Spy Sweeper

Trojans, keyloggers, infected cookies and spyware in general are extremely dangerous for our computers, so choosing a software solution to guard the machines is quite important.

Webroot's Spy Sweeper is already a well-known name in the security software field, as the application is able to provide not only a powerful scanner to detect the infected files on the hard drive but also a real time monitor for blocking incoming threats.

It might be a bit more difficult to install, especially if you choose the update option that automatically updates its files during the setup procedure. Also, you should pay attention because it comes bundled with third party software that can change the settings of your Internet browser.

You are met with a pretty well-organized layout, as it encloses a pane in which to display details and information, and a navigation panel from which you can choose the area that interests you. Paired with some comprehensive Help contents, Spy Sweeper clearly becomes very simple to handle.

A real problem we encountered during our tests is that the update really takes a while, of course depending on your Internet connection, but in case your computer is already infected, your attempt to update the software might be easily blocked by malicious applications.

Concerning the scanning process, it's worth mentioning that it might take a while because the program checks the memory, registry, cookies and all the contents of your hard drive to make sure everything is clean.

Spy Sweeper offers you a detailed settings menu to enable you to change some options including scheduling a scan and deciding which type it will be: a full sweep, a quick or a custom one. It is possible to set up password-protection, so that you can be sure only authorized people can modify your settings, while you can also use a proxy server.

The Shields menu, on the other hand, brings a bit more customization from the point of view of the areas to be protected by this utility, meaning that you can guard not only the operating system, but also the browser, the network and the email.

All things considered, Spy Sweeper is a great tool to get rid of spyware, yet it is important to keep in mind that the scanning process can take quite a while and the computer’s performance might be affected during it. The interface is intuitive and our tests did not return any errors, crashes or freezes.