SpyBot S&D 1.5

[SPOFF]

Has anyone noticed a delay in the program loading (to scan) once you click on the desktop Icon? The old 1.4 came right up in an instant. 1.5 takes 45 seconds to come up. I've timed it and the 45 seconds is consistent. .....Not to mention all the "Other" Stuff this NEW Version does.... Like Pop Ups that tell/warn you that stuff is happening and YOU need to APPROVE the change. Just wondering. Any input would be appreciated. SPOFF

PS: Maybe I downloaded the 1.5 "RC1"...."Release Canidate". Would that give me this result?

[Captain America]

I've noticed the same problems
I liked the old version a lot better.

Same with the new version of Ad-Aware. When you update it, it just leaves you hanging,
wondering if it is updating or not.

Older always seems better for me.

[skylab]

That seems to be the same with just about everything that is "upgraded"; it's worse than before. But I guess it's keeping those folks employed, huh!

[angels355]

Hi Guys,

This is like old home week w/ three of my old buddies here. When I first got spybot 1.5 I thought it was a good and a bad thing, and immediately noticed the extremely long load time. 45 seconds loading is nothing compared to what I've been getting.

When I first got 1.5 I wrote a notice in the hardware forum about how to handle it, because with slow computers and relatively fast computers I noticed that they either ran very slowly loading them up or rolled over and played dead initially. What I did was install it, then defragged the hdd three times, that helped a great deal. 1.5 has several improvements, which to me make it much better than 1.4, although I liked how much faster 1.4 was. The interesting thing about 1.5 is that they extended support all the way back to win95! I use mostly 98se and me, and this was an excellent move because before w/ 1.4 I was only being protected from about 8000 items of spyware. Now with 1.5 I'm protected by the full number of threats that spybot was designed to protect, so that's around I can't remember 40 to 50,000 threats? Vastly improved my 98se, and me.

My load times on this internet computer, which uses a very snappy AMD K6-3 server processor from the good ol' days, with 512 kb on die L2 cache, and has L-3 cache also, is a bit slow. I have 256 mb of ram. My load time is on the order of 3 to 5 minutes? But when it finally does load up, it's worth the wait. No biggie to me. I'm much much more protected now, and the graphics have improved, and I found that Sotheby's was nice enough to plant tracking cookies on my computer!

I use both ad-aware se the old version, and also ad-aware 2007. 2007 is a little confusing to operate, and every time I update the threat database I also update the update manager which is also confusing.

Here's a program I recommend to you guys that will really benefit and protect you. AVG has a new program that scans for rootkits, I don't have that computer up and running so just going off of memory, I think it's called something like AVG free rootkit scanner. You can get it at www.download.com , and probably also zdnet.com . Rootkits are a dire threat, as bad if not worse as the worst trojan, and you definitely do not want them on your computer. A rootkit is like a black hole on your hard drive, you can not tell it is there and what is hidden inside it, it hides from windows detection, so if you do virus and spyware scans, those scans will just pass right over the rootkit, unable to see what is inside the rootkit. Anything, and I mean ANYTHING can be planted inside a rootkit by a malicious attacker, and can be run remotely by the attacker without you even knowing of it. The AVG free rootkit scanner detects and removes rootkits, and I think there is a pro version also.

http://www.conniesurvivors.com/

[xxmikexx]

Re SpyBot, I can't tell because I'm still running 1.4 and have no plans to change. Per skylab's observation, I don't update a utility that's working for me. I let the sleeping dog lie.

Similarly, I always run Windows with automatic updates turned off. I'll decide what is broken and needs fixing, thank you very much.

P.S. Since it is freeware, I'd be happy to email SpyBot 1.4 to anybody who wants it. The distribution exe is only about 5MB in size.

[angels355]

Similarly, I always run Windows with automatic updates turned off. I'll decide what is broken and needs fixing, thank you very much.

Exactly

[SPOFF]

Well I feel much better now that I know I'm not alone. Like I always said: "It amost never hurts to ask." I'm still nursing my wounds from "allowing" Windows Update to UPDATE my video drivers. That ended up with an XP Repair job which I KNEW was over my head, so hired a tech to fix it. I guess the big unplanned improvement might be that there are now only about 1/3 the number of programs on the HDD ...that DELL put there way back when that I never knew I might need and was afraid to Remove.

One thing I AM sure of: In many cases, I have NO Idea what programs depend on what OTHER programs to run correctly, so I TRY to keep my fingers off the YES button. Sometimes I say to myself: SPOFF, GO AHEAD, it will be alright. After all, the people who write these "improvements" have got to be smarter than me....right??? SPOFF

[angels355]

SPOFF,

I sure sympathize. You sound like I did four years ago, since then I have learned a few things, all the hard way of course, even fried two processors in the process. But things are still not easy, and Murphy's Law always reigns supreme, especially in my presence where all the Universe's bad luck seems to be focused! A couple days ago, you won't believe what I did. I was thinking about plugging in an old processor just to get one box going to diagnose and prep hard drives. I was cleaning off the heatsink fan and heatsink, the heatsink fan was spring loaded attached to the heatsink. I started gently taking it off when BOOOYYYNNNG! That whole fan assembly sprung off of the heatsink in a nice arching flight across the room and straight into the....toilet!! Good thing I cleaned the toilet. I plucked it out of the toilet, cleaned it off, and put it in front of a heater fan to dry it fast, haven't tested it, but I think it's ok. Decided not to get that box going yet. Decided instead to sit down and relax in front of the flight simulator. Put the "#4" disk into the dvd tray. I was a little tired so was surprised to see a strange popup from fs2004 that "This is your product ID number", then it had a couple buttons about installing. I'm so used to the computer asking for strange requests and I was tired, I was just about to press "Install" or whatever that was. Then slowly realized that I had put in the #1 disk for fs2004 instead of #4! I nearly ruined my fs2004 by installing the first disk on top of my fs2004. I did have some good luck however this week, picked up a freebie computer, an e-machine, they are famous for having the power supply blowing out which then in turn blows out the motherboard, and they also have weak on/off switches. Power supply is blown out, not sure about the mobo and the on/off switch.

It's all part of modern hi tech society.

Murphy's Law actually originates from a NASA technician

Here's a nice plane:

http://www1.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Ph...07-0027-54.jpg

If you have any questions make sure to ask.

"After all, the people who write these "improvements" have got to be smarter than me....right???"

No, it's their job to simply confuse and frustrate computer users!

[adam123]

try looking on the website for 1.5.1 beta or on the web cos i get the delay with 1.5 but wen i tried 1.5.1beta the delay has gone

[SPOFF]

SO: The other day I was bored so I decided to update my SpyBot 1.5 which was working fine except for the loading delay which I was getting used to. The items in the new update came up and started downloading one by one. None of the half dozen files was bigger than 750 Kb so it was going along as fast as can be expected with Dial Up.

The last file was listed as "Main Upgrade 1.5.2" and was listed as 246 Kb. The next thing you know, a screen comes up which says something like, "One more file is required and is being downloaded". The file size was 9.6 Mb. OH...Kayyyy...

Bottom line: This is a brand new "Stand Alone" SpyBot S&D with a New Icon on the desktop right along side the "Old" one. I installed it the next day. Once it was "Sucessfully" installed (It told me it was) I initiated a SCAN. When I did this, the Install Wizard came up again asking me to Install. So I go through ALL the steps AGAIN. Short story: The only thing this program wants to do is get installed. No scans are allowed. FUBAR

SO I Un-Installed the whole thing and went back to the "Old" version, ...updated the old version WITHOUT the last 246 Kb "sucker file" (9.6 Mb.) Happy to say everthing is back to normal. I'm sticking with the "Old" version.

It never hurts to keep things up to date...Right???? OR: If it ain't broke don't fix it. SPOFF