Spybot Search and Destroy - part II

by Andrew Cooper

Spybot at work; unforeseen results
Before subjecting Spybot to a task, I decided to check my entire system for viruses using my regular anti-viral software. Luckily, I was able to locate and remove five exploits placed in my Temporary Internet Files folder with the use of updated antivirus definitions. Therefore, any extra bad object removed by Spybot would only add to its status as a must-have tool for restoring security on your machine.

After all the precautions I made of disabling automatic changes without my consent, I was ready to roll. I started "checking for problems" and watched the progress indicator move to the right at a moderate pace, and around eighty percent of "work competed" the process abruptly reached its end point. At first, I didn't pay attention to this small detail, knowing that some programs erroneously estimate time remaining of a given process. But, then I noticed a warning in the main window informing me of an "Error during check" (I think the rest of the message was in German, which I cannot read), but at the same time listing 49 found "problems" on my machine.



I naturally wanted to eradicate them, so I pressed the "fix all selected problems" button, and after a bit, the program reported that all problems were successfully handled.

The only difficulty I encountered was that I had to restart my PC. I rebooted, and simply out of curiosity, wanted to run the whole procedure over again. To my disappointment, the pattern repeated itself: not completing the search properly, not fixing all the problems found. To its credit, Spybot removed all but one annoying DSO Exploit. No matter how hard I try, this exploit still remains on my computer; the search still won't run its full cycle. So, the program is partially dysfunctional, at least on my machine. No guarantees can be given to ensure your full protection.

Another thing I didn't like about this program is that I couldn't disable the automatic program start on Windows boot up, meaning that I had to go to "msconfig" to do it manually. On the other hand, having worked on the checked system for a day, I noticed it was working more vigorously; executing tasks more quickly, especially Internet Explorer.

I do believe that there are many people who have downloaded this potentially superb program and had no troubles using it. But, my review is what happened on mine, and I have to report what I see and test. If you tested this program, please contribute your experience and opinions in our "discuss this article" section accompanying this text.

Verdict



If I were a ratings agency, I'd give it a BAA (in the AAA-CCC range).

I tested the program for two days. The first day, I evaluated everything except the ability to "seek and destroy" and I really liked what I saw. The second day was a mirror image of the first, and I couldn't achieve the level of operational functionality I normally seek of professional security solutions. Maybe a simple program patch or software modification is all that's needed to correct the shortcomings. But, until I see it work on my own machine, which as far as I know is not atypical, I cannot recommend this software.

Developer's web site: http://spybot.safer-networking.de

Back to Part I