Specifications

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to your browser settings such as
homepage hijacking. If a change is
attempted, whether by some spyware
or by you, a Spy Sweeper window
will pop up and ask you if want to
allow the change. There are also
shields for memory, Windows
Messenger, Startup, and more.
The only negative thing about it
would be the amount of resources it
uses. Loaded at startup uses 25k.
While doing the sweep, it
recommends you shut down
everything else. Spy Sweeper is
$29.95 renewal is $29.95.
http://www.webroot.com
CounterSpy
From Sunbelt Software,
CounterSpy also scans for
keyloggers, trojans, system
monitors, browser hijackers,
and dialers. Trend Micro had a
anti-spyware program on their
website and I downloaded a
trial version and ran it. It said
one file had a beagle virus. I
found it interesting that an
anti-spyware program found a
virus. So I ran my anti-virus
program and it said there was
not a virus. To be sure, I
downloaded a special file from
Symantec to get rid of the
virus. It reported there was no virus.
It was a file that my firewall caught
trying to get to the Internet and
blocked it. Spy Sweeper did not
report anything. When I ran
CounterSpy it reported the file was a
keylogger (ooh ooh). By the way,
Trend Micro no longer has a
anti-spyware program.
CounterSpy sets up for you to do
scans and sets up Active Protection
on the computer. When spyware is
found, it is displayed, allowing you to
see details of the threat found. There
are descriptions of the files found,
risk ratings per threat and a
recommended action to take. From
there, you can remove, ignore, or
send to quarantine.
Active Protection monitors and
secures certain areas on your
computer. It monitors nine
checkpoints for Internet, including
Wi-Fi connection so see if someone
else is trying to access your network.
For system monitoring, there are 24
checkpoints, including watching for
changes to Windows DLLs,
preventing files from loading up upon
startup, and monitoring the Windows
Host file. With application
monitoring, there are 23 checkpoints
from monitoring for additions of
downloaded ActiveX applications
through Internet Explorer to additions
to your Internet Explorer BHOs
(Browser Helper Object)—which, by
the way, are two things only
CounterSpy can do according to
http://www.spywarewarrior.com
When you click on the Scan Now
button, it performs a quick scan that
takes a short period of time, or you
can tell it to do a deep scan. The deep
scan is very through and will take a
while, so be sure to set the run time to
give it plenty of time. The good news
is that you can still do other things
while it runs. They don’t recommend
running any heavy-resource-needs
program while the deep scan is
running. I’m actually working on this
article while it is running. I will add
that it only takes up 13k at startup.
System Tools module comes with
extra utilities for the user. It will give
you information about your
Applications, Internet Explorer,
Networking, and System.
Applications will show Downloaded
ActiveX, Internet Applications,
Running Processes, and Startup
Programs. You can actually control
the processes through CounterSpy.
Definitely take a look at what is
running and in startup. CounterSpy
does a very good job of showing
what is running and what it is—better
than just looking at the Taskmaster
(through Ctrl-Alt-Delete). If you still
question what program you have
running, bring up Google and do a
search on it. More than half of the
time it will bring up
http://www.liutilities.com
for you to look at. They are the cre -
ators of WinTask, prob a bly the best
pro gram to tell you what each pro -
gram you have run ning does.
History Cleaner will remove all
history usage of Internet and most
popular Windows and Internet
applications. You can go in and select
from 75 different activities you want
cleared. There is also a Secure File
Eraser which is a complete data
destruction and removal tool. Any
files deleted by it are completely and
irreversibly removed from your
computer. My PC Checkup will do a
scan of your computer and make
suggestions of how to tighten security
settings.
You can download a 15-day trial
version to see how you like it
http://www.sun belt-soft ware.com
The cost is $19.95 with a one year
subscription for updates, upgrades
and technical support. After that
renewal cost is $9.98 a year.
You can’t lose by trying either Spy
Sweeper or CounterSpy, and I highly
recommend doing so. I have
Ad-Aware, Spy Sweeper, and
CounterSpy on mine.
You may have heard that
Microsoft brought the Giant
Company, an anti-spyware developer,
and will bring out a program of their
own. You can download the beta
version from
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/se cu -
rity/spyware/soft ware/de fault.mspx
Actually Giant and Sunbelt had
been partners for several years. The
Giant Antispyware code is co-owned
by Sunbelt. According to Sunbelt,
they also co-own the definition
updates going forward.