Spyware Hero

PC Tools Spyware Doctor is award-winning and trusted protection against unwanted spyware, malware and other privacy threats. Protect yourself with the best. (3 User)

User Reviews about PC Tools Spyware Doctor 2009

Anti-virus and spyware programs offer some of the choicest morsels in the freeware phenomenon.

This program is typical of its commercial genre: big, slow and a resource hog. Anti-virus and spyware programs should be left to run t night or whenever else you are not using the computer.

I don't have any kind of formal procedure for testing spyware programs. I run a commercial anti-virus and spyware package and occasionally run freeware programs to see how each performs against the others. PCTools Spyware Doctor isn't perfect when measured against competitors. It didn't miss anything on my pretty clean system, nor did it find anything the others didn't. Identifying actual malware from entities such as legitimate Registry entries and Cookies is as tedious as it is with other programs and not as bad as some others. The great danger of these programs is that for many users, they are dangerous weapons - it is very simple to delete a critical Registry entry.

Overall, I think experienced users would probably be just as happy - if not happier - with one of the well known freeware products. Inexperienced users might be better served with a better featured program that includes anti-virus capabilities.

Jerry



-- Typical of its kind - and free programs do much the same thing

I have McAfee and Spy Sweeper but recently ran into a problem where a website somehow got into my computer and started sending me messages about my computer being infected with a virus. The message said I should go to a site to get a program to get rid of the virus. Well I clicked on it to see how to get rid of it since it was getting annoying and the next thing I know my desktop has been hijacked. I was then looking at a bright colored screen that was to be frank, quite annoying.

So I went online to figure out how to get rid of the malware that was obviously causing a problem. I downloaded Spyware Doctor and it found 9 threats and over 160 infections. It did not however take out the malware. I had to get spybot (which is free but difficult to remove after you use it - it uninstalls but then you have to go into your hard drive and delete extra files) for that and it worked very well.

So if you are looking for something to get rid of viruses this program will hunt them down better than Spy Sweeper and McAfee. The only thing I did notice about having this program is that my computer started to run much slower than usual. Mostly when I'm going online I have to wait a long time for the pages to load.

As far as the scanning goes: The quick scan is called an Intelli-Scan and then there is the option of also doing a full scan. The full scan can take hours (comparred to Spy Sweeper it takes a bit longer but even a full scan on Spy Sweeper can take four hours), literally. You will want to run it at night while you are sleeping or else you will be waiting for it to finish all day.

So I'd still highly recommend this product if you want to be sure to get rid of all the viruses McAfee and Spy Sweeper don't catch. For me it was well worth the price even though I just unistalled the program. It made my computer run too slowly and that was just too irritating for both me and my husband. It could be that my computer is too old to handle this program - I've had my computer for five years now. So take that into consideration when buying this program.

~The Rebecca Review
-- Better than Webroot's Spy Sweeper