Spyware is a royal pain but the average user is, most of the time, not aware of the snooping activities of these little programs on their computers.
SpySubtract Pro is an application designed to get rid of spyware and its associated threats. Not only does it erase spy applets but also claims to areas such as Windows Recent Documents List and Internet Explorer URL History. These areas of the Windows operating system can be accessed by spyware programs and other people. The program can be configured to automatically wipe out evidence of activity on a computer.
Installation is trouble-free and the main console shouldn't frighten anyone that has the vaguest notion of how to operate a computer. We decided to update the spyware definitions before taking this application for a test drive. Downloading through a corporate network did not take too long and we think shouldn't be a problem for dial-up either.
After setting off the scanner to look through the files on the computer it did its job quickly and efficiently. First it looked through all the stored cookies (found two suspect ones), programs in memory, the registry, URL shortcuts and lastly files on the hard disk. By far and away, the last search takes the longest.
In the console itself, the tab marked "Details" showed us that the software had found and details about them. Unfortunately it did not goes into much detail why it thought what it had found was suspect, and we believe information on this would have been welcomed.
There are also blacklists of products that the software can look out for again, it did not go into details why this would be a problem. Even though we recognise these as problems, those with lesser knowledge of the area would be scratching their heads trying to work out why it doesn't like particular programs.
This is a good application and is probably worth investing in if there is a need to get rid of suspect programs. Although there are still a number of freeware products available that could give this a run for its money.
