ZeroSpyware

great support from these guys espeically the live online chat support

 

I never used their live online chat support. I'm too slow in English, but I have all the time I need to write an email or post.

 

Right on .... metallicakid15.

I've used the "live support" several times and found it much better than exchanging emails .... as I've usually done with other software vendors.

Keep on rockin ....
HR

 

hehe

 

Well I sent my feature requests / some bug fixes yesterday

Great product so far, I can say that it is very different then other anti-spyware program I have used before.

The live support feature sounds cool but im more of a email person

 

Still no refund for me from them, but they offered to extend my license, which isn't what I was looking for.

Ultimately, a few days after purchasing it, I asked for a refund, never got it as I indicated before in this thread. I pursued all methods available to me, and never got it.

I gave David a reciept for my purchase, and he was going to look into it, but I never heard back from him after his last PM.

 

If a refund was possible at that time, you are entitled to get your money back and it doesn't matter if the software was downloaded or boxed.
A deal is a deal and a promise is a promise. Period.
An extension of license is NOT the same as getting your money back. I wouldn't like that either. Keep us posted.

 

Go to their Live Chat and have a talk with them. At least you'll get a live person and you can be sure that they get your message. People sometimes don't bother as much with emails and posts when there are Live Chats so I'd try there first and chat to someone live in person. They DO answer they're chatlines so you'll definitely be able to chat with someone live.

If you've already been go back again. Even someone here can go and ask but it is an issue primarily between you and them.

Dave

 

SDS909:

I know David was personally setting up a Paypal account to help get this refund processed, so I will contact him to find out the status.

I sent you a new license in the meantime, as we thought it woulod be a nice gesture, and a chance to see that the program has improved much in the year and a half since you purchased it.

Please know that we are aware of this and trying to get it taken care of quickly. I agree with Erik that a refund is a refund, and the license isn't meant to replace that.

AshleyH

 

I don't agree here with you. It's between us(ers) and them.
If SDS909 doesn't get his money back, nobody will if there is still a refund.

I moderated a Free Lotto Forum for a long time and when a winner wasn't paid, we blacklisted the free lotto website and nobody played on that free lotto anymore, until the winner was paid.

I got a free license for a year from FBM Software, suggested improvements, I even like ZeroSpyware, but that doesn't mean that I've to agree with what is happening to SDS909. I like to separate events from one another, when they have nothing to do with eachother.
Considering the past (ZS was on the rogue list), I don't think FBM Software can afford such an event like that or do I have to go back to my very first opinion : once a thief always a thief.

 

ErikAlbert,

I used the word 'primarily' which means 'mainly'. I didn't say 'solely' or exclusively because I intended that should he fail to have success then others here could intervene on his behalf.

It would not be in their interests to keep this dragging on so I fully back the forum acting if people here feel it's come to that. But I feel they'll come around however let's get it done and over with so we can move on and the guy get his money.

Dave

 

OK WorldCitizen, blame it my poor knowledge of English. In Dutch I wouldn't make that mistake, but I don't feel words in English like in Dutch.
My apologizes

I don't even understand why this is dragging so long. The facts are there, the proof is there and everybody knows about it and still no refund. Unbelievable. Pffft.

 

I think they are taking care of this now as we speak. Give it a couple of days for it to come through. If not we can all consult about it and see if there's anything we can do but first give them a chance to put the refund through in the next couple of days.

Dave

 

Hello,

I have received word from David that he has resolved the refund issue that SDS909 brought up earlier here. I am posting the following message to help anybody who is concerned about the issue understand what the problem was, and how we are addressing it:


I'm going to try to keep it breif on the refund topic. I looked into the case for SDS909. The delay in refund had to do with techinical/biz issues with paypal refunds. Customes using paypal account for maybe 2% of our purchases and about 90% of our after service customer issues. Our support reps have automated integrated interfaces to credit card refunds, this is not the case for Paypal. We are now under discussions to remove this as a payment option all together (which I am strongly recommending). However our records now show that SDS909 has been refunded. The delay was due to some serious struggles to get the refund to work correctly with paypal for this case.

I personally sympathize for the frustration and anger that customers face when dealing with these issues. One piece of advice I can offer here for Papyal customers that do have paypal problems. you can use paypal interfaces to dispute a charge, in which case it usually results in an automatic refund regardless of what the vendor does. Until we resolve our issues with paypal or drop the service, this advice will now be part of the KB that is used by support reps in handling these issues.

Appologies to SDS909 for the inconvenience.

-David

 

Same problem here. After running "vulnerability scan" ZS found 13 "vulnerabilities". Eleven were MS updates and were already installed in my pc. I have send customer support email about this. ZS needs some work in this department (and also with "alert manager").

My Giant antispyware license is comming to an end and i'm trialing AS prog. at the moment. Till now Zerospyware impressed me the most. Detection wise it was the only program that detected Webdialer in my pc. A number of favorite AS prog. in this forum missed that one. I realise that one prog. finds what another one misses and vice versa, but Webdialer I think is an important one.

I like to add that I have contacted their customer support a couple of times now. Customer support is very friendly and works fast. Within a couple of hours they have answered my emails (you also can have a live chat if desired). I feel that especially with this kind of software good customer support is very important. When my trial is over I'm gonna buy Zerospyware.

 

They already have the new free version?

 

I have the free version, ZeroSpyware LE, and encountered three problems. One concerns the negative impact on log-on; start up was noticeably lengthened after the installation of ZeroSpyware. The second was related to fast-user-switching, wherein ZeroSpyware automatically starts for the user who logs-on first, but must be started manually by the second user. Lastly, and on a more positive note, ZeroSpyware did find items which had remained undiscovered by other ant-spyware programs, which I quarantined. However, and here is my third problem, although the number of categories quarantined remained the same, the number of components within the categories changed, without my having tried to either restore or delete any of those components.

I emailed ZeroSpyware Support, specifically addressing the 2nd & 3rd problems and, without rehashing the exchange of correspondence, let me summarize that their support of the LE version amounts to an attempt to have you upgrade to the retail version. That is, there was no support.

 

That is NOT very smart of FBM Software not giving support for LE version.
They will miss alot of possible bugs this way.

 

Hello,

Vampiric Crow - The NEW Free Edition is in development as we speak. We hope to get it up on the download sites in 2 weeks.

Stallcup - The version you have (from Download.com?) will be replaced with the new ZeroSpyware Free Edition shortly. The new version should address the slow boot time. I will bring up the other two points 2 raised with our development team and post results as soon as possible.
There should be full customer support even for the free version of ZeroSpyware (which is not exactly a common feature in free AS apps). I will try to figure out what is going on there. For the records, the Free Edition gets free access to customer support, but piad licenses are prioritized in terms of response time.

Erik - See above for discussion on support

I hope this helps.

Thanks,
Ashley Harrison

 

Thanks for the info, AshleyH

 

Thanks for your quick response.

I await the new version and, hopefully, a quicker log-on. I also await your post regarding the multiple user problem, as this is an inconvenience which would seem easy to remedy.

With regard to the changing number of components within a category in quarantine, this is of obvious interest, but not critical. After quarantining for one month without experiencing any changes in system performance, I removed all the categories. So I don't think "false positives" were at issue here. But I would like to know why the number of components changed, and what was the process that caused the change.

Also, I have one further question: Why is ZeroSpyware set to startup as a run once key? The setting of this key at log-off affects some security programs which monitor changes in the registry, resulting in the notification of this change every time it happens. Can't ZeroSpyware be set to startup in the run key, or am I missing something?

Again, I appreciate your response.

 

Stallcup (and other interested group members)

Sorry for the delay - I asked our lead developer to answer your questions, so it tok a couple of days. I will post the responses below, after the original questions:

"I have the free version, ZeroSpyware LE, and encountered three problems. One concerns the negative impact on log-on; start up was noticeably lengthened after the installation of ZeroSpyware."

This is possible for some workstations and has been observed with some of our test machines. During start up of ZeroSpyware, especially on first install, we create a back up of some important system set up on their workstation, e.g. Ini files, startup entries, etc… to enable ZeroSpyware to detect intrussion attempts and for restoration purposes in case ZeroSpyware determines that the settings have to be restored. This means that if the customer has a lot of entires on start-up or ini files, etc… that it takes longer to do the backup process which is part of the process done by ZeroSpyware during start up. I believe we have improved on this issue with newer versions of the program.

"The second was related to fast-user-switching, wherein ZeroSpyware automatically starts for the user who logs-on first, but must be started manually by the second user."

The ‘run at start up’ setting is only applied to the current user of the system. This means that if another user logs in the ‘run at start up’ setting previously set by another user won’t affect his settings. This is by design to allow flexibility on a per user basis.

"...and here is my third problem, although the number of categories quarantined remained the same, the number of components within the categories changed, without my having tried to either restore or delete any of those components.”

There may be a difference in terms of the number and the list of items detected and quarantined. During scans, spyware processes are added in the count of components detected while on quarantine, spyware process are not counted since they are not necessarily quarantined but killed/terminated. Does this answer the question?

"I have one further question: Why is ZeroSpyware set to startup as a run once key? The setting of this key at log-off affects some security programs which monitor changes in the registry, resulting in the notification of this change every time it happens. Can't ZeroSpyware be set to startup in the run key, or am I missing something?"

The reason why ZeroSpyware is set to startup and added on a run once key is because we found that between ‘RUN’ and ‘RUN ONCE’ entry, the system executes all application under ‘RUN ONCE’ first over ‘RUN’ during system start up. We want ZeroSpyware to launch first during start up of the system to capture any spyware attempting to run at that phase, and execute our removal procedure before any spyware application starts regenerating its components.

I hope these responses have answered your questions. Please let me know if they have not, and I will try again.

Thanks,
Ashley H

 

By this logic, wouldn't it be preferable to run Zerospyware as a service (see here)?

Blue

 

Blue cites a webpage from MS that seems to talk mostly about Win98, so here are two lists of the startup order:
1) NT4/2000/XP
2) 9X/ME

STARTUP ORDER FOR WINDOWS NT4/2000/XP

1. BootExecute
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\BootExecute
2. Services
3. User enters a password and logon to the system
4. UserInit
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\UserInit
5. Shell
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell
6. All Users-RunOnce
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
7. All Users-Run
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
8. All Users-RunOnceEx
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnceEx
9. All Users-RunEx
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunEx
10. Current User-RunOnce
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
11. Current User-Run
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
12. Current User-RunOnceEx
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnceEx
13. Current User-RunEx
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunEx
14. Common Startup Folder
15. Startup Folder

STARTUP ORDER FOR WINDOWS 9X/ME

1. config.sys
2. autoexec.bat
3. wininit.ini
4. winstart.bat
5. system.ini
6. win.ini
7. All Users-RunOnce
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServicesOnc e
[Note: The display above for this appears to be broken: there is no space in RunServicesOnce]
8. All Users-RunServices
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices
9. All Users-RunOnce
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
10. All Users-Run
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
11. All Users-RunOnceEx
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnceEx
12. All Users-RunEx
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunEx
13. Current User-RunOnce
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
14. Current User-Run
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
15. Current User-RunOnceEx
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnceEx
16. Current User-RunEx
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunEx
17. Common Startup Folder
18. Startup Folder

-- Tom

 

Tom,

Good catch, I went with it since they note the order is the same under WinXP. Thanks for the added detail, which is good for anyone to know. The other thing, depending upon the syntax of the entry, RUNONCE keys they may or may not be run in safe mode. I guess this could be good or bad depending upon intentions.

The basic message remains the same...

Blue