ParetoLogic XoftSpy SE Review
Home > Antispyware Reviews	September 26, 2006 4:12 PM

Product: XoftSpy SE 4.29 Price: $29.95 Vendor: ParetoLogic Editor Rating: 3 stars Download Now!

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Pros

+ Faster than other products we've tested
+ Simple, easy-to-use, and uncluttered interface
+ Above average effectiveness against spyware

Cons

- "All or nothing" quarantine

Review

ParetoLogic?s spyware removal product, XoftSpy SE, provides above aveage coverage at a reasonable price. The program has seen major improvements since our last review a year ago, including enhancements to the user interface and scanning technology.

Usability

Installation of the program was fast and easy, and worked flawlessly the first time.

XoftSpy SE's user interface is basic and well laid-out. It consists of a left-hand menu and a right-hand extended information area. The menu contains buttons to set scanning options, schedule scan times, access the quarantine area, and of course, start a scan. All of the annoying quirks we uncovered in our last review have been fixed (such as progress bars which didn't work and non-resizable windows).

One area we'd like to see some improvement on is the scan results screen. It is thorough, but the results are not categorized by threat, making analysis a tedious chore at best.

The XoftSpy user interface is simple, but well laid-out

Removal

We put XoftSpy SE against our Spyware Effectiveness Test and it performed quite well. Overall, it detected 66% and disabled 55% of the spyware we threw against it. It completely removed 48% of the spyware threats, leaving no trace behind. Our computer ran noticable faster after we were done, and most of the annoying popups and toolbars were a thing of the past.

XOftSpy is quite probably the fastest program we've tested as well. The scan time took less than 2 minutes against our heavily infested PC and the results didn't suffer because of it.

Quarantine

XoftSpy does offer the option to quarantine any spyware threats it finds. This is practically a necessity, in case you accidentally remove a piece of adware which is required by another program. However, the product combines all of the spyware it finds into as single file which means you have to restore all threats removed in order to get your file back. This can revert your computer back to a poorly functioning state. Ideally, we'd like the ability to pick and choose which programs can be restored.

Other Options

Finally, XoftSpy has added a much needed scheduler to the product. Other than that, it does not include many other options such as system explorers which can help you to find that annoying program that loads every time you boot. These would be a very nice addition to the program.

Summary

XoftSpy provides above average protection at a reasonable price and we now consider it to be a recommended buy.

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