Spy Sweeper version 3.0 - part I

by Andrew Cooper

This article concludes the review of modern spyware combatants for this summer. We'll end this season by looking at a well-known tool called Spy Sweeper, made by Webroot Software Inc., a company that has many useful products for creating a better Internet experience. In my subsequent software reviews I plan to familiarize our readers with some of them.

Installation and first run
The installation file of Spy Sweeper v.3.0.0.129 is 3.12 MBs in size, and the package takes up roughly 5 MBs of HDD space when installed. The installation went smoothly and when it was finished, I chose to download the most recent definitions of known spyware. After a few mouse clicks, I was able to get to the main window of the program that looked rather neat and informative to me.



Settings, capabilities and final results
As always, I decided to play with some settings and was amazed to find that by the default configuration the program would only scan my C: drive for spyware. This is strange since my Windows and Program Files folders are both stored on the D: drive, which is where any damaging code-like spyware-would most likely be found. I changed the settings to select both of my logical drives for "sweeping".

Other items on the setup menu were clear and to me seemed properly configured, so I started the scanning by pressing the "Sweep Now" button in the left pane.



The sweep completed in about 15 minutes. The program found 11 spyware; all of them were in the adware-class, distributed mostly bundled in downloaded freeware applications, like peer-to-peer file sharing clients.



I selected all of them for removal and pressed the Next button. I expected the program to delete all of them, but, thanks to its "warning" window, I was able to keep one of the adware, the absence of which would otherwise preclude me from using the infamous Kazaa file-sharer. The removal process was rapid, as the screenshot below illustrates.



The spyware is reported removed, but it's actually put into quarantine where you can either restore quarantined pieces to their original locations (in case some dependent applications start to malfunction) or, if everything kept working just fine, eventually delete them from your disk. I put all my found adware in quarantine; I had earlier disabled the option to automatically delete quarantined items after a certain time passes. After disabling the adware, I felt great relief being able to control what applications are permitted to access the Internet and to what extent.

Continue to Part II