PCTools Spyware Doctor Review and Download
Home > Antispyware Reviews	February 22, 2008 5:12 PM

Spyware Doctor 5.0 Price: $29.95 Vendor: PCTools Read user reviews Download Now
Editor's Rating: Protection: Ease-of-use: Stability: Support: % Spyware Detected: 93% % Spyware Disabled: 86% % Spyware Removed: 86%	Pros + Extremely effective at removing spyware + Attractive user interface + Easy to use + Frequent updates + Good customer support Cons - Slow scan speed

Spyware Doctor Review

Spyware Doctor 5.0, the latest update to PC Tools anti-spyware product, offers solid protection against spyware and a number of additional immunization features to block common security holes. PC Tools has steadily increased their detection database over the years and the current version now detects over 645,000 malware threats, making this one of the most comprehensive spyware scanners money can buy.

Usability

Spyware Doctor installed quickly without any problems on our test computers. When you first start the program, it automatically downloads the latest updates. Once these are installed, you're presented with a screen similar to the following:

The user interface is well laid out and all features are easy to find. The main screen consists of several large buttons in the main area and a left-hand navigation menu with some additional options. However, most users will only need to make use of the large "Scan Computer Now" button. Clicking this kicks off a full scan by default. This is the slowest scan mode, but the one we recommend, particularly if you have an older or heavily-used computer. If you are in a hurry or want to tweak your settings, Spyware Doctor also offers "intelli-scan" (quick) and custom scan modes.

Removal

Spyware Doctor detected a whopping 93% of the test spyware we installed and successfully disabled 86% of it. This was consistent with the results we recorded in March, and was especially impressive considering all of the recent spyware additions we've made to our test. Spyware Doctor successfully removed notorious threats like CoolWebSearch, SpyAxe, and Spy Falcon. These results put it firmly in first place (with Max Spyware Detector coming in a distant second).

The product now ships with nearly 645,000 signatures, which makes it one of the most comprehensive scanners on the market. Spyware Doctor is the tool you should turn to if you want to be certain that your computer is clean. There is a price to pay for these results though - a full scan takes considerably longer than most other products. A full scan with version 5.0 took 22 minutes on our desktop and 43 minutes on our laptop. To be fair however, the actual scan and removal time for most people will be much faster because their computers won't contain nearly as much spyware as ours did but in any case, you'll most likely want to schedule your scans for off-hours when you aren't working on your computer.

The difference in the operation of our computer after running Spyware Doctor was night and day. Prior to the scan, the computer was unresponsive and was plagued with constant pop-up ads. Afterwards, it was very fast and we could detect no spyware programs running in memory, save for a couple of of the newer internet toolbars which the program missed. Overall, a very impressive result.


Spyware Doctor scan results screen. Notice the massive amounts of spyware detected on this computer!

The scan results screen is much improved in this version of Spyware Doctor. Each of the applications is broken out and a description is provided.


Spyware Doctor scan results screen.

Rollback

Spyware Doctor lets you rollback any changes it makes, in case the spyware you removed was required by an otherwise useful program (Real Player and Kazaa are typical examples of programs that embed spyware on your PC and won't run without it).

Other Options

Spyware Doctor comes with a scheduler but you have to go in to the "Settings" section and schedule scans manually. While this is fairly easy to do, we would have preferred it if a scanning task was scheduled automatically when the program is first installed

It comes with lots of other protection features as well, including:

• Prevents unauthorized browser home page changes and toolbar installs
• Stops malicious applications from launching
• Detects harmful email attachments
• Blocks keylogger programs (also known as "spy software")
• Detects unwanted rootkit programs

Spyware Doctor 5.0 comes with lots of extra protection features.

Summary

PC Tools Spyware Doctor 5.0 is hands down the winner in our latest round of testing. It detected 93% of all spyware and removed 86% of it, placing it far ahead of second place. Although it is slower than many other products, running this scanner on your computer will ensure that you are protected against virtually every spyware threat out there.

Purchase Price: $29.95

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