Customer Reviews

Webroot Spy Sweeper Antispyware 5.x

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(50)

 

 

Microsoft AntiSpyware said my machine was clean.

AdAware said my machine was clean.

Spybot said my machine was clean.

Spy Sweeper found 19 spyware items and 29 traces.

'nuff said. I'm sold.

This product has one of the most comprehensive spyware scanning systems of any other Spyware removal product. Norton and Mcaffee are of course beat hands down, since they are virus programs, that act more as firewalls and anti Virus programs than spyware removers. Even specialized programs like Spyware Doctor and Trend Micro cannot compete, as the definitions of this product include some of the most obscure malware. The reason behind the succes of this product, is it's ability to remove Root kits (files encoded to hide from windows). No other program on themarket can do this at this time.

That said, the removal power of this product comes at the cost of almost everything else. Interface is annoying clunky and slow. Browser guards, are comprehensive, but ONLY support inernet explorer. The realt time protection offered is decent, but is insatiably RAM hungry, and will slow down your computer so much that you're better off disabling them. Even if you decide to bite the bullet and have a slow PC, this program is incredibly unstable, often will not respond, and will from time to time prevent windows from shutting down. Even the scanning engine is terrible, even if it's deffinitions are comprehensive. It took my 3.4ghz with 512mb RAM 45min to do a spyware scan with Rootkit checking enabled. After findiding an Apropos media infection it took nearly 2hrs to remove it. At the end of the day, unless you have a terrible infection, you;'re better off with quicker more basic programs like Spyware Doctor, or Trend micro.

Pros
-Comprehensive deffinition file
-Rootkit detection
-And "end of the road" option for serrious infections

Cons
-Slow scaning speed
-Unstable
-Only supports Real Time protection for Internet Explorer
-Clunky interface
-Large File size

By far the greatest dangers lurking on the internet are not viruses but trojans, browser highjackers and cookies. While Norton is arguably the best anti-virus software and the best firewall it has flaws. Long before Norton will notice a problem, Spy Sweeper will bag it and tag it. Hackers have learned to hide viruses in cookies and trojans instead of sending them out on their own. With Spy Sweeper you have very good protection against trojans and cookies and excellent protection against highjackers; these are the nasty bugs that cause your browser to lock onto their web page.

Here's some comments on Spy Sweepers operational behavior. It is slow to start up so give it some time. The first thing it will do is load a fresh copy of instructions from their website every morning. This will delay browser operation but it's necessary to keep you out of trouble. I just grab a cup of coffee and let it finish, which takes about 2 minutes. Spy Sweep is a little intrusive when it knows there is a program update scheduled so my advice is go with the flow.

As I pointed out, Spy Sweeper provides only fair protection against trojans, cookies and adware. There is free software that will cover this vulnerability but like everything free there is a price: poor updating. When you buy software, or subscribe might be a better word, they guarantee that they will support you. I've tried four softwares to cover this vulnerability, i.e., software I've purchased or freeware, including ZonePro's product (a purchase), spykiller (a purchase) and spybot. I settled on Spyware Doctor and one made by Sun. Spyware Doctor does an excellent job, often catching bugs before Spy Sweeper. Between the two of them, I seldom fall back on Norton for protection. The only problem with Spy Sweeper,initially, is that it did not like other protection software and would frequently alarm during start-up. It's nothing serious, just close the window properly and all will be well. Apparently, Webroot became aware of this problem and Spy Doctor has run fine for several months without interference.

As pointed out, the trojans, adware and cookies are the worst danger to your system. If your browser is highjacked, you can sometimes reload it.

In all fairness to Spy Sweeper, there are just too many hackers out there. All it takes is one twist in their software and they have invented a new bug. It is best to have at least one other bug-killer running. I often let one run first, then the other and then I reverse it. Shut down after a bug hunt to clear the damage.

If you can afford only one other protection, besides an anti-virus program, then spend your money on Spy Sweeper.

I hope this review was helpful. If so, please add your vote. I write these reviews at a considerable expense of time and money as a public service. I believe that Amazon provides the best reviews and often serves as the best means of efficiently buying products.

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PS 1.
I find the value of software firewall, such as Norton and ZonePros, to be limited. The same can be said of hardware firewalls, though the later are more effective.

Hardware firewalls work on the principle of creating one or more false targets for the hacker's software to attack. Unfortunately, being hardwired, it is easier to develop a work-around with software than with hardware. This could change with a new generation of software on the horizon; if they ever get it off the drawing board.

By the way, I spent a lot of money and time figuring out what works and what does not. The hackers got my blood up one day when I was plugged into the company's high security system and somebody shutdown my computer in less than a minute from South America. I was looking for a novel scrubber design presented in a paper from a university. After that, I spent about a year, at night, testing software. Eventually, I settled on some proven principles. I have not lost a computer in several years.

PS 2.

BE CAREFUL WITH 64-BIT VISTA! MOST DRIVERS, INCLUDING SPYSWEEPER WILL LIST THAT THEY WORK WITH VISTA --- THAT'S VISTA 32 BIT, NOT 64!

I recently upgraded to 64-bit Vista because with the way things are going, and they always do, we (the computer owning public) will be dragged into a new world, claw marks in the concrete behind us. With 64-bit Vista you get a slightly faster response. I remember we saw this when we went from 16-bit to 32-bit in the 1990s. Then, a lot of software became obsolete. Some of it could be salvaged, some could not. If you ran 16-bit it slowed down your computer when you ran with the software.

Here's the bottom line. When you convert to 64-bit, you will need new printer drivers, new audio drivers, and you will need a 64-bit compatible version of Spy Sweeper regardless of whether it says Vista compatible on the box in the store. My advice is to buy it on-line from Webroot.

I still think Spy Sweeper is great protection. Others may find it clunky (It is) but it generally does the job better, and cheaper, than others out there. I hope they eventually upgrade their drivers to allow for faster capture of bugs.

Personally, I liked what Hauri antivirus came up with: a monitoring system that looks for bugs doing things in your computer they're not supposed to and killing them. That was a unique idea. Someone else even suggested creating a fake operating system in your system and testing new files to see what they do.

PS., July 25, 2010

I gave up on Webroot. I am now using Comodo, although it is a less than satisfactory firewall and antivirus program. The Win-7 browser firewall is a substantial improvement over the XP and Vista firewalls. I strongly recommend using an additional firewall with Advanced System Optimizer to fill in the gaps: defrag., cookie-elimination, etc.. I also gave up on Norton based on poor performance in these utility functions.

Pre-5.0, this application was a mainstay in my protection arsenal, and I signed up for longest available subscription for the spyware updates. But 5.0 is like most others here have described -- a disaster because of the insane and ludicrous load it places on the machine. It is hard to describe just how unusable it makes the machine. Today I finally had enough and just turned it off permanently, awaiting a fix. Bingo -- my PC is running just fine again. It's a 1 GB memory machine with an older but perfectly fast Athlon processor (1800+). Without SpySweeper running, everything is snappy; with SpySweeper running it is maddeningly slow with occasional long delays responding at all -- as if it was about to crash. Lots of disk activity seems linked to SpySweeper showing up as a high CPU user in Task Manager. Bottom line: by changing only one thing in my system -- turning off SpySweeper -- my system goes from an exercise in frustration to a perfectly good PC.

Webroot's support site indicates that version 5.0.7 "may" fix these issues and to be sure I had it -- yes, I did. The only solution is to turn SpySweeper off. I have requested Webroot's support site to get access to a 4.x version.

Terrible! And it used to be really good. I don't believe I've ever seen a software application go from such high regard to utterly dismal so quickly.

Beats the spyware detection and removal software from McAfee, Microsoft, Norton, and even Trend Micro by far!

I previously had spyware detection and removal software by latter two of the above mentioned companies, and thought that I was clear of spyware. I did not know that there was a key-logging spyware and about nine tracking cookies on my computer, all along, until I installed Webroot's Spy Sweeper v4. Webroot's Spy Sweeper did not take long to detect the malware and presented me an option to remove it.

Spy Sweeper's user interface is friendly and easy to configure, for a systematic person with a good basic awareness about Windows and internet terms such as web-browser, cookies, and favorites. The software help documentation contained with the program is also very helpful in explaining the options.

During installation, at the user's selection, Spy Sweeper also adds a "Run a sweep" option to the explorer menu, which lets the user to simply right-click on a folder and click the selection to scan its contents for spyware. Its scans in realtime, and its scheduled scans are quite customizable. It automatically updates regularly itself by default. One of my favorite features is a text area in its program screen that shows a detailed log of the performed operations, which allows the user to track its operations, past and current. All these wonderful features, and yet, it does not slow my 1.3GHz (100MHz bus) computer running Windows 2000 with 244MBytes of SDRAM, unlike the other spyware detection software that I have used.

In Addition, Spy Sweeper's reasonably priced licensing cost and a team of friendly and knowledgeable telephone support staff perfectly complement this already well-written software.

I've had it for over 30 days and still don't know how well it works.

Never have experienced such pathetic customer support. Cleared the way for Kaspersky and Firewall to work with this program, but continued to lock up computer. Asked for them to send me the program with a keycode for retry. Over 20 emails and phone calls, and six weeks later, still waiting. Finally hit the point of requesting a refund (I got an answer to THAT one real quick, "No, you're outside your 30 days") Even after that, it has been another week with two more Customer Support(gag, choke) emails and another call, and I am STILL waiting. Contacting the company outside Customer Support has provided no relief. It is absolutely amazing that this type of business conduct could survive. I am just stunned at this situation, I really am. I got taken and I have no way to fix, or get out. Webroot, Beware

I had been using version 4.5 of this product and made the mistake of upgrading to 5.0. It's beyond me how a previously fine piece of software can go to utter garbage in one release. It has become a resource hog and scan times have bloated out to ridiculous levels (4 hours plus for full scans). Some of the new features look cool but what good are they if the product can't perform it's core function well.
I have an Alienware PC with a ton of memory and disk space so resources are not the issue here.
Questions to Webroot support led to such helpful suggestions as forgoing full system scans if they don't work. Nice. Webroot must have alienated a large section of the installed user base with this rubbish. Another suggestion they gave me was to disable all other security products on my PC and then attempt a scan. That didn't work either, but what self respecting software has that degree of conflict with other applications?
I would suggest you avoid this product at all costs and go with one of its competitors like Spyware Doctor.
Also, have a look at some of the message boards on the web if you want a taster of the cautionary tales connected to Spysweeper 5.0...you've been warned.
It should also be noted that many of the positive Amazon reviews here for this product seem to relate to version 4.5 which was the version that predated the 5.0 abomination.

I have used several different spyware removal tools; before Spy Sweeper my favorite was Ad-Aware by Lavasoft. While I still use Ad-Aware, I depend on Spy Sweeper for the heavy duty work of removing spyware that is tough to ferret out. I generally run all the anti-virus and spyware detection tools installed on my computer (after updating the definitions, of course) and then run Spy Sweeper. I am always amazed at what Spy Sweeper finds left over after the others say my machine is clean.

This program is very comprehensive, and is updated very frequently. It is easy to use and features generally easy to grasp deletion options (much easier than most competitors.) Even a PC novice can use this program successfully.

I have found Spy Sweeper to be robust and to consistently catch more spyware traces than any other product, though I believe it's wise to use multiple products for the best possible protection.

I highly recommend Spy Sweeper. I can't imagine owning a computer and not having this installed on it. It is, by far, my preferred anti-spyware solution.

I purchased this product on a recommendation from PC World magazine. I don't think I made a good decision. This product has been a mistake from the first update. I loaded SpySweeper and the product immediately required an update. I don't mind that, one must stay ahead of all spyware, but the program really taxed my system's resources. I have 2GB, a AMD dual-core with four 160gb SATA hard drives, and it really slowed down my system. It also produced many Windows XP errors. I submitted the errors to Webroot for analysis and I even emailed technical support, but without much resolution. I decided to remove it and use Norton's Anti-Virus Suite instead. Maybe your experience would be better, but I cannot recommend this product. Now after saying all this, there was absolutely no spyware able to stay on my system when this product worked, but again, the performance of the product in other areas makes this experience unfortunate.

This program is worth it's weight in gold, and at the Amazon price (which is the same price I paid at Costco), it's a bargain. Webroot's Spy Sweeper is a cinch to install and it automatically eliminated the most pernicious adware files on my PC that I had ever seen -- variants of the bug "Coolwwwsearch," which created many popups and diverted Internet Explorer from my home page. None of my other programs, including SpyBot, Ad-aware, or my Norton Antivirus -- could permanently remove the crud. I spent many, many frustrating hours trying various ways to delete the bugs, but they would consistently evolve into new files and registry codes as soon as the older ones were deleted. I was ready to throw in the towel by reformatting my hard drive and then spending even more hours reinstalling everything. But I decided instead to buy Spy Sweeper, and what a lifesaver! It deleted all of the pesky adware on its first "sweep!" Bottom line: my experience proves you have to pay for the best internet security software. Shareware is fine for protecting your PC only against run-of-the-mill adware, but if you have or have had any problems like I've described, don't hesitate to shell out $25 to buy the best. Then again, why wait till you have an emergency? Who even knows if that adware was stealing my passwords or other data? Free anti-spyware will ultimately only waste your time.