managed to mess it up. I could have written this a month ago when the problems started but I took a deep breath and waited for them to fix it. Since as of today it was ever worse then before, I felt like I should warn those who are contemplating a purchase of this product.....DON'T!!!! Unfortunately, I had just renewed my annual subscription to Spyware Doctor about 2 months before the new release. NOT money well-spent, I'm afraid. Hope this review helps someone.

I was very disappointed in this product. After I installed it, my computer ran so slow that I had to uninstall it. I found it to be a total waste of money.

I have been a fan of spyware doctore for some time. Spyware doctor 4.0 was an excellent product. It did it job pretty good without taking up any significant resource. But unfortunately it seems that PCTOOLS have not yet got their act together for Version 5.0. The first version I received as an upgrade was version 5.0 build 172. Problems started as soon as my machine rebooted. The Spyware doctor service for apparently no reasons hogged the system resource to an extent 95-97%. Killing that does not matter because the application restarts after 15 sec, and also that it seems to be the heart of the application. After reboot the update started running and BAM came the blue screen of death. So after a series of reboots and crashes I installed the version 5 build 176. But that too did not work, hence finally I reverted back to version 4.0 and eveythig works perfectly.Please stay away from Version 5.0 till PCTOOLS get their act together. As a reference do go through the review of CNET for this product
[...]

Please be aware that this is the new Spyware Doctor V5.0.169 that I am writing about.

This is NOT about V4.0 which is an excellent product.

So why is the latest version so bad?

It's simply because during the BETA testing there were loads of complaints to PC Tools about various problems mostly in relation to the fact that this new release slowed the computer down to a crawl and sometimes stopped it all together.

PC Tools have NOT resolved this problem (as of yet) and released the BETA 169 version as their new Spydoctor V5 with all the problems still there.

If you want more proof of this just go to their website and read in the support forum all the bad comments and problems that people are having. Most of us have had to uninstall it and waste our subscriptions because we just can't use it.

PC Tools as of yet (March 19th) have NOT resolved these issues or even made any comment other than "We are looking into it, but can not recreate these problems in our testing labs". This does not help the users, and it's not just one or two of us. There are loads.

So basically, DO NOT PAY THIS PRODUCT until the issues are resolved. Once they are resolved I would guess this product would go back to a 5 star rated.