Spybot Blazes review

Discussion in 'other anti-malware software' started by Mr.Blaze, May 14, 2004.

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  1. Mr.Blaze

    Mr.Blaze The Newbie Welcome Wagon

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    Well first off lets start by saying its free so thats a good thing

    so technically no one should complaine lol.

    How ever i always been the one to tell it how it is.

    Well its alot more newbie frindly and easyer to use but it takes alot of your choices alway that the old one had meaning sometimes its not better to have some one do all the thinking and work for you lol.

    speed extramly slow compare to the old one its on a 4 banger engine and it feels bulky and not as much munuravable handles poorly in speed,

    like i said less options

    also the backup registry option froze

    had to close it start algain and the option was no longher there seems to be a one shot thing

    where if you dont get it on first install you dont get it at all

    over all as much as i love free and pepi mk i have to say im keeping my old spybot even if its out dated

    i use to love spybot over ad-aware but now there about the same speed slowwwwwwwwww

    so ill use my adawre for now plus it looks cooler lol

    if you have a fast high end pc with fas processor albove 700mhz then get it

    that is if processor speed actualy makes up for slowage in this software otherwise dont bother

    its a shame cause i know how hard pepi mk and his dad work on this it is alot newbie frindlyer but it has less options it seems either that or the option area isnt easly visiable
     
  2. Primrose

    Primrose Registered Member

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    Go to MODE at the top of the GUI and then click on Advanced Mode to change it from the defualt to get some of the features displayed that you have seen before..but be careful which ones you setup up.
     
  3. LowWaterMark

    LowWaterMark Administrator

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    Hmm, about the freezing on the registry backup option... I've seen that mentioned in a few threads about the new Spybot, but I'm wondering if it really hung on people or if they just didn't wait long enough.

    I'm running XP here and one thing I do when I first boot up is a Ctrl Alt Del to open the Task Manager. If you set the option, this will put a small icon in the systray next to the clock that looks like a resource meter (a green box that is dark if the CPU is not doing much and which lights up, showing levels higher and higher as the CPU gets busier). It is a very valuable thing to have visible all the time as it'll show you when the CPU is working hard, or isn't doing anything.

    When I ran Spybot 1.3 the first time, I also got the wizard options including the backup of the registry. When I let it do that the CPU immediately went to 100% busy. (The program is obviously stepping through the registry drawing out all the keys and writing them out to save them. It is very CPU intensive because for the most part the registry ends up cached in memory so most accesses to it are CPU based - reaching into cache rather than to disk to get the data).

    On my Celeron 1.2GHz system it took almost 3 minutes of 100% CPU to finish gather and outputting the registry. After it finished that the only change on the Spybot wizard screen is that the "Next>" button that was gray while making the backup, becomes clickable. I think some of the people who thought it was hung may very well have simply had it taking more time than expected, perhaps because they have a slower CPU or a bigger registry (mine if fairly small and clean), or hadn't noticed it finished.

    In any case, it may very well be hanging for some people, but it also may just be taking a lot of time to finish.
     
  4. dwax

    dwax Registered Member

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    I had it freeze up on me every time I used it,waited a long time then did a ctrl/alt/delt and saw it said Spybot Search&Destroy is not Responding.The only way to close it was to end task.Finaly just uninstalled it and went back to ver 1.2 to remove the bad cookies.Hope they fix the problem. :(
     
  5. Mele20

    Mele20 Former Poster

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    The problem for some of us is that we didn't know not to install over a beta version. It is ok to install over 1.2 but not over 1.1 or a beta or a release candidate. I installed over 1.3 beta 6 and it hung on the registry backup option. It also told me that I had detections from March 4 which was not right.

    After I uninstalled and cleaned out everything (except the backup folder), I then installed 1.3 final again and that time it did not hang on the registry backup but did that quickly ( I have a new 3.0Ghz box with 1Ghz RAM).

    As for time taken for the scan, it's the same as with the beta I was using. I had an error though during installation and I can't read a thing on the popup box for more information on what is found as the box has a very dark grey background with black text. There is no contrast. I don't why such a dark background was chosen. It may have to do with my video card which has a digital vibrance slider. If I were to turn that off and really make my colors non vivid, pale and yucky then that background might not be so dark. (One almost instantly becomes addicted to digital vibrance which is only available on NVidia cards). It could also be the current desktop them I am using as the theme may be determining the background.

    I uninstalled it as I don't like how bloated it has become. I just want something to scan for spyware and report what it has found and fix it if I choose and backup. I don't want anything else. Why is that all the great free programs start out lean and mean and wonderful and as they age they get fat, slow, lazy and full of extraneous stuff?

    LWM, where is that setting to put the resource meter into the systray for XP?
     
  6. TheQuest

    TheQuest Registered Member

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    Hi, Mele20

    Hope you do not minded me answering, Press Ctrl Alt Del and minimize.

    Or right click the Task bar>Click Task Manager and minimize.

    TheQuest :cool:
     
  7. Mele20

    Mele20 Former Poster

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    Does anyone know why version 1.3 final comes with 5 spyware items excluded from the scan by default? This is under "advanced", "all products", "ignore".
    Numerious posts over at Net-Integration asking about this. No answers yet.
     
  8. Mele20

    Mele20 Former Poster

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    Neither of those put it in the systray. The first simply puts it in the taskbar. The second is not available as choice from the taskbar. I can either maximize, restore, or close...no minimize to systray. It goes automatically in the systray when you do c/a/d but it is also in the taskbar taking up room. If I try to get it out of the taskbar into the systray only, I can't see how to do that. That is what I thought LWM was saying he has done.
     
  9. LowWaterMark

    LowWaterMark Administrator

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    The settings in the Options menu is what I was referring to. This will prevent it from taking up task bar space when minimized. It should just show the meter in the systray.
     

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  10. Mele20

    Mele20 Former Poster

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    Ahhh...dumb of me. I looked at that earlier and saw it offered "hide when minimized" and it didn't sink in what that meant. Thank you. :)
     
  11. Mr.Blaze

    Mr.Blaze The Newbie Welcome Wagon

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    well i did a clean install on mine cause fanj and lowater and jooskey and the wilder team have always encourage me to do a clean install of what ever im updating to a new verstion.

    im thinking like lowater said could be a cpu the processor speed

    on my 700mhz celeron lol well yeah

    but see now a days most pc' now are 2ghz or better for 800 to 1115 dollers

    im perty sure its fast on the newer pc espechialy those amd 64 and those p4 with hyper threading

    i think any one who has bought a computer within the last 3 years this software rocks for them

    so thats where the extra options is?

    i mean whats a newbie going to think when he sees warning you may die horriable death lol

    he going to stay the heck alway from it lol

    you know i wish pepi would had just kept it kinda like the old on with the defaults set like the old spybot and the safe check or not to check list

    and for the puter saby like paul and unicorn and alot others here put the advaqnce option with that warning lol

    other then that its oerty cool

    the freezing registry back up thing needs a percentage counter so you know when its done lol or that at least its geting done

    if it had that i could stand the wait

    cause at least i know its working lol
     
  12. Mr.Blaze

    Mr.Blaze The Newbie Welcome Wagon

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    hey Primrose thx for the help thers been countless times you help me with things like that and i always forget to say thank you

    so thx man really aprechiate it alot

    i alpreachiate every one sometimes i just forget to say thx
     
  13. Primrose

    Primrose Registered Member

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    The pleasure is reciprocal..rock on Blaze..good review ;)
     
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