Detection Effectiveness:  

Spy Sweeper is continually evolving and has the ability to combat most major threats. It can instantly prevent spyware, malware, parasites, data miners, adware and many more threats from accessing your information or altering your system. In total, it has fifteen smart shields that defend against annoying and troublesome pests like cookie trackers, browser hijackers, keyloggers and Trojans. If you don’t know what kind of protection you want or need, the program will run 12 recommended shields. We went with the recommended setting and never incurred any problems and we are constantly online and regularly downloading files, images and software.

Spyware performs numerous protective functions. It scans all ingoing and outgoing email, including attachments. It has anti-phishing and anti-spam features and watches for programs that try to alter toolbars, the computer registry or web browser.

After a scan, Spy Sweeper provides easy to understand reports. When items are detected, the report assigns a level of risk and description for each item. You can then quarantine, delete or restore the discovered items. Spy Sweeper will also keep you informed of immediate threats by warning you if an application is trying to install on your computer.

Removal Effectiveness:  

Spy Sweeper can safely remove designated threats from the quarantine or they can be instantly deleted, without ever being a threat to your system, they are detected and isolated well before they can cause any havoc. This anti-spyware software can even detect and remove malware that Microsoft Vista cannot.

This software also includes a one-click feature that can remove adware, system monitors and Trojans. It safely removes associated registry entries, running processes and files to almost instantly improve the computers performance. This one-click feature is especially useful right after installation, to remove unwanted malicious items that may already reside on the hard drive.

System Performance:  

With such a powerful and versatile anti -spyware application, we expected to take a performance hit after installation. We experienced a slight decrease in overall system performance after installing Spy Sweeper on our slower computers (less than 1GB of RAM, less than 1Ghz processor speed), so be aware that this program runs best on a system with more than the minimum requirements. In fact, its published requirements are a 350 MHz processor with 256 MB of RAM; first of all, if you have a computer that old, you are in desperate need of an upgrade, but second of all if you do have a system this limited you will likely notice a major slow down in your processing speed and multi-tasking ability with this program running. However, if you are like most people and have a PC or laptop with 2GB or more of RAM and a decent processor, this program will run with little noticeable slow-down.

Spy Sweeper can run in the background while you have other programs running, provided that you have a decent computer. If you are playing an online game or PC game and do not want to be interrupted you can set it to Gamer Mode and it will postpone the scheduled scan to another time. Nevertheless, your computer is not running unprotected; the real-time shield protection is always active. This scanning pause can also be used if you want to watch a movie uninterrupted.