ZeroSpyware

Hearing about this application , I have decided to give it a shot . Just installed . Nice GUI . VERY nice . CPU use is low . ( Comparatively speaking ) . If it works half as nice as it looks , it may be my new baby !

 

ZeroSpyware was once a rogue AS and is now de-listed. So you are warned.
http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm

 

No warning needed for me . I know what I am doing . No problem with this software or the author . But , thanks anyway .

 

From the page you linked to:
Note on ZeroSpyware: ZeroSpyware was listed on this page because of concerns with false positives and the nature of its detections and scan reporting (1, 2). In early September 2004, a new version of ZeroSpyware was released. Testing with this new version indicates not only that the problems with earlier versions have been satisfactorily resolved, but that the application does provide usable anti-spyware protection. Thus, we can no longer consider ZeroSpyware to be "rogue/suspect" anti-spyware.
What part of that makes you feel a "warning" is necessary? Do you know what delisted means?

 

I trialed ZeroSpyware a while back, along with PrevX....and while ZeroSpyware seemed to be a pretty good app, and I really liked many of the features and interface quite a bit.....PrevX kept alerting me to changes and activity that ZeroSpyware seemed to be undertaking on a somewhat consistent basis. Just based off of a feeling....I uninstalled it. But it did look promising, and had several nice features (as well as some positive reviews from reputable sites)....

 

Of course, I've read that part.
I used once the also delisted XoftSpy to give it a second chance and it reported my language indicator in the systemtray as a threat during the very first scan. Reporting a Windows object as a threat. XoftSpy must have tested their delisted version thoroughly ? Pffft.
I know what delisted means, but I gave it another definition : once a thief, always a thief.
That's my opinion and doesn't need to be everybody's opinion.

 

Glad to see some folks understand the REAL deal . I know some have problems with some of Erik's posts but , I never have . So , this kind of surprised me . I thought he would have looked deeper into this before making such a comment . It was appreciated if it were to help but , it was a deceiptful post . Not saying intentional . Just poor .
@ JRC . Prevx was detecting the changes that ZS makes when it has to make them to keep things functional . Completely normal for this app . Thought you might like to know .

 

Yeah, thanks hpc...I figured as much. I guess it wasn't so much that I didn't "TRUST" ZS, as much as it was that PrevX was CONSTANTLY alerting me to "changes" or modifications and/or access to things that it was making within the system. It was the number of alerts, as well as notifications that ZS was trying to "read or modify files", etc. on a consistent basis that kind of wore me out.

Hope it works well for you, though, hpc, because like I said it does seem like an interesting app. Hope that you like it and find it to be an effective program and can give us a little more description and detail after you've had a chance to trial it for a while......

 

I will my friend . Glad I could help .
You already know that Prevx reacts to everything at least once . ZS is fine . I triple checked everything so all is good . I am really looking forward to playing with this eye candy

 

To show I have a good heart too, I will try ZeroSpyware.
BUT I'm not a big fan of scanners in general and this has nothing to do with ZeroSpyware, so I won't keep it but use it for a few days.
Is this the official home page of ZeroSpyware ?
http://www.fbmsoftware.com/pmain.aspx?id=3

 

Hi Erik
It is . And , if you are not a fan of scanners , what , may I ask , do you do ? Only realtime ? If so , ZS offers that in the program too . I normally do on demand only . But , I am trying this out completely . I will see if it is light enough and accurate enough to use .
Good luck EA . Not that I need to ask but , please let us knoww what your thoughts are .

 

Yep, sure is a nice app. Have you tried the live support yet. I have. It kind of freaked me out a bit. There i was chatting in real time with Tech support over an issue i had with ZS. They resolved it. But it was a bit weird in that i was talking to someone rather than using the known traditional method of sending and receiving e-mails. But it was weird in a good way. It's great that you can actually talk to someone about the problem rather than rely on them answering an e-mail.

As to the app itself. Well i think it is greatly underappreciated. It's a fine looking app with plenty of configurability. In a test on either Pcmag or PCworld(can't remember which) it excelled at preventing. It was rated as good at removal. But that was 6 months ago and i would expect it has been improved.

And as to once a thief, always a thief. Well that's an interesting stance to take and one that you are welcome to take. I on the other hand will always give an app a second chance. But two times and you're out! I had no problem giving ZS another chance. There are plenty of people in this forum who gave Adaware another chance, but will selectively not offer that same opportunity to another app like ZS.

muf

 

ZeroSpyware was never a thief. It only had some problems with too many and
serious false positives as reported by Eric L. Howes IIRC.
They fixed it, as they told Eric they would.

As for ZeroSpyware I always liked it, not withstanding the FP's.
It ran nicely on my system and I liked the GUI.
Don't use it anymore, but I'm sure I'll give it a try once the new version is released.

As for companies which dealt with spyware distributors, that's another matter.
I'll think twice before giving it a second chance.

Just my 0.2 eurocent.

 

I ran ZeroSpyware today. Unfortunately, it reported "No threats found", which is normally GOOD, but in this case I wished I was infected, because I couldn't see the screens were threats are listed and can be removed or ignored.

One thing I have to admit, I never saw such a communicating scanner in my life.
I've sent an email to them with one question and one suggestion to see how that works.

 

I use Zero Spyware 2005.

There are only two possible "cons" that I have noticed.
1.ZS is a very slow starter for me.I keep my startup programs to a minimum,so it's not like I have a boatload of programs starting up.

2.The updates are not incremental.They are always large(4,000k+)and that's a pain on dialup.

The program does work as far as the preventive components.I never found much with the scanner,but it is fairly fast and the support was good for me.
It is a comprehensive antispyware program!

 

I haven't found yet how to remove the 'threats' found, but it does have a nice quarantine like before.

It also provides a good log of previous scan results, which you can save to a text-file or open in Notepad.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y239/eldarwyn/Wilders/zerospyware_2005_quarantine.jpg

Clicking on the name give you an excellent description about it, as well as
the components found and some general information.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y239/eldarwyn/Wilders/zerospyware_quarantine_details.jpg

Still playing with this new toy, but I'm however a bit doubtful about what it found.

 

Eldar,
Thanks for the screenshots man. Much appreciated !!!

ZeroSpyware replied my email pretty fast.

Removed private email ~Bubba https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=692353&postcount=17

At least one company that listens to my crazy ideas.

 

Hello,
Erik, what were your ideas?
Mrk

 

Since my ideas about ShadowUser ended up in bad comments on my person, I don't like to talk about my ideas anymore. I will wait until I actually use ShadowUser or any other software.
There are also alternatives, like FD-ISR, Rollback Rx, DeepFreeze, ... worth to study. I'm not blind for other possibilities and I will wait long enough before I start buying software.
Upto now, I paid only for 4 softwares in my life : DOS, win2000proSP4, Office2000pro and winXPproSP2.
I'm not angry about this in any way, just more carefull.
I only report and discuss them with the owner of the software, in other words with the RIGHT people.

Besides I'm not really convinced that my idea will be accepted by the sales and marketing people of ZeroSpyware and I understand their reasons although I don't agree with them.
But I'm used to this at work, I spend more time on convincing people of my ideas, than doing my real job.
If people don't accept one or more of my ideas for other reasons (often money), so be it.
In that case I look for other solutions without regrets. That's my job.

At home, I don't have problems with other people or money, because it's my computer and my money.
So I can do as many experiments as I want and of course I appreciate the help of members at Wilders, but I'm not here to waste my time on verbal fights. I'm here to learn as much as possible and what I do with all that knowledge is my business.

 

Hello,
I was genuinely interested in hearing them out, but well ...
Mtk

 

My pleasure ErikAlbert.

Always had positive experience with them when asking for support.

BTW I found the area back to restore or delete found threats.
It wasn't that difficult although it's been some time since I used it again.

The PowerSearch Toolbar seems to be related to Visicom software.
I however never selected to install that toolbar as reported here.

Still looking into the rest.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y239/eldarwyn/zerospyware_quarantine_details2.jpg

Thanks for the additional information.
I"m sure they'll continue to listen to their customers demands.
Whether it will be implemented depends on their priorities.

 

They listen . And they will add if it is deemed necessary . I have offered an idea or two . One has already been discussed . Some felt is was good , and others felt is was too technical . They are trying to keep it simple . I do not find this to be the most simple to use on the market . I will say it is one of the best though . Thus far , I have compared it , side by side to SS . SS is scanning many more files but , I think that is ok . Both have alerted on the same things . No more , no less . And no CPU spikes like SS used to give off . ZS is really nice . After the SS testing , I will test against SD . ( Spyware Doctor ) . I see nothing bad about ZS . ONLY positive . It really is good .

 

I'm going to keep ZeroSpyware on my old computer and play with it until the trial period of 15 days is over.
After that my new computer will be ready for playing with another group of softwares.

My new computer isn't ready yet
- my floppy drive didn't work, but is fixed (a stupid error of the tech)
- my internet connection doesn't work
- my very old printer gave up on me
- my very old scanner can't be connected
- my new external harddisk isn't there
- my new all-in-one printer isn't there
- my new lightscribe DVD rewriter isn't there
I still don't feel at home in my new apartment, it feels like a hotel room and that will last six months.
I'm not very happy at this moment.

 

Actually we have discussed Erik's idea with sales and marketing and it is definitely in queue. (I hope Erik doesn't mind me sharing the concept) One of the ideas that he proposed was allowing users to report or vote on false positives directly from the scan results interface by a single button click, in the interest of helping reduce false positives with the help of our community. We think this is a great idea. He proposed this after he noted that we already collect information about frequently detected spyware, unknown processes and dll's, unknown cookies, unknown lsp dll's, startup entries etc...

HollywoodPC suggested that we allow users to mark unknown processes that they know to be trusted processes as trusted and to put these processes on their allow list. Other users have also asked that the processes they mark be shared with others. These suggestions are direclty in line with our planned initiatives to get as much community feedback as possible to help improve our software. In version 3.3 we added auto-reporting of any crash to our servers, and have since been able to receive and review over 20K crash reports. As a result Version 3.4.8x comming out today has included over 40 fixes for crashes that we simply couldn't replicate in-house.

We are also planning one button submission of unknown processes specimen files, and some other similar features that allow us to gather data based on community submission.

And...we are planning to include these features in a soon to be announced release of a free version of the software to try to encourage wider spread adoption of Zerospyware so that we can solicit feedback from a larger community base.

We always prioritize user feedback through our support channels. Its the easiest and most obvious way to create software that matches your users needs.

We really apreciate the input and regularly give away free subscriptions of our software to trial users that offer us valuable input. We consider it a fair exchange. That's why we are offering Erik and HollywoodPC free subscriptions if they will accept.

Thanks again for the great feedback.

-D

 

No, I don't mind. I have no secrets when it comes to improve softwares of any kind.
I'm glad with your decision and I sincerely hope it will increase the reports of false positives. Time will prove.

That's why I'm interested in a free subscription you offered.
I would like to see how this scanner evolves in the future.