Memory Monster Spy Sweeper 5.0/5.2

Before anyone jumps to any conclusions, this is NOT! a Attack at Webroot.

Its just a personal experience, to which I have found an answer, to what I was experiencing,and maybe what others have encountered too.

I have happily used Spy Sweeper since the early days of version 3 up untill just recently. While not liking the new version of 5.2, I decided to continue using version 5.0 as I said happily That is untill I started reading posts about software resource usages, then I got curious,so I decided to look what mine were, and to my shock and awe I was alarmed at what I saw.
Internet Explorer was using way over 110,000k
Outpost Pro 4.0 was over 88,000k
NOD32 was using nod32krn.exe 45,120k & nod32kui.exe 24,084k
Spy Sweeper was SpySweeper.exe 58,644k & SpySweeperUI 45,060k

These remained constant,and only very little reduction on an Idle system after rebooting,which would increase,or remain the same with little or no with activity.

I then threw out Outpost and installed Kerio Personal Firewall 4.3.268 thinking it would be smaller but

kpf4gui.exe 29,772k
kpf4gui.exe 28,964k
kpf4ss.exe 46,344k

All these high usage figures I'm sure you'll agree.
My next step led to frustration,and I decided on a clean format and fresh installation of windows xp pro sp2

I installed all my software again with 1 exception, Webroot Spy Sweeper.
This I replaced with AVG Anti-Spyware 7.5.50 Plus. I reinstalled NOD32 & Outpost Pro 4.0 so now my security reads as:

Rollback Rx Professional 7.2.1 (CPU: Rollback.Tray.exe 7,992k RollbackClnt.exe 5,292k)
Outpost Firewall Pro 4.0.971.7030 (584) (CPU: 36,200k)
AVG Anti-Spyware 7.5.0.50 Plus (CPU: guard.exe 10,916k avgas.exe 2,040k)
Super AdBlocker 4.2.0.1012 (CPU: SAdBlock.exe 31,148k SABSVC.EXE 1,804k
NOD32 Anti-Virus 2.70.23 (CPU: nod32krn.exe 22,796k nod32kui.exe 1,264k)

Internet Explorer uses a maximum of 55,320k

The difference in saving (NOT Including Rollback Rx & Super AdBlocker) is:

243,202k

Proof itself enough to show how much of a system resource MONTER! Spy Sweeper has become, within the last 12-18 months of releasing version 5.0 & 5.2 Needless to say that the Minimum requirements to install Spy Sweeper are a whopping 256MB RAM

I've ran my system continually over the last 24hrs with constant work being done for 9 solid hours, of Downloading/Browsing/MP3 Playing Document Creating Etc.. Etc.. and my Stats have NEVER risen above the above posted, only by a few k's maybe 10 at the most. Incidently I've been typing this for 5-10 minutes,and all this time Outpost has been sitting pretty on a Low 14,782k I'm sticking with this setup, I just love the low usages

 

Hi DVD+R:
I run XP sp2 and have radically different results than your numbers:
IE6 19,388K 5 times less
SpySweeper.exe 3,256K 19 times less
SpySweeperUI 6,672K 8 times less

I leave SS virus scan off since I use BDss.exe (9.x) at 28,052K

My FF 2.x uses 33,732K three times less than your IE.x

My cpu % is 2% and RAM 1.5GB.

So I'm hoping the 2007 guru's will leap in here to explain how such large ddifferences could occur.

 

I, too, had those monster memory numbers with SS5. Luckily, my subscription was just about to run out, and so I could ditch it without thinking about it. Which I did. No problems since, and no spyware either, thanks to a good AV and weekly scans with SAS.

 

I, too, was having the same memory issues. My subscription was up in december and I got rid of it pronto. Now I am trying Counterspy 2.0 Beta and use SUPERantispyware, Adaware and ZoneAlarm Suite as backup. Counterspy uses 17megs of ram. I found that SS 5.0 & 5.2 had a problem with the keylogger shield. When it was on, memory usage on all other running apps would go up 10 fold for no reason. When it was off, it was fine. When the scanner would scan my memory on a sweep, again the memory on all my running apps would skyrocket. When it did not sweep the memory, it was fine. Anyway I don't miss SS at all.

Candoo

Life is like a box of chocolates!

 

i have had those problems as well.
5.2 has less of a memory problem but is still slow at opening the interface.
and it has the stupid virus stuff which i dont want nor need.
it has all the pay for the virus options when i dont want them.
lodore

 

b4 any conclusions are reached: this IS an attack on the current incarnation of SS.

Bloated, slow, conflict prone, all in one ??!!, Webroot itself in disarray..
Difficult to uninstall, juvenile "secret options" tab lol.
Ditch it.
Most users have come up with some workable config which often involves switching off some of the "shields" or, having paid for a real time scanner; have ended up with an on demand scanner

http://www.valleywag.com/tech/webro...f-the-spy-sweeper-makers-core-team-208837.php
http://www.beyondvc.com/2006/07/i_hate_shitty_s.html
http://reviews.cnet.com/Spy_Sweeper...ID=7&messageID=2077470&cval=2077470&tag=uolst
http://www.castlecops.com/f163-Spysweeper.html
http://www.malware-test.com/antispyware.html

There are several, imho, better options.

YMMV
Regards.

 

Damn,even my pc usage is higher to urs...
1.NOD32 Anti-Virus 2.70.23- CPU: nod32krn.exe 21,660 nod32kui.exe 1,472k

2.FF- 53,260 k

3.IE 7: 40,000 to 42,000 k

4.outpost 4 :15,152 k (-AS,Ad Plugins)

I have 1gb RAM,2.8Ghz P4...Is my Ram usage ok?

 

my subscripson runs out in 6 days and im not renewning it.
i can only use it as on demand scanner and even that takes ages to load the interface.
webroot should of fixed the shields before adding bloated rubbish to it.
lodore

 

I had the same problems. I contacted Webroot support, and they told me to turn off: Keylogger Shield, Common Ad Sites Shield, Hostfile Shield, and finally ActiveX. As stated above, I was left with a so-so scanner that devoured my memory. Too bad. Up til 4.5, it was a great program. Thanks to Longboard for the links, especially valleywaq.com.

 

my dad wants to renew spysweeper at the price of $19 dollers which seems cheap but i dont think its worth it.
ive got superantispyware free version as my main antispyware scanner atm.
do you think webroot are just gonna make it more bloated and add features like firewall and turn it in to a suite?
i dont really want to renew it because its annoying how slow it loads up and the fact its background process spysweeper.exe always loads even if i tell it to not load at boottime in the GUI.
other antispyware scanners only use one process and are light unlike spysweeper.
what can i do?
lodore

 

Why not use the pro version of Superantispyware for the 15 days available in the trial? Maybe your dad will be impressed with it.

 

I was actually going to start a post on this topic, but DVD+R beat me to it
I even had screenshots made of my system resources with SpySweeper installed and without for comparison. At first, after I started using v5 I couldn't figure out what caused such high memory usage for most of the running programs, but then one day I decided not to load SS and the difference in resource usage was astounding. I knew that SS was a resource hog, but no to this degree!

 

my dad went ahead and ordered spysweeper and got 15months for $19
lets hope 5.2 doesnt get any slower or more bloated lol.
if it does i can always uninstall it.
lodore

 

v5 and v5.2 no different and eat up about the same amount of memory. It's just 5.2 UI is little bit faster.

 

A couple of months ago I uninstalled Spyusweeper and replaced with Spyware Doctor. Some people think SD is a resource hog too. But my NOD 32 scan times decresed from 1 hr plus to 30 minutes.

Spysweeper is just oo bloated for my system.

 

i just run it when i want to.
but the stupid spysweeper.exe always loads at boottime and if i stop it doing that i would have to enable the service to start spysweeper.
do you use the realtime protection in spyware doctor?
and did you used to use the shields in spysweeper?
lodore

 

4 Days Of Running Without Spy Sweeper,and My Resources have Stayed Super Low I sent a Support ticket telling Webroot, that If they couldnt come up with a better answer than to use custom scans and exclude certain programs from Scans, I wanted my money back pronto I just renewed last November,and my subscription expires January 2009

 

im wondering if anyone has a faster pc if they uninstall it after just running it with the spysweeper.exe that needs to run for the ui to open for when i run on demand scans?
i could stop spysweeper.exe from loading at boottime by disabling the self protection and then turning the startup type to disabled but then my dad couldnt do on demand scans untill i enabled it again.
but i dont know if just spyweeper.exe running is slowing me down or not?
lodore