Spy Sweeper update

[Boston Guy]

There have been discussions of Spy Sweeper here in the past. SS has a new version out and current users are probably being encouraged to update. The new version is called 5.0; the latest build right now is 5.0.5.

 

If you update the program, you may encounter problems. The biggest problem that people seem to encounter is a dramatic slowdown of their computer. The symptom is that everything seems to run really slooooowly.

 

There are two main possibilities that I've seen discussed:

 

* Incompatibility with other spyware checkers. If you're running SS, you probably do not need to be running Adaware or other, similar programs. SS and a good antivirus program and Firefox are probably enough for most users. But if you choose to run multiple programs of this sort, there have been reports of compatibility problems. If you update SS and run into a slowdown, consider stopping the other programs one by one to see if that resolves the problem.

 

* New keylogger shield. SS offers a fairly wide variety of "shields", each of which offers a particular kind of protection. Some people have found that the "key logger shield" in the new version of SS causes real slowdowns. You can disable this shield by double-clicking the SS icon to open the SS main window. Click on "Shields" and then choose the "Windows System" tab. Uncheck the key logger option. This is most likely the cause of any slowdowns you may be experiencing with the new version. Turning off this option will probably result in your system speeding back up to normal.

 

BG

[+ deej]

I could never quite see the usefulness of keylogger anyway. If spysweeper is doing its job, a key logger should never make it onto your system in the first place. ;-)

 

(Yes, I'm kidding ... sorta.)

[DelawareGuy]

Boston Guy, thanks for the info! I just recently updated and have found that my PC has cycles of my memory usage exceeding 95% (according to my Yahoo Widget for memory usage). Maybe I should have waited before ordering that additional 512 Mg chip?

[Boston Guy]

You're welcome!

 

I first discovered the problem when I applied the update to a machine and saw huge increases in resource utilization and a dramatic slowdown in performance. Once I figured out what the problem was, turning off the keylogger shield solved it immediately. I hope it solves your problem, too.

 

BG

[DelawareGuy]

Well, it solves ONE of my problems. Now if my escort would just return my phone call .....

[Boston Guy]

LOL... well, good luck on that one. We've all been there.

 

BG

[+ deej]

The oddity for me is that this problem affected only one application.

 

I didn't think much of it because it's a small app from a niche marketplace (music notation) and it has ... ummm ... bad hair days *anyway*. ;-) But this did help.

[DelawareGuy]

I went to the Webroot site to see if there was anything mentioned about this. They do indicate that many users complain of system performance after installing version 5. Their explanation is that they increased the RAM requirement from 128 mg to 256 mg. I checked Task Manager and it says SpySweeperUI.exe is using 5,564K of memory and SpySweeper.exe is using 8,200K.