Buy Now...

Not so long ago that I looked at the Manaccom developed Spy Cleaner that is distributed in the UK by Phoenix Global Software.  Now the company has released Spy Cleaner Gold.  As if to emphasis its “Gold” status, the software box has doubled in size although content is a bare minimum of the product CD and a slip of paper providing information about updates.

For the benefit of those who missed the first review and are unsure as to the damage that can be caused by spyware, let me briefly mention one or two points.  Spyware consists of pieces of code that infiltrates your system by a variety of methods.  This generally happens during a surfing session.  In some cases the spyware forms part of a downloaded title such as some Shareware offerings.

Once resident on your system, the spyware will report back to its authors with personal data gathered from your system.  This could be browsing habits and personal preferences for marketing purposes or, more insidiously, banking details and passwords that are stored on your system.  Products such as Spy Cleaner and Spy Cleaner Gold offer to search through your system in order to detect and remove items of spyware. 

See also: Utility software

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In the same way as it is important to keep your anti-virus software up-to-date, spyware cleaning software also needs to be regularly updated in order to carry out its designated task.  Spy Cleaner Gold has a Live Update feature which will download and update the relevant files.  Unfortunately, as with the standard version of the software, you can not schedule this process and need to manually activate the updating process.

Once launched, Spy Cleaner Gold will load its database of known spyware items and then present a gold coloured interface.  Surprisingly, for a product that relies on having a good understanding of its host system, Spy Cleaner Gold does not instigate an automatic scan when first launched.  Again you are reduced to a manually approach – although simple to start, it really should have been an automatic process. 

Checkboxes allow you to select areas, such as memory, Registry and cookies, and any hard disks that will be included.  Real time feedback is provided as to the number of items checked and any spyware references found.  Depending upon the amount of data involved, this can be rather time consuming giving you the ideal opportunity to have a long coffee break.

On the completion of the scan, a list of items found will be displayed.  Icons will indicate the type of items and its category.  Double clicking on an entry brings up more information as to its content.  Unfortunately the problem I encountered with the standard version of this product with regards to Registry keys was still present.  A message would appear stating that Regedit could not be opened but this message would then be obscured as Regedit appeared showing the chosen reference.

A backup log is kept of any items that are removed and this can be used to restore entries when necessary.  You can also create an exclusion list consisting of items you do not wish to be included in the scanning process.

Manaccom has included a number of utilities with the basic product to help justify the “Gold” designation.  A Protect Now option can be used to stop malicious code from being installed while Spy Watcher monitors your system to keep it safe from unauthorised changes to important settings.  Other utilities include Repair LSP, IE Hijack Repair and Hosts File Editor. 

Priced at £14.98, Spy Cleaner Gold requires Windows 95 or later with a 233MHz processor, 32MB of RAM and 15MB of hard disk space.  As far as I can see there is not real reason for anybody to upgrade to this version of Spy Cleaner.  In fact you would probably do better to save £5 and buy the standard version of the product.

http://www.phoenixglobalsoftware.co.uk/spy_cleaner_gold/index.asp