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Reviewer: 1972vet
Company: Computer Associates, Visit Site
Product: PestPatrol ... Version: 5
Visit the store. Write your own review!
| | Reviewer's Ratings | Avg Company Rating | | Overall Feeling |   | | | Customer Support | | | | Value for the money | | | | Product's ease of use | | | | Ease of installation | | | | Product website | | | | Reliability | | |
Compare Product Reviews in this ClassThe new Pest Patrol, by Computer Associates, is still trying to streamline the Pest Patrol's operation.
I have to agree, Pest Patrol does it's job finding and eliminating pests, but the user should be
warned...not everything that Pest Patrol finds is diabolical.
I have two pending issues with the Pest Patrol support people. One is the Norton Anti-virus quarantine
folder having been identified by Pest Patrol as a back door unknown dialer, and the other is
not yet addressed by the Pest Patrol support people. The latest findings (as of these past few days)
is a spykeylogger on my system.
The problem is...there is no spykeylogger on my system. They are still studying the log to determine
what is being identified as this spykeylogger. When I hear back from them, I will update this post.
As it stands, this spykeylogger gets quarantined, but after a reboot, it comes back. I suspect the
alleged spykeylogger is perhaps a windows protected file that once eliminated, is replaced by the
system file checker (maybe,...we will see).
The concern I have with Pest Patrol is for the novice user. I must first present my credentials... I have
none. Like most people who own a home computer, I have had to learn my lessons hard.
I no longer consider myself a novice, but I am a long way from the expert category. If there are
any here who think that software should be able to do your thinking for you, then place yourself in
the novice category...please.
My fear is this...for the novice user, who clicks away mindlessly, you are in imminent danger of
reducing your home computer to a useless collection of circuitry with Pest Patrol. Pest Patrol does not investigate for you any of the pests that it finds. If, when your scan is complete, you just click quarantine all pests you may have just rendered useless, one or more of your own pieces of protective software. Now, mind you,...quarantine does mean that you can restore what it was that
you just quarantined. There are those out there however, who think they can keep a step ahead of
the evil doers, and they will go looking for that quarantined file to delete it, not wanting to take any
chances that they may somehow, accidentally restore it in the future. Don't do it. Investigate it.
When Pest Patrols' scan finishes, you will be shown the identities of any pests that it found. As in my
two pending issues, if I were to have just relied on Pest Patrols findings, I would then have just quarantined those pests and went on my merry way thinking that Pest Patrol did its job, and that I am
now protected from whatever evil was intended by the pests that it found. Wrong!!!
If I were to have done that, then the next time I may have opened the wrong email, or clicked on the wrong web site, Norton Anti-virus would not have been allowed to quarantine any virus that found its
way to my computer because Pest Patrol would have had the Norton Anti-virus quarantine function
locked up inside of a zipped file! And just think...I would have been my own victim, because I paid for
Pest Patrol to do that.
Instead, I emailed Pest Patrol support with my questions regarding those findings, and only then did I
find out that the pests that Pest Patrol found were not pests at all. Not everyone does that. Most people
I fear, are like I used to be. Trusting. Trusting that the money they paid for the software, is their guarantee that the software is better. Not so.
I still contend that the freeware that is available on this site, is better.
Better for the novice, to say the least.
Vet
Added: December 22nd 2004
Hits: 4741
NOTE: Product reviews are independently written by our members and do not necessarily express the opinions or views of CastleCops.
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PestPatrol
Posted by TopDog on 2005-01-27 22:40:53
My Score:
The huge number of false positives I received is why I stopped using PestPatrol. It was not worth the hassle of trying to exclude all the false positives from the real threats. I use a variety of other software now, some freeware and some paid for instead of PestPatrol. You would think using several programs instead of one would be more of a hassle but it actually works out better.
For me PestPatrol was a waste of money.
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PestPatrol
Posted by TopDog on 2005-01-27 22:39:36
My Score: 
The huge number of false positives I received is why I stopped using PestPatrol. It was not worth the hassle of trying to exclude all the false positives from the real threats. I use a variety of other software now, some freeware and some paid for instead of PestPatrol. You would think using several programs instead of one would be more of a hassle but it actually works out better.
For me PestPatrol was a waste of money.
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PestPatrol
Posted by ScottieMeBoy on 2004-12-23 19:08:33
My Score:
This is good advice, and should be heeded by the novice user. A lot of people, as stated, think that the registry cleaner and spyware ''wizards'' will come up with completely safe-to-delete files, and then they find it won''t boot up the next time. Never mind that the file is residing in quarantine because if you cannot boot into Windows>Pest Patrol>Restore Files you won''t be able to retrieve the file.
1972vet has done a great service by letting the novice know what can happen, and without bad spelling and grammar to boot (no pun intended) I only hope I spelled ''grammar'' properly.
But as a somewhat experienced user, having to learn from the basics through quite a few mistakes to this point, be careful.
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PestPatrol
Posted by 1972vet on 2004-12-23 12:02:16
My Score:
I''ve returned already this morning (Dec. 23rd 2004) to update this post as promised.
I received an email reply this morning from Pest Patrol support. Their
findings are that all the pests found from the scans I submitted (those issues I described originally) were all false alarms. I was directed to
mark them all to have Pest Patrol scanner exclude them from future scans. My point exactly.
If I were to have clicked on the quarantine all pests button, and not investigated the findings, I may (would) be in jeopardy from malicious software, as pest patrol found nothing malicious on my system but the
tentacles of my own protection software.
vet
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