- Detects and eliminates dangerous hidden spyware threats like keyboard loggers, spyware, adware and other malware.
- Real-time monitoring reduces the chance of spyware threats before they damage your PC.
- Automatic updates insure that your version of CounterSpy is always up-to-date.
- Includes extra tools such as a security checkup to look for certain types of security holes and a “history cleaner”, to remove traces of your activity on the Internet.
Product Description
Spyware slows systems down causes crashes and can even invade your privacy. To combat spyware you need a powerful tool: CounterSpy. It aggressively hunts down and removes a broad range of spyware including adware keyboard loggers and other malware. And CounterSpy reduces the chance of future spyware installations as well.Features:CounterSpy detects and eliminates dangerous hidden spyware threats like keyboard loggers spyware adware and other malwareeal-time monitori… More >>
Sunbelt Counterspy AntiSpyware
Tags: AntiSpyware, automatic updates, Counterspy, internet product, keyboard loggers, security holes, Sunbelt, sunbelt counterspy
#1 by Scott D. Hammond on June 3, 2010 - 12:35 am
This is probably the best antispyware I have ever used. Have tried a lot of different ones but this is by far the best.
Rating: 5 / 5
#2 by Al Brockman on June 3, 2010 - 2:15 am
I bought this after reading the great reviews. It does seem to do the job of removing spyware, although not much better than some freeware. BIG problem is running a scan. If you tell it to run a full scan, it goes on forever and you can’t stop it. All you get is a message that Counterspy is running and please wait. In my case, 4 hours later it finally stopped. According to Tech Support, you could cause problems if you try to stop it. Silly. When you schedule a scan and tell it to do a quick scan, it does a full scan – yup, 4 hours and 20 minutes!!! Tech Support says it should take only 30-40 minutes!
Also, if you run Active Protection, Counterspy and its friends take up to 50 MB of memory.
Subjectively, Counterspy seems to slow down the computer but that may be me.
Bottom line – it MAY do the job but it is not worth it. Although I hate to say it, stick with Microsoft Defender – free and works. Counterspy is a waste of $19
Rating: 2 / 5
#3 by L. B. Godin on June 3, 2010 - 5:03 am
I got Counterspy a couple days ago and tried to load it yesterday. Nothing happened. I tried to load it again. Nothing happened. I’ve never had an install disk that never worked and immediately thought I had a bad disk and CD Drive so I put in a language disk and it worked so I thought I had a bad Counterspy disk so I called them. Thought I’d go into retirement waiting until someone came to the phone. When I did get someone I was pleased to discover a nice tech who said she’d help me install the program. I was even more pleased to discover from her that she didn’t try to give lame excuses as to why the disk didn’t work immediately which I’ve found is rare with tech support because they’re too eager to blame your computer thinking their software is always perfect. Directly from the CD drive did we try to install, but Spy Sweeper kept interferring and we had to constantly shut that down. After two tries we got the disk installed, we ran a scan and all was well. I discovered that if I turned off Spysweeper’s Active-X shield Counterspy could do it’s job. One person had complained that as long as you don’t try to activate links in your e-mail you’re fine. I tried that and had no problem. I really like the features of Counterspy. When you click the system tools you have My PC Explorer which allows you to manage systems on your computer that are hard to change. My PC Checkup patches security holes and windows vulnerabilities. History Cleaner allows you to deal with getting rid of things there so now I have two means. The great thing about that it tells you what histories you have instead of searching. Secure File Eraser allows you to choose what you want to deal with and encrypts the file before deleting leaving nothing behind. I like the fact that you can put your curser on any one of these things and the explanations happen rather than actually have to click it to open. The Active Protection lets you know what it’s monitoring and what’s blocked that you choose. I don’t know a thing about that so I’m leaving that alone. The Spyware scan is amazingly fast unlike Spysweeper that can take as long as 12 minutes. I like the cute moving graphics as it scans. Where the jury is still out will come with my year long subscription. Will they be like Spysweeper who turns your subscriptions back making you renew when you don’t have to. Will they send too many reminder notices when you know you have plenty of time left like Spysweeper. Will certain things expire where you can’t correct them while everything works and is current in subscription like my ‘04 Norton Internet Security. What I really liked about the tech was when you tell them a problem, they directly address it whether they know the answer or not. They’re not like Spysweeper who addresses what you have no problem with because they’re too stupid to know the answer, nor will they admit they’re at fault and placate you with sorry for your inconveniance while getting off on your frustration. I’ll assume for the moment that Counterspy’s scans are accurate. Maybe when I register Counterspy it’ll show subscription activation date and when it’s up. My second hope is that if I need tech support I don’t get Social Security before someone comes to the phone. We’ll see after I’ve had it a while if this was really worth the money.
Rating: 3 / 5
#4 by NYC Customer on June 3, 2010 - 7:13 am
I bought this program on the recommendation of a technician who worked on my computer. He said it was better than the program I had been running previously. So I went for it. Not a good idea.
I run the scan after every Internet session. It typically returns 8 or 9 hits. They’re always the same. Doubleclick, Realmedia and so forth and I always delete them. Recently my computer started behaving strangely. A friend suggested it might be spyware. I told him what I was running. He suggested I download the free spybot catching software from AOL.
The first time I ran it, it found 37 serious threats and MORE THAN 8000 POTENTIAL THREATS. All spyware that Counterspy never found, but this free program did.
There’s no excuse for that.
Rating: 1 / 5
#5 by Gadgester on June 3, 2010 - 7:25 am
I just got off the phone with my father. Sometime last week he saw a fake system warning (displayed in a disguised browser window) from the “rogue spyware” Winantivirus 2006, and clicked the “OK” button and ended up having this spyware installed on his PC. I spent a good part of the weekend, a total of 10 hours, trying to help him remove it. He lives in a different part of the country, so it was hard for me to help him step-by-step, even though we were using Remote Assistance, which eventually was crippled by the Winantivirus spyware/trojan.
(BTW, Winantivirus is also known as Winantispyware, Winfixer and Vundo. It’s *NOT* a legitimate program. It’s really an adware that displays tons of pop-ups urging you to pay $50 for their phony anti-virus/anti-spyware program. The pop-ups will come up no matter which browser you use. Of course, Mac and Linux users are safe from this annoying spyware so far.)
One thing we tried last night was the 15-day trial version of Counterspy, downloaded from Cnet’s download.com. It found Winantivirus, and were we thrilled. We went ahead and instructed Counterspy to clean up, and Counterspy reported it did. Then we rescanned the PC and Counterspy reported no spyware. We celebrated.
Unfortunately, prematurely. This morning when my dad turned on his PC, the same pop-ups came back — in fact, this morning they came back with a vengeance: whereas last week it one pop-up at a time, today it was 3 or 4 at a time and when he closed on, another immediately came up. It was obvious that the Winantivirus trojan was still on his PC.
We ran Counterspy again. And again, Counterspy reported no problem with my dad’s PC! We were so dismayed. I then proceeded to try to give him instructions on how to use HijackThis and to manually remove the infected files. But it was hard for him to follow my instructions over the phone, so in the end we gave up. I told him to just re-format the hard drive and re-install everything.
So, even though my experience with Counterspy centers on just one spyware program, I have to conclude that this program is useless in cleaning up infections. I have no idea if its real-time defense works or not.
Since Counterspy originated in the same technology as Microsoft’s free antispyware product, you might as well just download Microsoft’s version which is totally free of charge, for personal use as well as business use. Of course, I wouldn’t put too much faith in that program, either.
In the end, you just have to be careful when you surf the web. Like I was telling my dad, just because a guy comes up to your door saying he’s a cop, or even wearing a cop-like uniform, doesn’t mean you should just let him into your house assuming he’s a real cop. You’d demand some kind of legitimate ID. With pop-up windows, it’s the same thing. Don’t just grant “yes” or “OK” to any window that asks you to. Ask an expert friend first. Good luck!
(To manually remove Winantivirus/Vundo/Winfixer, you’ll need to run HijackThis and then launch into Windows Safe Mode in command prompt. The virus attaches itself to the Winlogon.exe process, which is the program that checks your login and password. The virus is quite difficult, but not impossible, for an advanced user to delete. I had done it before on a friend’s PC, sitting in front of the PC.)
Rating: 1 / 5