Evaluation of Products

[jcloud]

After using PC Tools (purchased) products for some time I have decided to give a little evaluation of each one for future updating purposes. As I have already bought the software I am hoping that this evaluation will be taken into consideration in future versions available to me.

Spyware Doctor:
I am very pleased with this application! So far it has protected me from several spyware threats and the way it handles cookies is exceptional. I really wish that it had a smaller memory footprint and that the splash screen/startup didn't take forever and a day to load up (causing system slowdown while it does this as well). I am very happy with the performance overall of this program and I rate it over SpySweeper and Ad-Aware, which I have both used in the past. This program was the reason I purchased the other 2 that I did.

Anti Virus:
I wish I had known this was free before I bought it as the only bonus to buying it was high-speed updates... which isn't that great of a bonus as this program hasn't been updated very much at all since I purchased it. So far I have had nothing but trouble with this program failing to detect malware on an infected drive. Also, the bug with it periodically scanning the floppy drive seriously threw me for a loop as the malware that was already on the drive is a type that spins the Floppy drive as it's characteristic behavior and thus the spinning from this program after a fresh reformat led me to believe that the malware was a boot-sector virus (tried to remove with F-Prot) and I destroyed the drive. To be honest I believe that this Anti-Virus should be included in some type of software Internet Security package with Spyware Doctor as to provide better protection, lower memory footprint, and lower cost. I currently use another free anti-virus program that provides better performance until something better happens with this one. If I could get a refund for it I would, unfortunately.

Registry Mechanic:
A very useful program and one that everyone should get their hands on. It's definitely one of the cheaper registry tools out there. I used to use probably the best freeware program ever designed: EasyCleaner. It not only cleaned the Registry but also removed temporary files, duplicate files, and unnecessary files all in one package. The reason I stopped using it is that it is no longer being supported in development and after installing several new programs that it was not compatible with I had to remove it. I hope that Registry Mechanic can include some of these other useful utilities as well! So far I am very happy with the performance of this product and the fact that it is being updated so often. Overall I am happy with this purchase as buying it provides enough beneficial incentive to keep it. The only negative I can think of is when I use the Smart Update feature it keeps trying to install language packs I don't need. I simply deselect them but they keep coming up on each Update attempt.


Hopefully this has helped people gain some insight into these programs and given the developers some ideas as well.

Be net-safe,
jCloud

[arden42]

Originally Posted by jcloud

Spyware Doctor:
<snippage>
I really wish that it had a smaller memory footprint and that the splash screen/startup didn't take forever and a day to load up (causing system slowdown while it does this as well).

This has been fixed in SD5 which is currently in beta.

Originally Posted by jcloud

Anti Virus:
I wish I had known this was free before I bought it as the only bonus to buying it was high-speed updates... which isn't that great of a bonus as this program hasn't been updated very much at all since I purchased it.

The free version hasn't been available long AFAIK.

Originally Posted by jcloud

To be honest I believe that this Anti-Virus should be included in some type of software Internet Security package with Spyware Doctor as to provide better protection, lower memory footprint, and lower cost.

SD5 has an AV plugin available for free.

Good comments though. I agree with the rest of them.

[AChen]

Hi JCloud,

Our team here at PC Tools is thoroughly impressed with the effort you have put in to evaluating our software. We appreciate this feedback and thank you for your efforts.

We are happy to see you enjoy using Spyware Doctor and Registry Mechanic. All the PC Tools products are constantly improving and any feedback/comments we receive from the users will surely help us further.

With PCTAV, we are aware of the issue of not releasing the Floppy drive and USB drive while PCTAV is active and the developers are currently working on resolving this for the next release. We also know that PCTAV is using up alot of CPU and will be resolving this shortly.

Our goal is to develop the PCTAV so that you will find this to be another great program just like Spyware Doctor and Registry Mechanic.

We also have a dedicated Support/Technical Support team here 24/7 so if you stumble across any issues, please send us a ticket or call the Customer Support Number.