Spy Sweeper vs. Windows Defender

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Guest

Round 1 goes to Spy Sweeper! After reading several user/professional reviews
of Spy Sweeper and its abilities to protect and cleanse a system, I
downloaded Spy Sweeper. I have beeen extremely impressed with this software,
including the fact that Spy Sweeper found 5 items (albeit tracker cookies)
that apparently Windows Defender had not found! Not bad for Defender, but the
hoopla goes to Spy Sweeper! IMHO. I am currently running both, until further
tests. Spy Sweeper is fast, efficient and awesome in its GUI. Highly
recommended for awesome protection!

Thanks & God Bless!

Rick
www.EmbraceHisGrace.com
 
Hi Rick

WD was never designed to deal with cookies albeit tracking or otherwise. The
philosphy is that they are dealt with adequately thru your browser. Which, of
course, they are if you configure your browser properly.

Stu
 
I have Spysweeper and Defender. Spysweeper is GM, not beta, and does an
excellent job. My Defender is functioning perfectly and is still beta AND
already does things Spysweeper can't even dream of doing. I expect it to do
even better in the future releases.
 
Help me out here, Old Rebel, what does "Your Defender" do that SpySweeper
can't dream of doing?
 
It is monitoring more of Windows components than Spysweeper does. It also
does not waste my time alerting me to known programs like Spysweeper
sometimes does.(Although it does alert to some.) In Spysweepers "edit start
up shield" Shysweeper gives NO assessment of any program except itself.
Spysweeper does not give info on running processes, network connected
programs or winsock service providers. I have no proof yet, but I believe
that Defender's full scan is deeper than Spysweepers. It does not detect IE7
or the MSN toolbar phishing filter as rootkits like Spysweeper does. It does
not have a problem handling difficult programs like LEXPPS.exe, which gave
Spysweeper end program at log off problems and start up shield problems. And
on my PC, its quick scan is faster that Spysweepers.
 
Thanks for the info, Old Rebel. Here's another one you can add to the list of
things Defender does that SpySweeper doesn't do: at boot this morning
Defender attempted to delete a SpySweeper system32 file saying it was a
"Browser Hijack File"! Go figure.

God Bless!

Rick
 
That's weird. It has never happened to me and I do not understand why that
would happen. I jokingly called Defender "myi Defender" because it seems to
work to differently on different systems. That is a major problem, and
there's no denying it. I may have just been lucky, or there is something
about my individual set up that allows if to work correctly. THAT'S WHAT
MICROSOFT NEEDS TO FIGURE OUT AND GET FIXED IMMEDIATELY. And I agree with you
that in some cases, Defender seems to be OUT OF CONTROL. I only have my own
experience, but I do not deny the reality of problems others are having.
 
Agreed! I like Defender and it seems to work good on my system as well,
obviously with the exception that it is "jealous" of SpySweeper! :)
Seriously, though that could be a glitch that needs dealing with by
Microsoft. It has happened at least 3 times, popping up the Alert/Warning
window. Once I was involved in something and not really paying attention and
clicked to Remove and ut-oh...SpySweeper was disabled! I thought perhaps I
would have to uninstall and reinstall SpySweeper but when I re-booted,
SpySweeper started up fine and ran normal...whew! Thanks, Old Rebel, for the
valuable input and info.

God Bless!
 
Was Defender calling it a "browser hijack" or a "hosts file" hijack? I had to
turn off Spysweepers common ad sites shield because Dedender kept alerting to
it. (I made of copy of the Spysweeper host filel entries and added them back
using Funky Toad "Hoster" and that seems to work because its stable and does
not reload at evry reboot. Defender now is peaceful on that one. The "browser
Hijack" might be happening if you have Spysweeper set to automatically
restore your browser settings without notifying you. It may be automatically
resetting something and Defender is alerting to that. I have not experienced
that because I do not have either program set to "automtically" do anything
w/o my permission. I don't trust ANY program that much.
 
Actually, I think you are right: it was a Hosts File Hijack alert. What does
that mean? It doesn't happen on every boot up...??? On a similar note, I was
reading your post in another thread just below where you mention several
websites for getting rid of spyware/malware etc. Interested, I was checking
out some of the links and one website, I think Hijack This, mentioned
Pandasoftware ActiveScan. I went there and ActiveScan is currently running,
it apparently like Symantec, scans every file on the computer almost 200,000
files last count; but ActiveScan has already detected one Spyware!!! I don't
know what it is yet, until the scan completes; however, here I am running
Defender and SpySweeper and Panda finds a Spyware program!!!! What's up!!!

God Bless!
 
Wow, ActiveScan scanned even more files than Symantec! It just completed
scanning almost 350,000 files and found one file it called "spyware". In the
report, it was a tracking cookie from doubleclick. Not bad. So, it seems
Defender and/or SpySweeper are doing a pretty good job!

God Bless!
 
Spysweepers "common ads sites" sield adds a bunch of ad sites to the host
file, but it seems to have to reload them from time to time. It happens
unpredictably. I don't know if it is because Spysweeper upsdates and has new
ones to ad or if it just does it for some other reason.. Check out Fundy Toad
Hoster. It will let you view, edit hosts file, restore it to Windows
original, make backup copy, make it read only, etc. Really easy to use.
Defender alerts to it as hijack too, so whenever I use Hoster, I turn
Defender RTP off and turn off Spysweepers host file shield. And of course, i
only use Hoster when I am offline and not as exposed to spyware.
http://www.funkytoad.com/hoster.htm
Be careful with Panda, It will remove viruses but not spyware. It will use
spyware as a sales pitch, but it does give the name of what it finds and the
complete path. Get the info from Panda and try to find out what it found
offline.
 
Very good advice. Thanks. I was curious why Panda scanned almost 350,000
files and Symantec Antivirus 2006 indicates it scanned only 230,000 files??
Any ideas? Both I think were set to scan my entire computer; at least that's
the option I choose at Panda "My Computer". Symantec is set to run Full
System Scan. Is there a difference? Just curious.

God Bless!
 
I don't know. When I had Norton, it would scan 100,000+ files. Switched to
McAfee, it only scan 45,000+.. I was told it was just the way "items" are
counted. Some difference in what is counted as separate items more than in
what is scanner. I get differing item count depending on which of several
anti-virus scans i try out.
 
Hello Old Rebel,

if Spysweeper is rambling your HOST file, than choose Always Allow and
the item is in the Allow list! Looks like this!
Then you can use also spysweeper without problems.

Regards >*< TOM >*<

Old Rebel schreef:
 
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