Get Spyware Doctor for free - a first look at the Starter Edition
Spyware Doctor is a popular commercial anti-spyware program. The product's home page is littered with accolades, though a few are for version 3.8, and others are for version 4, whereas the current version is 5. The CNET review at download.com gave it 3 stars (out of 5)* and 2,362 people at download.com rated it the same 3 stars.
PC Tools sells the full version for (approximately) $30 for one computer, $50 for two and up. That you can get a mostly functional version of the software for free, may have passed under your personal radar. It did mine.
The free trial version has been downloaded a whopping 17.4 million times at CNET's download.com. According to the vendor, PC Tools, "The trial offers time unlimited real-time protection (free spyware blocking), but does not remove threats detected during on-demand scans."
But, there is another free version, a "Starter Edition". The bottom of the product's home page says: "The Starter Edition offers full scan and removal of threats, and basic real-time protection, is available for free as part of the Google Pack."
Full spyware removal for free? This I had to check out.
You can see the difference between the free Starter Edition and the full version here . In short, the Starter Edition will find and remove spyware and adware on a par with the paid version. What it's lacking, is most of the protection features that prevent infection in the first place. Interestingly, this is almost the mirror image of the free trial which offers all the protection, but none of the removal. The Starter Edition even offers tech support by email, the paid version adds phone support.
The Google Pack download page, shown above, let's you pick and chose applications. You can download just Spyware Doctor by itself, which I did. Google Pack works with Windows XP and Vista.
First Impression
The Google download and install process is straightforward. However, even though it said Spyware Doctor was up-to-date, that was not the case.
The just-installed software was old in two respects. According to PC Tools, the latest version is 5.1.0.273, Google installed version 5.1.0.272. The Spyware Doctor self-update facility (called "smart update") found a bunch of missing updates and easily installed them. But, even after bringing it up to date and re-booting, the version number remained 5.1.0.272.
You may forgive things like this since Google Pack is in beta, but Google has re-defined the term beta, their software retains that label for years on end. Google Pack, in particular, was first released two years ago.
Old software though, was the least of my problems. Spyware Doctor seemed to be conducting a denial of service attack on me. It (program swdsvc.exe, the PC Tools security service) was consuming all the processor cycles on the machine. Mind you, I hadn't asked it to do anything other than update itself.
If software thinks it knows best, fine. But it should ask the user before doing something resource intensive, or, at least, say what's going on and let the user cancel it. Spyware Doctor didn't indicate that it was doing anything, so I shut it down to prevent the machine from overheating.
You may prefer your anti-malware software to run quietly in the background and not ask you or tell you anything about what it's doing. But that shouldn't be the default behavior. And there is no excuse for not indicating somewhere in the user interface what's going on.
One thing I will say for it though, it fully shut down. Not all anti-malware software is so polite.
.
One of the first things I look for with new anti-malware software is the date of the last definitions update. Spyware Doctor has a "Database Version" but, as shown above, "5.08870e" doesn't resemble a date in any way, shape or form. It also has a count of "Intelli-Signatures" whose meaning is a mystery.
I take this as a bad sign. If anti-malware software can't do something as easy as reporting the last update date (so that I can insure it's current), then maybe it won't report other important information in a clear, simple way. The last update date is low hanging fruit.
Update: January 6, 2008. I was wrong about this, the last update date is reported. However, the last time I checked the software, it said it was updated three days ago and had a green check mark. In the anti-malware world, missing three days of updates is not an all green condition. If anything, it's a yellow. Sure enough, the software was missing an update to the "database".
Sure enough, after running some scans, Spyware Doctor showed itself to be weak at reporting. After a few scans, I did a "view history" and the last few scans didn't appear in the history. Unlike Windows Explorer, Spyware Doctor doesn't have a Refresh option.
The data recorded about each scan was also incomplete. I did some scans of selected folders and the log doesn't show the folders that were scanned. Custom scans let you chose among a host of different "scanners". Also missing from the scan log is the type of scanners that were used.
To C or not to C
I discovered a couple undocumented missing features in the Starter Edition.
For one, scans seemed limited to the C disk. All the scans I ran on drive letters that represented mapped network drives were refused. There was no error or warning, the scans just always examined zero files.
The other missing item is the Tools button. It is shown in the getting started documentation and also visible in the CNET video at download.com. What the tools are though neither says.
Updates
Long term, it's not clear who owns what with regard to software updates. Both Spyware Doctor and Google Pack have their own self-updating features. When it comes time to upgrade to version 5.2 or version 6 is Google or Spyware Doctor or both or neither going to perform the update? So far, the answer has been neither.
Google Pack installs two processes that run all the time in the background. One is a normal program, one is a service. Since Google offers instructions on how to un-install the Google Pack updater, I can only assume that it is not necessary for Spyware Doctor to function correctly.
Keep in mind, this was just a first impression, my experience using Spyware Doctor spans all of an hour or so. Still, for a mature, well reviewed product, I expected better.
Update:As you can see below, someone claiming to be from the marketing department at PC Tools left a long comment. See my long reply Spyware Doctor Starter Edition - a second look. January 7, 2008.
Update: December 29, 2007. It wasn't hard to find critical reviews of Spyware Doctor version 5. There were quite a few negative comments at Amazon.com, indicating I wasn't the only one to find it a resource hog. At CNET, Robert Vamosi reviewed it shortly after it was released in March and gave it 6 stars out of 10. He review included this "...until this recent release [Spyware Doctor], was one of the better choices. Version 5 introduces new under-the-hood protection--and a number of nettlesome software glitches. In testing done by CNET Labs ... it failed to remove the load points for more than half the spyware samples within our test group."
*The review at download.com doesn't specifically say which version was reviewed, is undated and doesn't indicate which version(s) of Windows were used for the testing.
See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.
Michael Horowitz is an independent computer consultant and the author of several classes on Defensive Computing. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. 
There are few of my visitors that send me a negative report after using Spyware Doctor.
I would like to highlight some inaccuracies in your review so you can correct them for the benefit of your readers.
Quote >> "I take this as a bad sign. If anti-malware software can't do something as easy as reporting the last update date (so that I can insure it's current), then maybe it won't report other important information in a clear, simple way."
It seems you have missed looking at the left-hand side of our system information section (which for some reason has been cropped out in your review). This clearly displays when the last update was run -> ?Last update was today? or ??.yesterday?, or ??.less than an hour ago.?
Refer to the full screenshot here:
http://www.pctools.com/res/images/spyware-doctor/screenshot-en.gif
Quote >> "The just-installed software was old in two respects. According to PC Tools, the latest version is 5.1.0.273, Google installed version 5.1.0.272."
Spyware Doctor comes in two versions, the Starter Edition (this is the Google pack build, version x.272), and the full edition, version x.273. The versions have different feature sets and are different physical builds; this is why they do not always have exactly the same build numbers. The main version v5.1 is the same for both, and Google Pack is the latest version for that product.
Quote >> "Spyware Doctor seemed to be conducting a denial of service attack on me. It (program swdsvc.exe, the PC Tools security service) was consuming all the processor cycles on the machine."
Although it may not be obvious to the user, on first installation Spyware Doctor does much more than just an update; in the background it is running a thorough system check to ensure a clean environment. It scans many critical sections for pre-existing malware infections and alerts you if it finds anything. A thorough system scan does take some processing power, however it?s most vital role when it first lands on your PC is to quickly detect and remove any current infections that may exist.
Quote >> "If software thinks it knows best, fine. But it should ask the user before doing something resource intensive?"
Being an advanced PC user yourself, it would be obvious for the need to run a system scan and an update on install to ensure your system is clean. However our customer base is largely made-up of non-expert computer users; who want an easy to use, set and forget product. Our product is designed with this non-expert user in mind, who may not be aware of the importance of running a scan immediately on install. So, Spyware Doctor takes the necessary steps to ensure the machine is protected without expecting the user to be an anti-malware expert. If you consider the time it takes to install other popular PC software or other security products, we think it?s not too much inconvenience to let Spyware Doctor check your system is clean from malware.
Quote >> "You may prefer your anti-malware software to run quietly in the background and not ask you or tell you anything about what it's doing. But that shouldn't be the default behavior."
Not to speak for Google; but this is exactly the behavior that Spyware Doctor Starter Edition has been designed to do for the Google pack. Also remember our target audience, the basic computer user, who does not want to be an anti-malware expert, nor should they have to be. That is why our software is designed for what most (99%+) people need. Our customers trust us as the industry experts and that is why we make the educated decisions for them, silently and in the background. Our users are not bothered by alerts asking them to make decisions they would not know the answer to.
For advanced users, they can use the settings area to turn alerts on or off.
Quote >> "All the scans I ran on drive letters that represented mapped network drives were refused. There was no error or warning, the scans just always examined zero files."
The custom scan feature in Spyware Doctor is designed for checking local drives, that is the c-drive and other external drives such as a USB stick or backup device, not network drives. This is essentially because spyware is fundamentally different viruses, where removing spyware is much more that just deleting a file. It involves finding all the parts of the threat that may be in the registry, running process and other areas, hence scanning network drives is not recommended unless you are using Spyware Doctor Enterprise.
Quote >> "The other missing item is the Tools button. It is shown in the getting started documentation and also visible in the CNET video at download.com. What the tools are though neither says."
We have one currently released tool, called "Malware Detective." This tool is only used by our support team to retrieve optional extra information from the machine to more effectively repair challenging malware. This is an optional install that can be installed if needed by our support team and is not a specific restriction in the Starter Edition.
Quote >> "When it comes time to upgrade to version 5.2 or version 6 is Google or Spyware Doctor or both or neither going to perform the update? So far, the answer has been neither."
Since neither version 5.2 nor 6.0 of Spyware Doctor has been released it's probably a good thing that neither have tried to update you to a non-existent version! When a new version does get released, which it has many times since Spyware Doctor was first released in the Google Pack, the update is performed seamlessly, with both Google Pack and Spyware Doctor able to perform the update, whichever one runs first will handle the update.
Quote >> "It wasn't hard to find critical reviews of Spyware Doctor version 5."
If you were looking for critical reviews I have no doubt you could find them. On the Internet you can find critical reviews of just about any product or service. The point of a fair software review is to be unbiased, search for all the information available and write an objective article. It is interesting that this review does not mention any of the good reviews and awards we have had. Did you know that Spyware Doctor is the most internationally awarded anti-spyware product available?
Some of our good reviews can be read here:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136206/article.html
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1992016,00.asp
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/index.cfm?ReviewID=1206
We also have independent certification from VB100 and Westcoast Labs and Editor?s Choice awards from Computerbild ? Germany?s largest consumer IT magazine, PC Utilities, Windows XP and PC Answers magazines in the UK.
Quote >> "At CNET, Robert Vamosi reviewed it shortly after it was released in March and gave it 6 stars out of 10."
Previous to this review, Spyware Doctor was rated 5/5 stars, because it was reviewed using a full unrestricted version. After changing our trial version to be restricted, Robert Vamosi reviewed it as trialware only. Download.com doesn't review full versions of software anymore, only trialware, which is obviously unfair for commercial applications.
Further, the review conducted by Robert Vamosi had fundamental flaws, both factually and in its review methodology. There were basic problems with how the review was conducted, not just in the case of Spyware Doctor, but for other security products also reviewed that had some obvious errors in their reviews too. I would respectfully suggest you look at some of the expert reviews, like PC World, were they used independent testing labs with malware experts based in Germany to test against 30,000 real-world spyware threats, not 8 threats of which some were not even malware - as was the case with the CNET review.
Quote >> "The free trial version has been downloaded a whopping 17.4 million times at CNET's download.com."
Spyware Doctor has in fact been downloaded many more times than this from Download.com, however unfortunately the Download.com counter has been broken for some time now. Also you may not be aware of this, but none of the sponsored listings on download.com are counted either, and many products in the top 50 on download.com redirect downloads from their website to download.com in order to artificially inflate the counter. If PC Tools sent all the Spyware Doctor downloads to download.com it would most likely become the most downloaded product on download.com.
In fact Spyware Doctor has been downloaded over 150 Million times since the first release in 2004.
On a final note, we get a lot of valuable feedback from editorial and user reviews, which we use to shape our product and implement wherever possible. We would never say our products are 100% perfect, because no software is, but we work very hard to make Spyware Doctor the absolute best anti-spyware product available. Although you may consider me biased, even though there is always room for improvement, I believe that we have the best anti-spyware product available today.
Regards,
Magida Ezzat - Marketing Communications Manager
PC Tools Spokesperson
- by sanwinhlaing July 16, 2008 7:28 PM PDT
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