spybot rankings

have just looked at the new rankings for spyware programs and i see spybot has slipped to 10 place. what is going on here ???

first place is spyware eliminator. is anyone using spyware eliminator and what is your opinion ???

should one replace spybot with spyware eliminator ???

basically looking for opinions here. need to have a good program to install for my clients and have been using spybot for a couple years now but the reviews sorta worry me.

 

would not change. Ratings are the result of marketing/advertising, and you know how accurate/valuable that makes them.

 

Hello gghartman,

Rankings from where?

Regards - Charles

 

charles

surprised me to. was lead to look at the reviews from pcmag which rates spybot as only a 2.5 out of 5 stars. i hate most other programs because they tend to do more than they should and then all of a sudden your machine stops working where spybot is not intrusive and doesnt control the machine as these others seem to do. here are a couple links.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1830047,00.asp

http://www.adwarereport.com/mt/arch...4x002-virus&KEYWORD=Bullguard+Tracking+Cookie

 

Hi gghartman,

I'm not supprised actually, SSD was valuable for 2nd opinons and the system info it has. I never used it resident anyway.

Among the free apps, MS AS is probably the best, but, lots of complaints about CPU spikes when running resident, use as scanner only myself. Of the systems that I've installed it on for real time protection, have heard of no problems. And MS AS doesn't "do" tracking cookies, for that, Ad-Aware is probably the best.

The bottom line, the paid apps like Counter Spy and Spyware Eliminator are the top apps.

Regards - Charles

 

charles

ive also never had a problem running resident. i actually do on my machine with no problems.

you say the paid apps are the best - even though they have some sort of rep. that they even remove things the system itself needs. are they not to intensive running resident ??? so which one do you suggest ??? would buy a copy and do some testing and if i like and no problems with my system i would start recommending to clients.

 

Hi gghartman,

If I were in the market for a paid anti malware app, it would be Counter Spy.

Basically because they are responsive to complaints/problems - see this post at dslreports: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14399892 and users of CS here have posted to that effect. That wouldn't be worth all that much if the software was mediocre, but it's always in the top rankings over the long haul.

I know PeteC and James run CS, maybe they'll give you their take on it if they see this thread. I don't know of anyone here that uses Spyware Eliminator.

Regards - Charles

 

Since Panda started bundling TruPrevent with their anti-virus all I get is MRUs reported with AdAware or SpyBot. In fact After running AdAware, SpyBot doesn't find anything. I plan on reinstalling Windows once I download the newest version of Panda when my subsciption is up and running it alone. After a couple of months I will install the other malware scanners to see if anything is found. I have been impressed with TruPrevent. From what Panda states you can install TruPrevent with any anti-virus program without issues and it is supposed to protect against any adware/malware including heuristic threats. It is also easy on my resources.

 

charles - i looked at the link but it didnt appear his error was fixed or i didnt read close enough.

whiskeyman - had 2 bad experiences with panda internet security 2005 it blew 2 brand new dells with xp home right out of the water so have been leary of using it again. in fact if you want the cd you can have it. panda when i contacted them said sorry and thats about it. so you can have it. truvent is not a separate package from what i can see. integrated in the whole package.

i like the part though that is not a resource hog. thats why i have used spybot hardy know its there. thats what i want and one that doesnt mess with the registry and we end up removing valid keys which i have seen a lot of things claiming to be a registry fixer.

 

I recently wrote to CS regarding the memory usage issue (45 Mb) and received these responses within a few days. I include them so that you can see one very important thing about CS: its support is excellent. They listen and respond almost immediately. I've been very impressed with the company and the product and would certainly renew my subscription.

Hi James!

Yes, we are aware of this and a solution is in the works
where you can turn off that memory hungry module. Takes
just a few weeks. This was a design flaw which is being
corrected in a hurry.

Warm regards,
---------

I have read over your information and
have some numbers that may be useful to you. The total memory usage for
the CounterSpy background processes are around 60MB, bellow is a
breakdown of the memory and CPU usage per process, these numbers will
differ depending on if you are scanning, cleaning, checking the
schedule, and several other situations.

Process CPU Memory

SunProtectionServer.exe 0-15 ~5MB
SunServer.exe 0-10 ~5MB
SunThreatEngine.exe 0-90+ 35MB- 50MB

Our Development team is aware of this in the 1.5 version; I apologize
for any inconvenience this may cause.

Warm Regards
------------

Hi James,

A fix is in the works, and coming our really fast.
Hang in there for a few more weeks and check out
CounterSpyNews for this latest version.

Warm regards

 

I use Panda Titanium. It is all that's needed for a home user. I also tried Panda Platinum previous but didn't care for it. Panda came out with a patch for the WinXP problems. I have had great responses from Panda support and they have been able to fix problems that I have reported. Panda Truprevent™ Personal 2005 can be purchased as a stand alone program.

 

whiskeyman

you like truvent better than say counterspy or spysweeper ???

am in the process of switching totally over to zonealarm internet security. i currently use version 6 za firewall and norton 2005 antivirus. going to trash norton.

i also have installed spybot, spywareblaster, ad-aware and spywareguard and these are also programs i put on clients machines.

 

I have been using Panda Titanium for 4 years and like it over any previous anti-virus product I have used (PC-Cillin, Norton, AVG and McAfee). For my clients I install Avast (free version) then let them decide if they wish to replace it. Before Panda bundled the Sygate firewall and TruPrevent with Titanium I had installed ZA, AdAware, SpyBot, SpywareGuard, Spyware Blaster and tested other anti-malware programs to help with protecting my PCs. ZA kept having problems with it's different upgrades so I dumped it for Tiny Personal. Now I only have IESPYAD, AdAware and SpywareBlaster with Panda Titanium and my host file for IE plus the filter.ini file for Opera. My PCs have been clean and run smoothly with this setup. I am pleased seeing as I have visited some questionable sites while investigating other people's infestations.

 

whiskeyman

like i said before i tried panda on 2 new dell xp machines and it blew them out of the water so i am a little leary of panda. still have the cd tech support wont help me either so that really ticked me off.

not familar with iespyad what does it do ??? is it like spywareblaster ??? i ususally give my clients who want to save a little money sygate and avg the free versions. they are easy installs and the gui is easy for the client to understand.

i have never had a problem with za even when my 5x subscription ended and it downloaded a 60 days trial of version 6 things went on smoothly. i resell a program called bitdefender and i like that one a lot hardy knows its running and rated really well. number 1 virus detector and a good firewall. going to install the za internet security cuz i do like the firewall so i thought i would give the virus part a try.

 

IE-SPYAD places many bad sites in the restricted zone.

How to effectively prevent Malware using IE-SPYAD

 

whiskeyman

well thats what spywareblaster does so why the need for ie-spyad ???

spywareblaster works pretty good from what i can tell so cant see why duplication is needed.

 

It enhances the protection by SpywareBlaster. Plus it has many URLs of **** sites that it blocks which comes in handy if you're trying to prevent kids from accessing them.

 

more than 5000 that spywareblaster now covers ???

some of the comments i read about iespyad talk about problems with accessing normal sites and other problems that were a little more extreme. have you had any adverse problems with it ??? computers i sell and primary work on are now xp sp2. have done a lot of migrating people off their 6 year old machines and going to dells for the most part but with xp sp2.

 

Hi gghartman,

Another suggestion: take a look at the beta version of Kaspersky Internet Suite (KIS) 2006 http://forum.kaspersky.com/index.php?showforum=16 go to a thread with links to the most recent build, it's at 225. Try this as your sole security application. You'll need to uninstall your other resident security applications (AV/firewall/etc) before installing.

I offer this suggestion because suites are the future, and KAV is at the top of the heap in terms of Virus/malware detection. I don't like suites, but I understand that most people demand them these days.

One of my AV's, NAV2005, will be up for renewal next May, I'm going to put the KAV AV on my system then. My other AV is NOD, and wouldn't trade that for anything.

Regards - Charles

 

I haven't had any problems with IE-SPYAD. If it stops me from getting to a link I figure I didn't need to go there.