SafeTasks...is it safe?

Discussion in 'other software & services' started by HandsOff, Feb 18, 2004.

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  1. HandsOff

    HandsOff Registered Member

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    Anyone heard anything good/bad about Comptune's Safetask 2.0b? What follows is a direct quote from

    http://comptune.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=188

    "SafeTasks is, in many ways, superior to a virus checker. It can find adware, spyware, malware and "anything else" you might not want running on your PC! It can take a "snapshot" of your computer's memory and inform you if "anything new" is running at a later date. This means that it will always detect certain types of new spyware, adware and viruses, even if they use random names! It is also very fast since it doesn't have to search the disk."

    It seems like there are as many new programs as there are new malwares, however, it always catches my eye if someone claims to have a new approach that does not take huge amounts of computing time and power to run. Honestly, when trojan and virus scanners have signature lists in the millions (it could happen) what then? Anyway it is a free download...i have not installed it yet. I thought I'd run it up the flagpole first and see if anyone salutes it!

    HandsOff
     
  2. bigc73542

    bigc73542 Retired Moderator

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    Still being in beta I would be a little hesitant to use it my self If you want a good one to do what this one is supposed to do try spybot search and destroy. This is a tried and true program. But this is only my opinion if you decide to try this new app just use caution ;)
     
  3. HandsOff

    HandsOff Registered Member

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    Just an additional comment on how it is proposed to work, as i understand it. In order to work, the person running the program must be sure that his or her computer is malware free in its current state. Then the program takes a snapshot of all the processes running in memory and adds them to your "safe list". Then for a new process to start it must be added to the safe list.

    This is sort of like what we do when we use the task manager to look at processes, however, windows uses names which are not unique, and in many cases the processes are hidden.

    Wintasks (LIU software) helps alot in identifying them, however, it would be useful if a suspicious process were brought to your attention before it has an opportunity to perform its function.

    What i wonder is in practice will it nag you all the time? Can it be fooled? I can only say that even with nearly constant addition and removal of programs, the list of processes does not really change that much. Anyway, it strikes me as easier than trying to program scripts to do the same thing.
     
  4. HandsOff

    HandsOff Registered Member

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    i might add, that this represents a approach that is new to me, you could say that it guards processes...hmmmm... i like that...maybe PROCESS GUARD!

    Sorry!

    I confess, i just read about DCS Process Guard, and it has a free version as well. Since this site has an entire forum topic devoted to it, I am guessing that i could benefit from looking at it.

    I know from bitter experience...guarding beats repairing!


    ...HandsOff my computer!!!
     
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