Pest Patrol

Discussion in 'other anti-malware software' started by freakshow, May 25, 2004.

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  1. freakshow

    freakshow Guest

    Hi All
    I was thinking about getting Pest Patrol. Now i know it is not very well liked around here, but please don't post saying i shouldn't get it i should get product xxxxx instead ok? Does anyone know if there is a 6 month or yearly renewal fee or whatever or do you pay just once for a license and that's it? Thanks abunch.
     
  2. dexedrine

    dexedrine Registered Member

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    :D PestPatrol is very useful but they are on the side of the corps who make spyware PestPatrol Corporate is the best but PestPatrol might be watching you while their scanning your hard drive.undefined
     
  3. LowWaterMark

    LowWaterMark Administrator

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    dexedrine,

    That's a rather strong statement about that company. Can you point us to any facts that support it? Many people consider PestPatrol to be quite a good product, and it isn't right to make unsupported accusations.
     
  4. Little Mike

    Little Mike Registered Member

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    freakshow,

    I've been using PestPatrol for at least a couple of years; longer than all of the other security products that I've added as a result of following the advice within this security forum.

    PestPatrol may be spyware; but, if it is, NONE of the DiamondCS, CWS, Norton-Symantec, Ad-Aware, HijackThis, Spy Sweeper, SpywareGuard/Blaster have caught it doing anything untowards, to date on my machine. (Yet, PestPatrol occasionally catches some things those others miss; or perhaps install?)

    PestPatrol currently has an annual "maintenance" arrangement, renewable annually, which entitles the customer to program upgrades and pest database downloads for a year.

    PestPatrol may or may not be well-liked; but, I'm sticking with it, as it works for me. However, should someone demonstrate a security downside to it, then of course, I'd re-evaluate.

    Best regards,
    Mike (just another novice)
     
  5. dread

    dread Registered Member

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    I have had pestpatrol for about 2 years I love pestpatrol. It can detect way more than the other guys. If you got the money or want to spend the money on something I recommend you get pestpatrol. It has a large database and is very good. Good support to. Nice people to deal with.
     
  6. Catwomen

    Catwomen Guest

    Well assuming that it's not a bunch of false positives to begin with.

    I have found there are too many false alarms to be worth using, espically if you are a newbie who has no capability to verify whether such detections are real or not.
     
  7. strongarm

    strongarm Guest

    I do recommend getting Pest Patrol. But Pest Patrol does have alot of false positives and may cause problems for beginners. You can't just automatically delete everything Pest Patrol finds, you need to be more cautious and look into it a bit more. Having other spyware scanners to cross check is a good idea. Such as Spybot, Ad-aware(free), Bazooka, X-cleaner(free), Spysweeper(free trial version is available) and Spycop(free trial version is available) are some good spyware 'scanner' choices to add to your arsenal in the seemingly never ending battle against spyware. Good luck.
     
  8. dread

    dread Registered Member

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    Hi. Yes it does do false positives sometimes. With me its 2 programs. But in version 4 you can choose what items to check for like p2p programs, dialers, anarchy, worm, DDoS etc... Since version 4 came out now you can submit your scan log to them from within the program and they will telll if it is a false positive or not and if they find a false positive they will revise thier scan strings so it will not happen again. Here is thier stat page http://www.pestpatrol.com/Stats/ like I siad i think their database is large very large "PestPatrol detects 124,474 pests as of May 21, 2004 . These pests are grouped into families, each of which has a unique name. PestPatrol detects 21,109 families." Thier support is good if you think you do have any fasle postives or any other questions you can email thier support and they will get back with you quickly with 24 hours usually. Its not perfect but it is good and they have very good support. And I also use adaware to if I ever want to double check sometimes,but not much since pestpatrol is so good :D
     
  9. Ruffian

    Ruffian Guest

    Sorry, double checking is a waste of time if you don';t trust one of the two checkers.

    If Pest patrol says something is malware and you check with ad-aware it says it isn't , either you

    1) always believe ad-aware , in which case you might as well drop Pest parol since it isn't doing anything

    or

    2) Bite the bullet and believe Pest patrol. it which case, you are still vulnerable to false positives, and scanning with ad-aware hasn't helped at all in ruling out false positives.

    If on the other hand Pest patrol says something is malware and you check with ad-aware and it says it is malware too, Pest patrol is still pointless since ad-aware would have gotten it too alone anyway.
     
  10. dread

    dread Registered Member

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    Sorry freakshow, I know you didnt want anyone to go there. To be honest Ruffian, I have seen no other product that can actually go behind pestpatrol and actually double check it since I have not seen any other product that can detect what it can. I have not seen any other program that can detect 21,109 families and detect everything it can from that stat page I posted. Pestpatrol does not do false positives all the time and like I said you can email thier techsupport and confirm it. Show me a another program that can detect 21,109 families and I might reconsider renewing pestpatrol again.
     
  11. Ruffian

    Ruffian Guest

    I'm reacting to the statement that you can use another scanner to "backup" another scanner to correct false positives. This is nonsense logically speaking. Either you trust it, or you don't. Adding additional scanners to the mix won't help solve the problem.

    And Pest patrol has inflated numbers of course, because it detects and targets lots of harmless stuff . Might be useful if you are a system admin or something, but for the typical user who just wants to detect malware, all this additional detection of network tools, p2p proggies etc is useless.


    Well do a search for pest patrol in this forum or heck on any forum in the net, I'm sure you will see that false positives is a complaint that always follows. And so I conclude, yes, it does false positives all the time.

    Numbers don't tell the whole story. In this case, they totally mislead. In fact, I can't decide which is worse Pest patrol or spyware sweeper, amusingly enough, they both do similar false positives ..... ;)
     
  12. dread

    dread Registered Member

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    Yes they do happen. From the people who I know it hardly happens and no pestpatrol does inflate and you go off and and count every pest all 21 thousand families and you do the match and you tell me if actually does or doesnt detect 21 thousand families and like I siad if you do have a false positive pestpatrol will look at in and tell you what it is plus some common sense goes along with it I mean it does tell what dir etc.. its in. And it depends on what you call harmless some might think its harmless other might not want it on thier computer and didnt know it was on thier computer.
     
  13. HandsOff

    HandsOff Registered Member

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    I use pest patrol, so obviously i think it is a useful product, however when i was a new user i had my doubts. I believe i posted a question long ago about wether i should let Pest Patrol use my data in their statistics (at least they ask) and i decided no. Not because i don't trust them, i just believe that data of this type is too vulnerable to tampering with from users who intentionally try to corrupt these statistics. I still question my decision, but am sticking with it on the basis that i will not participate because so doing will give these statistics an air of legitamacy that may cause other users to confuse fact with assertion.

    Secondly, PP plays fast and loose with definitions of what a pest is, and even the nature of what it does. I'm sorry, but a text file is not executable because its definition of being a pest is that the information that the text relates is information that is about a subject PP and society at large would just as soon you did not possess. pest patrol rightly says this file could be a liability to you should you at some later date be implicated as knowing bad things, however, that still does not make it "executable" on your machine.

    To give examples, i have downloaded files with instructions on creating viruses, as well as "password recovery"...and worse. I don't know why I do stuff like that, i guess i am trying to "know the enemy". the stuff is way over my head.

    My conclusion? I think Pest Patrol plays fast and loose because they expect me to have enough sense to interpret what they say. That is a bold move on their part, and it makes me smile. Also, I once read Pieter Arnz say "Pest Patrol is good." Not to embarrass the guy, but that's good enough for me!

    -HandsOff
     
  14. Ruffian

    Ruffian Guest


    It amuses to me to see that even a paid user of the software basically agrees with me.

    I really have my doubts if it really does more than besides throw out a string of false positives.(I mean real false positives, not detecting p2p , or network tools which is fair enough if you set it to scan for that). All tests I have seen not sponsored by Pest patrol are basically unimpressive scanning for either keg loggers, trojans ,viruses, or adware.

    You can be impressed by the numbers reported by software if you like, but I've long since stopped doing so.
     
  15. HandsOff

    HandsOff Registered Member

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    Oh, as soon as posted and was jumping on my trampoline i remembered i forgot the most important part! Not that it uncovered pests, but the nature of the pests that it uncovered. They were Remote Access Trojans. I cannot say for sure wether they were real or not, however, i did in one case at least determine that the site i downloaded it from was full of malware. I have reinstalled Pest Patrol recently so my log file does not go back very far but...it deleted two instances i feel were legitmate finds of Theef LE trojan. Also i accidentally installed Kontiki downloader when downloading a file from CNET. I uninstalled it, did a file search, and a registry search and thought i deleted it. Pest Patrol found 26 different components had reinstalled themselves and when i deleted it with Pest Patrol they were gone for good. it also found something called "Gates of Hell 1.4 Trojan" and "(Flask MPEG 0563 Trojan).
    I realize i did not provide examples when i said "i found it useful" but that's the sort of thing i find useful

    Also, i like that it lets you put an updater icon on your desktop so you can update definitions with out even having to got through one single menu. That is convient. That is performance. That is Pest Patrol!

    -HandsOff
     
  16. dread

    dread Registered Member

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    Yeah yeah whatever Ruffian. By the way your little statement about detecting viruses it cant and does not detect viruses if you ever read they say on thier site it does not detect viruses. As far as the rest go and download some trail or free keyloggers they are small and see if it detects them. And go off and download some trojans and worms they are easy to find and see if it detects them. Bottom line its your choice if you want it. Bottom its you money you can spend how you want. Bottom line it is pretty good. Bottom line thier techsupport is good. Bottom line it isnt perfect. Bottom line they have a large database if you think its inflated or they make up numbers go test it and see what all is in the data base. And you the only one so far that is running his/her mouth about how bad it is so ur not in the majority here looks like from the post i have seen most think its a ok or good program. And if it did do nothing but spit out false positives I would trashed it awhile ago. Your money your choice. I am a happy 2 year owner of pestpatrol and will keep getting it unless it stops detecting or actually does what you say it does.
     
  17. spacecase

    spacecase Guest

    I agree with Dread. I use and like Pest Patrol too. But when are they gonna re-open there forums so i can post and ask questions specifically related to Pest Patrol?
     
  18. dread

    dread Registered Member

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    I emailed them and asked. They didnt say to much just that they closed them down and looking at it or will reevalute all thier sites or some junk like that. If you got a seriouse question use thier helpdesk http://helpdesk.pestpatrol.com here is thier contact page http://pestpatrol.com/Company/Contact.asp They usually get back with you in 24 hours or 48 hours. I used it like 2 or 3 times and they got back with me in 24 hours. If it something in general just post in here. I havent been a member of this forum for long but from what freakshow siad and the comments Ruffian posted, sounds like its a sin or something to own it around this forum lol. I dont reckon we will get hanged for posting a topic on pestpatrol :D
     
  19. MCT

    MCT Registered Member

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    I find pestpatrol Quite good, BUT, if u have problems with false positives, do as i do, just exclude them from further scans, but on a side note, i would recommend adaware, as it is free, and they update quite often, pestpatrol said they were gonna get v5 out last month, i dunno where it is :S

    Spyware Blaster blocks all the pests i usually get anyways, since i watch wat i download, i never get spyware anyways :D

    MCT :D
     
  20. Ruffian

    Ruffian Guest

    I guess the whole point of that argument just sailed over your head lol. You can replace virus with adware, or keyloggers or whatever..



    I AM in the majority. The problem is that in this forum, people seldom say anything bad about security software, but the lack of support compared to say when people mention ad-aware/spybot/Nod/TDs3/trojanhunter is very clear. You will see the people chiming in here, are mostly newbies.

    Try asking people if they think they should
    complement ad-aware/spybot/antivirus with TDS 3/trojanhunter/boclean (pick one) versus pest patrol. I bet you will find quickly you are in the minority :)
     
  21. spy1

    spy1 Registered Member

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    Sorry, I have to disagree with that because your logic is flawed.

    ANY software-maker can come out with a bad update or a flaky new version - I'm thinking it wouldn't be too intelligent to trust anything to the degree you're indicating in that statement above.

    If you're primary AV/AT/anti-scumware app suddenly told you (after an update or a version change) that you had all kinds of malware on your system, would you react in a knee-jerk fashion and delete everything found? (Even "Quarantining" things can sometimes cause system problems). Including critical system files? (It's happened!) Because you "trust" it? I think not.

    Having back-up programs to cross-check a given result is pretty critical, IMO - if you're not getting "hits" on the same thing with the back-up program(s), then it's a definite indication of a false-positive by the primary and it should trigger (on your part) an email to the one that found the hinky result before any action is taken, questioning the result.

    Having "back-up/cross-check" programs also gives you the opportunity to submit suspicious files found by one program to the other vendors, to have them check them out - there's always the possibility that they've missed whatever the other one found and that it needs to be added to their DB - or, they can simply help confirm that it's a FP.

    That's the way I see it, anyway - and it's worked extremely well for me here through the years. Pete
     
  22. MCT

    MCT Registered Member

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    Spybot has 2 be one of the worst for lack of updates/support
    BUT, it is a good program, and they say on their forum they are going 2 resume weekly updates, so im hoping things will get better for them
    so i still hold hope for that program, as of right now, i recommend adaware if someone asks, and spybot secondary, as it isnt "up to par" with newer stuff

    regards

    MCT
     
  23. dread

    dread Registered Member

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    Ok Ruffian. I am new to this forum and do not want to get booted out of it since I do like it and it has alot of info and help on it so this is the last im gonna to respond to anything you say. To start of with you are not the majority count it up dude, you do know how to count right, it is clear that from this post the people responding to it like it. And no one asked about TDS 3/trojanhunter/boclean only pestpatrol. So I gave my input on and only on pestpatrol. And the only thing sialing is the air in your snipped head.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 31, 2004
  24. HandsOff

    HandsOff Registered Member

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    Dread I agree 100% with what Paul had to remove as offensive, and I never ever got to read it!

    This SHOULD be obvious to anyone. Different anti-malware programs have different strengths. One tries to identify the threats that have the most likelyhood of causing him or her bad effects and then find solutions. One does not look to Ad-aware primarily to find viruses nor NAV to handle trojans nor Pest Patrol to take on viruses. What one does like to see is a certain amount of overlap with regard to what these programs guard against. Especially if a particular malware is seen as a major threat. I don't run as many programs as some because i only have so many resources. Currently I am mainly using

    A^2 Trojan scanner
    Spybots Search and Destroy v1.3
    Ad-Aware Professional
    NAV
    NPF
    Spywareblaster
    Pest Patrol

    and i am still trying to work out SpywareGuard-Tea Timer - Resident Scanner and the like.

    NOD, AVG and several others i use for back ups to check results

    Does this qualify me as an experienced user? Not really, but it should be obvious that I have pretty fair trojan coverage. When I stay that Pest Patrol has dealt better with some trojans and some malware than the others, and I am using some well respected products...try...try to connect the dots, eh, ruffian?

    as for me not badmouthing products...i do it all the time...but even if i dont worship a program that is saving my ass, it is only right to give it some credit for what is in some cases inspired work.

    I don't imagine i'll have anything further to say except: Pest Patrol - I consider us square now for the Gates of Hell trojan, OK?

    -HandsOff
     
  25. Ruffian

    Ruffian Guest

    Think about it, what makes you doubt your primary scanner in the first place?
    In your example, it's because you suddenly got lots of hits. Say you then scan it with product X, that you don't trust fully (because of dozens of false positives), as per the exampel here. It found some but not all of the same hits, what do you conclude? In any case, whatever you do decide as to do with what your brain tells you more than the secondary scanner.



    Here you are assuming that in most cases you trust both secondary and primary scanners (at least to avoid false positives) and then some circumstance comes along that destroys your faith in the primary scanner.

    But if you have any doubt at all in your secondary scanner in avoiding false positives as we are talking about in this case with Pest patrol, than it's effectiveness is destroyed .
     
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