Is this an anti-virus program?

I think I already know the answer to this, I just wanted to double check.

Is Webroot Spy Sweeper (5.5 or 6.0) also an anti-virus program or is it only for spyware?

 

The real stand-alone "Spy Sweeper", does not, but they sell their "AntiVirus with AntiSpyware" which except for Spy Sweeper's protection and detection features also has Sophos AntiVirus implemented.

 

That's what I was afraid of. Last July, my grandmother installed AVG 8 free and it was slowing down her computer. She thought it was spyware so she called a computer technician to fix it. He uninstalled AVG and installed Webroot Spy Sweeper. I had never heard of it before but didn't bother looking into it. The other day I kept seeing intrusion pop-up alerts even though I had disconnected the computer from the internet. I ran HiJackThis and immediately saw the problem - a trojan. I kept wondering why the anti-virus software let the trojan install itself on the computer with no notifications or anything. I realized today that my grandmother's computer doesn't have any anti-virus software on it because the computer technician removed it.

What really makes me angry is that this is the third different computer repair company that has screwed my grandmother. The sad thing about that is that she's only used three different companies. I wonder how some of these people get their jobs.

 

Thats where you come in place, stick around here and from now on have her call you for tech related stuff

 

There are plenty of good reasons to not install the Spy Sweeper, whether it's the version with or without antivirus.

I'm not going to list those reasons, just way too many.

 

That's not at all uncommon unfortunately.I regularly go to jobs where the customer has been fleeced beforehand,the problem here (in the UK) is that anyone can set themselves up in business as a pc repairer with no qualifications for the job at all.

With regards to Webroot,although there's a certain degree of crossover between AV/AS,it definitely won't offer the same protection as a dedicated AV.Avast or Antivir free versions both offer protection against both spyware and Virii so are a much better all-in-one solution.

 

I don't think Spysweeper is a bad program, but there is better.

 

One place that comes to mind for fleecing customers, is the Retail chain PCWorld.

 

Yeah ain't that the truth,they wrote the book on it.