Commercial Anti Spyware vs. the free stuff
 

Recently I've been reading up on commercial anti spyware apps like Spy Sweeper and Spyware Doctor trying to compare them against the free stuff like Sybot and Ad-Aware to see if they're really worth the price. So far most of the reviews from places like Cnet, PC Magazine, and PC World praise the commercial apps and claim the free stuff is good as backup alongside a commercial app. However, reader reviews for recent version of Spy Sweeper and Spyware Doctor trash both programs, with one of my favorite lines being "almost as bad as having spyware".

So, I'm looking for more opinions here on whether folks who have used either Spy Sweeper or Spyware Doctor feel they're worth it, or are the professional reviewers just pimping applications like those on purpose because the companies that make them are paying them as part of an agreement? Is the free stuff really too weak nowadays to be reliable for catching most spyware that attempts to invade the system? I did note that Spyware Doctor 4 was almost universally praised, and noticed that PC Tools still allows it to be purchased. Also, I haven't had any issues to make me suspect that my computer is infested with spyware that the free stuff is missing, I'm just attempting to stay on top of the game by seeing how much, if any, times have changed for apps that remove spyware. Any experiences/thoughts or otherwise are welcome! :)

I've used Spysweeper in the past and have thought it excellent. It has consistently managed to catch a lot of things other programs simply can't. I've never had a really good experience with Ad-Aware or SpyBot S&D however. Spysweeper is definately worth the yearly fee. So I'd highly recommend it - don't know much about Spyware Doctor 4 however.

I used to use Spysweeper on my computer but gave up on it after 2 years since it rarely every alerted me to anything. I don't mean that in a bad way, but when you know what sites/software to avoid the active scanners don't do much but waste resources in my opinion. I've been using Spybot and Adaware on mine periodically and they work great.

I tried out Spyware Doctor (they gave it to us free so we'd tell customers about it) and found it fairly lacking compared to Spysweeper. It caused problems with some of my programs and was slow to do just about anything.

try Hitman pro,is free and ultimate remover.

Hitman Pro | Alles-in-1 oplossing tegen spyware - Home

Wait, so they just bundled a bunch of popular spyware programs and gave it a new name. Oh.

Wow, I thought you were kidding... but it literally is a bunch of anti-spyware programs bundled into one. Do they have permission to do this...?

I just use ad-aware, and find it to be perfect. If you wanna invest in the commercial programs, I say you just pay for ad-aware plus. It's only 50$ for 3 years, and I find it works great.