Though AntiSpyware 2009 at initial stages looked to be a promising spyware removal tool, it didn’t perform as I had hoped. For this reason, I decided to rate it three and half out of five points. If you would like know the reasons for the low score, I have listed them below. It has its evident and undeniable good points which are going to be listed as well. But, my question is this: why would I want to pay for software, just to get to its updates, when I can get loads of free anti-spyware software on the Internet?
Ease of Setup/Use:
The interface is very attractive and very easy to setup; it is quite simple and easy to use. I downloaded it amazingly fast and loaded it even faster. And it began to scan at mind blowing speed. As the number of spyware threats and attacks present upon my brand-new computer began to appear before my eyes and the software told me that all of those nonexistent spyware (keep in mind that this is a brand new computer) would have been removed, if only I paid them $29.95 to upload the updates. And what was it going to do, but take care of all the spyware restricted sites, Trojans, and Malware. It was also going to figure out the best and right Internet connection for me and remove all the unnecessary and bad data, but only after I had paid up. Why would I need all that, and become an owner for life for an anti-spyware program when I can use any number of free programs which would perform even better?
On installation, the interface shows the menu with which I can start scanning, and set the time for which I can schedule the scanning; I can then look at the area of quarantine that has been set aside to see how many false quantities they have found (in my brand-new computer). The windows can be resized when the progress bars are working. The screen showing the scan result needs to be improved. I really do not have the time to go through a full analysis of all the results to see whether there really is a threat or not. Besides, I was more interested in looking at all the spyware which was supposedly installed to create mayhem in my PC, and then I noticed that I needed to restart my system again and again, before the PC got a signal that there was an anti-spyware, which was getting rid of all the spyware. This meant that all the drives on the computer were being scanned over and over to get rid of all the supposed additions of spyware and other various threats.
Detection Effectiveness:
This anti-spyware is going to get negative marking here. Not only does it give false positives, but the trial version does not remove any spyware at all. Like I said before, these false positives are to scare people enough into buying the program. I really cannot understand the reason why they have to resort to such unethical methods to get people to buy their anti-spyware software. However when I switched this on a computer laden with spyware, it showed me all the supposed spyware as well as a few others I could not even dream of. But the question of removing them does not occur, as I have repeated, until I buy the anti-spyware. And by the way, the detection is fast, but it only detects about 66% of the spyware.
Removal Effectiveness:
Removal effectiveness is only about 55%. It doesn’t have pop-ups showing up all over the place and 55% of removal seems to be a better than average result. It could not manage to remove one persistent and well-known spider which happened to be downloaded when a colleague was downloading a file from elsewhere. By the way, any of the advanced malware, which get downloaded from shareware sites like Kazaa , Download.net, and CNet are quite difficult to get rid of, so I’m giving Anti-Spyware 2009 the benefit of the doubt in this particular case.
System Performance:
I give the program an average rating on this point because it did not mess up the workings of my computer and change the settings while it was doing its scanning.
Scan Performance:
The scan performance is above average, because in about two minutes, it manages to scan about 6000 documents. But those documents happen to be of average size, so I do not really know how long it is going to take to scan my whole computer. It promises to quarantine any of the threats which it finds on your computer, which is necessary, because there is always the chance that one of your supposed malwares which you have removed might be necessary for the smooth and effective running of a program that you have loaded. On the other hand, because it has this lamentable tendency to combine every single spyware that it has detected on your computer into one huge file, you need to restore every single file. This means that every threat goes back to its original state of creating mayhem, just because you wanted to restore one single file. Sorry, thumbs down for bad planning.
Support and documentation:
You can get plenty of support options, along with a help application, which are built in, and even e-mail support. However, I am still looking for the FAQs page somewhere on the Internet, which can show me exactly what the software is all about, and what it really does.
Summary
It would be my personal preference not to choose this anti-spyware program simply because it does not tell me the truth and would not help me unless I purchase their full program. I would prefer a program that runs more effectively and more ethically.
