PC Magazine rates Spybot as one of the worst tech products of quarter 1 2008

I never use it to keep a system clean really just to clean infected systems. They say it is medicore for that but I think it is fairly well. I don't know of anything better for the price of $0 so yeah its far from worst. To me they have some points but really it just comes off as bashing it for doing the same thing its always done. I think thats something to praise instead of all the crap people put out and change for the worse and charge you for it.
 
I would have to agree with that. I'm still using 1.4 and I will as long as it will update. I run it portable off of my USB drive. Its actually the second program I use on a customers PC after cleaning out the temp files. Spybot 1.5 has gone the way of Norton , Nero , Avast and others.

Also you have to understand its PC mags job to push certain products. So its most likely not as bad as they make it out to be.
 
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I used to use Spybot all the time. With the latest version though its just slow. There are a lot of other free ones out there. Avast is a must.
 
i have seen this for over a month now... multiple people are reporting that spybot is now garbage! It seems their detection rate has gone to hell, and their definition database is no longer effective! Saw an article in maximum pc stating the same thing... and rated windows defender a more effective scanner... although it lacked as well! They said spyware terminator was the next spybot! Personally, I will still stick with SUPERAntiSpyware and ad aware... but i will install defender on machines as well, as it causes no harm and does not seem to be a hog on the system! Yes I love Avast! and still trust it for my antivirus... but i have yet to hear any reviews on its anti-spyware, and I doubt it will compare to SUPER! Still a strong believer in keeping ALL software up to date.. so I still use Secunia Personal Software Inspector to check the installs!
 
These are probably the same people who praise McAfee and Nero for new features. Do you guys remember the old Norton Personal Firewall from 2003? I loved that firewall, and would pay for it, but the latest Norton Internet Security, well nuff said there. And, the OLD Nero Burning ROM? Killer, simple, consistent. Now?.....ugh....

I have always been a frequent visitor to safernetworking.org , and I always will be. Even if their program goes to crap now, for whatever reason, I'll still buy a round of brews for the staff there should the opportunity present itself. I couldn't imagine the last 6 years as a tech without Spybot.
 
I do stay up to date with all the new software, and utilities for my own purposes and also for the purpose of teaching customers effectively. What I don't like are the multitude of autoruns that come along with a lot of these classic programs that aren't necessary. I truly enjoyed the simplicity of DVD Shrink, and DVD Decrypter for dealing with DVDs, and good ole fashioned Nero Burning ROM for CDs.

I understand what you are saying, and you are right. But it's all very personal as to what you really need the program for, and how many features are really necessary for you/me/them, etc. I have a bit of a dual-opinion about alot of these things. The geek in me loves to tinker with new stuff, but the old-school side of me remembers when simpler apps were more than adequate.

I.E.- The less moving parts a machine has, the less likelihood of problems.
 
I agree with you 100%. I turned off all that auto run crap so it doesn't start. I have found that Nero has a lot less of it than Roxio or Creative(I believe its called) but yes, that auto run stuff is very annoying. to each his own! :)
 
Its a bit off topic but I used to be a big Nero fan. I stopped using it at version 7, when it became so bloated as to be almost unusable. Come on, it used to be 33 mb in size and worked every time. Now its almost one gig in size and works when it feels like it. Bigger and more are not always better. Now I use a program called Burn aware free. It will burn anything I want and works 100% of the time. Oh, and the best part is its only 6.2mb installed. Simple is better IMO.
 
gunslinger said:
Its a bit off topic but I used to be a big Nero fan. I stopped using it at version 7, when it became so bloated as to be almost unusable. Come on, it used to be 33 mb in size and worked every time. Now its almost one gig in size and works when it feels like it. Bigger and more are not always better. Now I use a program called Burn aware free. It will burn anything I want and works 100% of the time. Oh, and the best part is its only 6.2mb installed. Simple is better IMO.
Click to expand...

Word! I still use CDBurnXP (also free), and i think installed it is a little under 6 mb! Also has great ISO burning like nero! And don't let the XP in the name fool you, it works on Vista if your a fool! and keeping off subject - Since I have a copy of Photoshop CS3, i found a portable version on demonoid that only uses 60MB and works off of a USB stick!
 
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I guess thats why i still like nero, because I'm still on version 6! Portable apps are awesome. I couldn't live without mine either. I just wish i could build my own as there are some apps that i wish i had portable but do not offer a portable version.
 
Getting back on topic, I was disappointed with Spybot 1.5. It is slow and it doesn't play well with Trend Micro. I sell Trend Micro Internet Security and most of my customers use it and Spybot. When I began updating customers to their 2008 version this past autumn I found to my surprise that it refused to install until Spybot was removed. Although I could reinstall Spybot 1.5 after the upgrade the program ran very slow and the two didn't cohabitate well. I wound up having to uninstall Spybot 1.5 and reinstalling Spybot 1.4. Then the two programs seemed to work.

I like Spybot and I don't want to bash them but I did expect more from Spybot 1.5.

Rick
 
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Perhaps it was the tea-timer or IE real-time protection interfering. Nothing is more annoying than starting a game, just to have 2 different programs throw up a window asking if you really-really-really (fo real this time) want to play that game.

I can honestly say I now set the scan priority at highest so it'll go quicker. I do like some of the other tools you have in 1.5 when in advanced mode.

At this point, I manually scan every customers hard drive with my ide/sata->usb adapter on my computer. By doing so, I knock so much time off the overall repair, because by the time I actually boot his computer, most of the REALLY malicious crap is already gone.

But, I've never liked that there is no drive selection in Spybot, you either scan your system....or you don't. AVG anti-spyware allows drive selection, and that is important.
 
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