Spybot Search and Destroy.

[Seth]

I'm really getting sick of Spybots crappy update function.

I just cleaned installed 98SE for a customer, and have been trying to update Spybot for an hour. No matter what link I choose, only about half the updates will succeed, the updates will hang, or I'll constantly get "Bad Checksum". The Cancel function doesn't work either! This has happened to me on far too many occasions with Spybot's updater and I'm sick of it.

The only other freeware alternative for 98 is Ad-Aware. It may not have the same detection ability as Spybot, but at least its updater works.

[Pi rules]

It does get quite annoying at times. You just have to keep trying different mirrors and get one update at a time.

[PeteF]

Just to verify what you are saying, I experience all the same things
with Spybot. Most times I can get it to download by switching servers.

That CANCEL button never seems to work so I use task manager to
close it and start over again.

---pete---

[Seth]

Thanks guys.

I know it's a common problem. I just can't believe that the developers haven't done something about it yet...but hey, it's free.

As far as know, they haven't done anything about the Tea Timer GUI problem either.

[kelly]

I've seen the same. What works sometimes is to not select all the updates in a single download session. Select one of them, say the definitions, and download it. Then check for updates again and download another one, and so on, and so forth, until they're all downloaded.
-td

[Seth]

I've seen the same. What works sometimes is to not select all the updates in a single download session. Select one of them, say the definitions, and download it. Then check for updates again and download another one, and so on, and so forth, until they're all downloaded.
-td

Yup, that's what I usually do.

Another Spybot annoyance:

All those crazy skins and "English" updates that come up. This comes up even if you have chosen to install with no additional skins. An experienced user can deal with all the Spybot update problems, but I can see how it would anger and cause a lot of confusion for novice users.

[Terry Hanushek]

Thanks for sharing your Spybot download experiences. I have encountered the same situation and thought it might be my machine or something I was / was not doing.

:grouphug:

Terry

[mommalina]

Thanks for sharing your Spybot download experiences. I have encountered the same situation and thought it might be my machine or something I was / was not doing.

:grouphug:

Terry

Gee, Terry. This computer-challenged member already knew about the possible Spybot download difficulties and how to resolve them! :shocked:

I've learned to suspect it just may not be me or my machine when something is amiss, and I ask the KH gurus here or during ourWednesday night KH Computer Help Desk PalTalk sessions for :help:. One Wednesday night they walked me through a troublesome Spybot download.

Those Wednesday night PalTalk chats are worthwhile. I encourage all to join us there.

Lina

[mylanta]

Yeah I have been getting really annoyed at the download situation also but let me tell you something, this is still the prime tool
Yesterday I had a client with a really large batch of spyware and I ran eWido first and it pulled 170 infections. Then I ran Spybot and surprisingly, it pulled another 200, but what Spybot pulled, were the real bad guys like www.cool.search (http://www.cool.search), and Mywebsearch etc...Spybot probably was all I needed, as what eWido pulled meant little. I also ran Bit Defender inside and it did the same thing as I ran the free version and it unloaded a ton of stuff Norton 2005 did not see as usual. This was one of the few infested pc's that I never had to reformat. There were 71 virus and Trojans Norton did not see in this pc.
This was a really nice older gentleman with brain cancer who has no other pleasure in life and was not able to play his online Dominos, which is what was really "torquing" him up. It turned out all that spyware had nothing to do with that, it was Norton 2005 firewall that had sort of developed it's own direction and would not budge, that needed to come out along with that wonderful Internet security (AV) that once out, the system ran great.
I wish Larry, or Terry or any of these Norton lovers would have been there to see what Norton software can really do to a system, and this wasn't even 2006 version. Put Nod32 on, the man loved the interface and off he went to play his Dominos!

[Seth]

What I find Ewido very effective at, is not so much spyware/adware, but rather trojans, keyloggers, dialers, and worms.

Ditto on the Norton problems Rich. It's notorious for intermittantly dropping an internet connection, or even completely disabling it.

[Pi rules]

What I find Ewido very effective at, is not so much spyware/adware, but rather trojans, keyloggers, dialers, and worms.
Same here. It's OK with spyware and adware, but is very good at removing trojans.

[Seth]

Same here. It's OK with spyware and adware, but is very good at removing trojans.

Agreed.

You may also have noticed that after an online scan, system performance drops by about 50%. I would think this is caused by XP not being able to recover the allocated ram that the scanners used. Therefore, I inform my customers to reboot the computer after an online scan.

[casey]

I wish Larry, or Terry or any of these Norton lovers would have been there to see what Norton software can really do to a system, and this wasn't even 2006 version. Put Nod32 on, the man loved the interface and off he went to play his Dominos!

Just think it only cost him $40 to play dominoes...

I guess this old man with brain cancer had all his updates installed and since he only played Dominoes didn't need to have the internet, acquired all these viruses from downloading the updates to Norton 2005. Rich, your starting to sound like Ann..

[Pi rules]

Interesting observation, I didn't know that.

[mylanta]

I wish Larry, or Terry or any of these Norton lovers would have been there to see what Norton software can really do to a system, and this wasn't even 2006 version. Put Nod32 on, the man loved the interface and off he went to play his Dominos!

Just think it only cost him $40 to play dominoes...

I guess this old man with brain cancer had all his updates installed and since he only played Dominoes didn't need to have the internet, acquired all these viruses from downloading the updates to Norton 2005. Rich, your starting to sound like Ann..

Actually Larry it cost him a lot more than $40 because he had to pay me for 3 hours to resurrect his system first. I was actually surprised that system cleaned up without reformatting, but I was actually also surprised that the problem he called me for, really had nothing to do with the spyware or virus onboard.
As for my opinion of Norton, It comes from being in the field seeing what it does to systems. I had a client where we had to remove 2006 Norton from their laptops to have them run right at all, and that tip came from a local computer club guy, who told them to call me to do it, because Norton at times will not uninstall easily, and you need to use tools to extract it from some systems, to get rid of it. It really isn't anyting personal, as a matter of the fact I make a good living partially because it exists, so I in no way want it banned from sales.
Do you really think that all these stories are lies? Do you think I get off wrting down my experiences with this insidious software?

[casey]

Rich, you never did explain to me why when I ran bitdefender it found three of the ten viruses that Norton
had in it's quarantine. There were seven that it did not detect..

While your at it you can explain to me how someone that spends more time on the Internet and goes anywhere he feels like it can go for years without getting all these infections. You told me to run Bitdefender to see how many I really had and I did it. But when I told you what the results were you didn't say a word.

The same thing when you wanted me to look at the ratings of Norton and when I pointed out that Norton in 2006 Beat Nod 32 and said why not tell the people what rating Norton had, you suddenly got quiet.

Besides Rich, If Norton was so good for business it would soon be out of business. You do know you don't live in one of the heavily populated areas, so if there is so much business where you are at could you imagine the business it's creating where there are a lot of people..

[casey]

I am sitting here and come to the conclusion that all this is fruitless. Why don't you use what you want and I'll use what I want and leave it at that. I am tired of arguing and having to go over the same thing, time after time with the same results. I am done with this discussion from now on....

[mylanta]

Rich, you never did explain to me why when I ran bitdefender it found three of the ten viruses that Norton
had in it's quarantine. There were seven that it did not detect..

While your at it you can explain to me how someone that spends more time on the Internet and goes anywhere he feels like it can go for years without getting all these infections. You told me to run Bitdefender to see how many I really had and I did it. But when I told you what the results were you didn't say a word.

The same thing when you wanted me to look at the ratings of Norton and when I pointed out that Norton in 2006 Beat Nod 32 and said why not tell the people what rating Norton had, you suddenly got quiet.
Besides Rich, If Norton was so good for business it would soon be out of business. You do know you don't live in one of the heavily populated areas, so if there is so much business where you are at could you imagine the business it's creating where there are a lot of people
I actually cover the Northern part of Berks County Larry as well as Southern part of Schuylkill County. But that still isn'ta lot of population but you have given me an idea to run another Merchandiser for the East Penn traffic as well.

As for why I didn't answer, sort of like you deciding these arguments are fruitless and I agree let's let it lie as there is as of yet no real reason that you can see, for you to believe all of us anyway.