Others say...

"Poor product"
I work at Best Buy and we install this piece of garbage all the time. For one its a huge system hog and two it doesn't catch much of the pesky spyware. Also when computers come in to be cleaned up, no one uses this program (even though we're "supposed" to recommend it). I would recommend xoft, pest patrol, or MS Antispyware much much more.

"Spy Sweeper has a deceiving short shelf life"
I feel duped! I bought Spy Sweeper at the computer store a year ago. It was the 2.6 version. At first everything was great. I got my definitions, it found traces, it detected spy cookies. When I ran the definition update, I had no problem with the firewall. Every time they said upgrade, I did. Then I started getting renew e-mail. I had months to go and they sent me renewal e-mails sometimes two or three a week and I ignored them, not only because I knew the year wasn't up, but I also was suspicious that it was just another spammer out to get my credit card information. I e-mailed them asking if their renew mails were really from them, voicing my concerns. I got ignored, to when I eventually got to speak to someone, they didn't even know what their renewal e-mail looked like! The problems began when I updated the latest version which is the 4.5. When I would try to update my definitions I'd get a warning that there's was a problem and contact webroot, while it had no problem noting that I had the latest version updates. No settings were changed, not even my firewall which was blamed by them. I think it's them not me since now it's suddenly happening. They refuse to address it. Then I checked their site about my subscritpion. I knew I had one because I bought it at the store, my subscription doesn't expire until June and if I was invalid I doubt I could upgrade to newer versions. What did their page say? No subscription! When I wrote I never got a straight answer about it. Then I was told that the program was corrupted, download a new copy of the latest version from their site. I did. What did I get? Boxes that said subscription not activated. They knew I had one and they won't change it on their site or give me explanations. After pestering does my latest version now say when I expire. I've asked why it goes online to scan when it doesn't need to and I get ignored. So I decided to call but wasn't sure how because I'm in a different time zone. It took several days for them to get back to me by e-mail saying that their Mountain Time is treated like my Eastern time to get a hold of someone. The first person I spoke to after four tries at 15-20 rings each, was nasty, especially when I told him to slow down because he mumbled. I downloaded what he told me to do, he said nothing about the firewall issue despite him telling me he read my tickets about it.The second person sounded like he'd smoked one too many joints after he decided to answer the phone after 15 rings. He didn't know how to answer any of my firewall questions or why their page kept saying I had no subscription when the program in it's latest version finally admitted I'm current after pestering. They don't give you straight e-mail answers. They don't answer their phones hoping that after the 15th ring you'll give up. It won't scan everything even when no other programs are running. In the new version it found a spy cookie, it kept repeating the same one over and over despite my checking it as "always remove".Never did that with the previous versions. I don't like a company who answers questions selectively. I don't like a company who makes you wait 20 rings. I don't like a company who blames your computer settings when they never affected the previous versions. Webroot's Spy Sweeper will be replaced in my desperate search to find a spyware program that actually works, and whose staff answers my questions and not mislead me about my subscription status.

"WARNING! So So Software- BAD COMPANY !!"
I have owned Spysweeper for several years. I have found that a large amount of spyware is not getting caught. In many cases, a **portion** of the spyware was caught, Spy Sweeper did not remove the complete spywhere and I kept getting hits. Tried out XoftSpy software and it found and removed ALL of the spyware.

Even more, I get constant e-mails from Webroot telling me that my "Subscription needs to be renewed." and that I must send in another $25 to renew. I got caught in their scam once until I started checking my subsciption date. They frequently send out banket e-mails telling people their subscriptions are up even though they may have as much as a year left. I have contacted them several times on this issue with no response or correction.

I am only keeping this software installed because I paid out the bucks for it. I would not recommend it to others mainly because of the decptive business practices and the inability to perform as advertized. Look elswhere.

"Good spyware program but..."
Every anti-spyware program has its pros and cons... no single program can find everything...

Pros: Its had good reviews in a couple of magazines, and on NPR. It has an Internet Shield, Startup Shield, etc so it can alert you if anything has been added to your PC that you don't want.

It finds some things that other programs do not (and other programs find things that this does not).

Cons: Cost. Ad aware and Spybot search and destroy are free. Also, I'm not sure how up to date they keep their database. Its one of the OK programs if you decide to pay for one. E-trust's pest patrol has had better reviews (Maximim PC).

Overall grade: B

"Worth every penny, saved me several headaches and fixed my computer!"
This is great! The free trial version on download.com had saved my computer (the only program that got rid off some spyware that was in my start-up and causing lots of problems). And I've also used the trial version on several of my friends' computers. It hasn't picked up much, though, since I bought it. But that's probably because now I have a new hard drive and a firewall. Before, I bought the computer used and didn't know what a firewall was. I should have saved the disk and installed it when I started having problems. But oh well, it's doing it's job and if I start having problems once the CD expires, then I will probably buy a new disk. That's how good it is!