Anyone tried Spysweeper 5.5 upgrade yet?

I down loaded this new version this morning. Thought I'd ask to see how its working before loading it up.

Thanks

 

Works/looks the same as the previous version.
Scan time is the same and still have to set its service back to manual after doing an on-demand scan and reboot to clear it.
Otherwise, it's business as usual - no surprises, good or bad.

 

Thanks coolbluewater. I loaded it up this evening. I see they added a "behavioral detection" option to sweep settings (maybe some kind of heuristics?) but I think that's only for SS w/AV. They also added an e-mail attachment shield but my ZA firewall is blocking it from working. I think you have to add your ISP mail server to trusted zone to make it work. I don't really need it anyway since NOD32 checks e-mail. Everything else seems to be as before. Scan time appears unchanged.

 

So the behavioral guard is this? Sophos Behavioral Genotype® Protection. I tried the anti-virus in the previous version, but I thought it was incomplete. I'm trying to get a copy of the regular Spy sweeper version through customer support because I use AntiVir now.

 

In my case the e-mail attachment shield worked fine with ZA but it blocked receiving emails. I had to make the following changes to the port assignments for this shield in E-mail Attachments Shield Options to fix this problem:

POP3 = 10110
SMTP = 10025

I use MS Outlook as my mail client.

 

After updating, and having all the shields turned off, including the new ones, I wasn't able to change the SSDP Discovery Service from Disabled to Manual start. Access Denied. Event Viewer showed Event ID 7006.

I reverted to a FirstDefense snapshot taken immediately prior to the update and was able to change the service to Manual start. I think the new Services shield, even though it was turned off, had altered some permission setting.

I've searched on google for an hour or two but couldn't find anything that helped.

The GUI also took a lot longer to open after the update.

XP SP2 Admin Account.

 

Thanks Ranger Bob. I use outlook express but I'll take a look at your solution. There is a page on the Webroot site that gives "fixes" for firewall interference with the e-mail shield for various firewall programs. For ZA they recommend allowing all web access for SS pgms in pgm control (green checks across) and listing e-mail IPs as trusted. They even have a "how to" video.

 

Hi Oldshep,

sorry a bit off topic question... you are running ZASS with AV OFF? AS OFF?
and SS with AV OFF. Isn't it a bit overkilling your machine?

As far as I know ZASS AV will still load KAV processes even if disabled... and its a quite substancial memory footprint.

Cheers,
Fax

 

Hello fax,

On my desktop PC, I'm running ZA Anti-Spyware (check the signature - ZAAS) with the AS turned off. I don't have the Spysweeper Antivirus add on either (using NOD32). Seems to run pretty well actually. I think ZAAS is the lightest way to use the ZA firewall in a layered securtiy setup.

My laptop has ZAISS 7.0.337 (AS off) and Spysweeper (No AV). This combo has not had any problems either so far ... knock on wood.

As I have stated in other posts, I think the KAV engine in ZAISS is probably good enough so that the SS isn't needed on the laptop. But hey, it works ok so why not keep it? Subscription is paid for. SS has been like a security blanket for me for the past 3-4 years.

 

OOoops, sorry must be sleeping!!
Forget about my question... and thanks a lot anyway for your detailed report on ZAAS and ZASS on your systems....

Cheers,
Fax

 

After I upgraded to Spysweeper 5.5.1.3354, browsing (loading new webpages) slowed noticably. All webpages were affected, but at the Speakeasy website, only the download speed test functioned reliably. Often, the upload speed test never ran.

At the risk of speaking too soon, I may have found the solution. If I either disable Mcafee Site Adviser or the Internet Communications Shield, the problem appears to go away. That makes some sense since both functions appear to be similar.

I'm running XP SP2 on an AMD X2 5600+, 2GB RAM, M2N4-SLI m/b. The problem does not occur on my son's PC, which does not use Mcafee Site Advisor.

 

i had big problems with spysweeper 5.5
i uninstalled 5.3 rebooted and installed 5.5
i told it to check for updates and it told me the commnication shield had blocked a danagerous site and then froze my whole pc.
had to do hard reboot.
then i looked the at alerts and noticed the commnication shield wasnt loaded properly.
so i turned the shields off and it updates fine.
hopefully one day spysweeper will be bug free rofl

 

@edelbeb and ladore,

Strange... I have seen no bugs whatsoever with SS 5.5. Maybe I'm just lucky. My guess is possibly conflicts with other security apps?

As security programs try to do more and more, they inevitably clash with each other. Makes me cringe every time one of my security apps makes an upgrade available.

 

It was,back is the days of SS 3.5
Seresley thou I remember when I used SS and it worked great but that was before 5.0 rolled out and problems started. Maybe someday when all is back to running smooth I'll try it again.

 

true the version 3.0 and 3.5 where bug free.
lodore

 

I found a conflict between 5.5 and NIS 2007 that stopped my Outlook 2003 e-mail from running. Webroot tech support suggested unchecking box in 5.5 to scan e-mail for spyware. That fixed the problem.

 

For those that don't already know Spy Sweeper 5.5.1.3356 is available.

 

current build ive got is build 3354
i might do a fresh install of build 3356 tomorrow.
lodore

 

Hi oldshep:

Likewise, I loaded a few days back. It loads faster now at boottime on my pc.

I turned off it's email scanning as it's asw is weaker than BD 10's and like you I don't need double email scanning.

Don't have ZA issue cause I don't have it running right now. CFW doesn't force me to add an isp mail server as trusted. You trust the application not the server.

 

Hello Escalader,

Glad to see SS works well with CFW.

Looks like a new update is available. (build 3356 - from the update website: "Webroot has released a critical product update for Spy Sweeper. This update resolves a compatibility issue with Windows.") So here we go again... I've gotten in the habit of completely removing old SS versions with Webroot's SSCCleanup tool before loading the upgrades.

I'll give the new version a try and report back on any issues.

 

@oldshep,
where do i get the 5.5 SSCCleanup tool ?
ive got the 5.3 one but thats not much use since ive got 5.5 older build installed.
lodore

 

Great, I have build 3354 but I'll check the update button and see as well.

The SSCCleanup tool came from the vendor web site didn't it?

 

@lodore and Escalader,

the closest I can get you is this link

http://support.webroot.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=776

Type "ssccleanup" in the search string (upper left) and that will take you to a "knowledge base" question link. Click on that and click on "here" in the following text:"Please use our cleanup tool to remove Spy Sweeper. You can download the SSC Cleanup tool from here: (NOTE: This utility is for Windows 2000 and XP users only. Not compatible with Windows Vista)".

Sorry for the round about directions but the direct link to the download page doesn't seem to work.

I should add that I'm not sure this SSCcleanup utility has been updated for V5.5.

 

Okay, here is what I just did.

1) Downloaded the 3356 build saved to desktop
2) Uninstalled old SS
3) Reinstalled new version

All seems to be working okay, I didn't use the cleanup utility. But if I run into trouble I'll run it .
2)

 

I just went through the install again myself. To reduce the likelihood of problems, I do as follows:
1.) Downloaded the 3356 build and save to desktop
2.) Download fresh copy of SSCcleanup
3.) shut down internet
4.) shut down ZA and NOD32 and disable load at startup for each.
5.) reboot
6.) uninstall SS
7.) run SSCcleanup
8.) install new SS build
9.) restart and re-enable ZA and Nod32
10.) reboot
11.) reconfigure SS

A tedious process no doubt but I've had no problems since I started using it.

I decided to load my POP3 and SMTP sites as trusted to try the new e-mail shield. Works pretty well - no noticeable lags when receiving a 500k attachment.