Spy Sweeper 5.5

• Expert Rating

  3.50 / 5

• User Rating

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• Price

  $ 39.95 (AUD)

Ryan Naraine PC Advisor 21/09/07 Follow @pcworldau

Pros

• Excelled in behaviour-based detection

Cons

• Failed at finding inactive adware and spyware

Bottom Line

Annoyingly, Webroot Spy Sweeper 5.5 asked us what to do during installation of four popular browser toolbars (AOL, Das Ortliche, Google and Quero); the other five programs in our round-up deduced that the toolbars were legitimate. Unfortunately, Webroot Spy Sweeper 5.5 just doesn't perform as well as it used to.

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Webroot Spy Sweeper 5.5 demonstrates excellent behaviour-based detection capabilities, but we were disappointed at how the program struggled to remove adware and spyware from the test PC.

When AV-Test presented Webroot Spy Sweeper 5.5 with 20 active adware and spyware samples, the program detected 85 per cent of their files and Registry entries. When tested on inactive adware and spyware, however, Webroot Spy Sweeper 5.5 spotted only 26 per cent of adware, just over 14 per cent of password-stealing spyware and fewer than 2 per cent of banking keyloggers.

Webroot Spy Sweeper 5.5 did poorly at disinfection, too, cleaning up only a quarter of adware files and Registry entries and 15 per cent of spyware files and Registry entries.

Still, Webroot Spy Sweeper 5.5 excels in behaviour-based detection. It successfully flagged additions to 'Run' keys (HKCU and HKLM) and to the Startup folder plus changes to default Internet Explorer start and search pages and the Hosts file.

Webroot Spy Sweeper 5.5 provides one-click access to its system scan, which, in our tests at default settings, completed in less than half the time of the next-fastest competitor. Webroot Spy Sweeper 5.5 doesn't set up scheduled scans by default but says that it may add a setup wizard to the installation process. The company offers e-mail support at a price.