14 DAY TRIAL // The time has come for this week's antispyware tool, and what could be better for this position than a Softpedia pick? Now, let's see what we have here!
Today's antispyware star is called SpyStopper Pro and its latest version is labeled 4.80. What I have here is a 15 days trial, and the full version has a cost of 29.95$. The installation kit of the program has 2.4MB and the setup process ends in a flash. Now, let's get to the interface and features of this small and handy tool, shall we?
You got it, you installed it, restarted the computer as required...what next? In most cases, nothing at all. You don't have to care about having this program into your system, since it works in the shadows, without asking any stupid questions. If you want to check the statistics and change some settings, just right click the new icon that appeared inside your system tray and choose "Show" from the menu that appears. The main window of this program is not a new world wonder, but does its job. There are five tabs here - Blocking Statistics, Protection, Log File, Options and About. Let's find out more about them!
The first area gives you a report about the bugs, ads, worms, spyware, scripts, cookies, websites, stylesheets and scanners blocked. Wow! Impressive list! To get detailed results, press the View button.
Next, the Protection area includes four tools. The Self Test checks your SpyStopper to see if it runs properly and displays the result into a Web page, while the Online Update's purpose should be obvious... The Website and ActiveX monitors show you all the items blocked so far and give you the chance to let them do their job, whatever that may be, so be careful here. I always think that it's better to leave three good men in the cold than risking opening your door to a burglar, so if you don't know what you're dealing with, let those items blocked.
The Log File area lets you choose whether to keep a detailed log or not and its location. You can also view or delete your current log file here.
Next stop is the Options area. Nothing unusual here, all options are one click away - start the program with Windows, skip startup screen, safe loading, advanced monitoring and more.
Last stop is the About screen, which makes me think about getting to the conclusions...let's go!
The Good
SpyStopper Pro is an interesting tool. I hope they start making firewalls one day...until then; you can enjoy this small, low profile and efficient threat stopper.
The Bad
For a commercial product, I would expect some built in documentation, or at least some online Help, and the only thing available is an online FAQ (comprehensive enough, I must say).
The Truth
Despite its lack of built in documentation, SpyStopper Pro can be used efficiently as a fire and forget weapon against network and Internet intruders. All you have to do is install it and forget about that, maybe check on it from time to time, nothing more, in most cases. There are two weeks and a day for you to test this program, so let the trial begin!
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
