PROS
Great antispyware
Light resource use
Real-time protection
Regular updates
Antiphishing
Inexpensive
No phone support
Only works with IE
This year's version of STOPzilla antispyware continues to be a durable choice for antispyware software.
The core antispyware protection passed all of our tests with flying colors. All spyware, adware, and trojans we threw at it were quickly captured and dealt with.
The user interface is simple enough, and most functions and settings can be accessed through a toolbar attached to your browser for easy access.
Resource usage was average, but still acceptable.
The only real downside is the fact that the main toolbar only works with Internet Explorer. Plus, there's no toll-free phone number for customer and technical support.
But still STOPzilla antispyware has proven to be a worthy contender this year against some of the toughest spyware and adware out there.
STOPzilla Antispyware Features
- Manual and Automatic Scanning
- Real-time Spyware Protection
- Pop-up Protection
- SITEGuard (antiphishing)
- Update Control
- Integrated Support Options
- Browser (IE) Enforcers
- Network Enforcers
- System Enforcers
- Auto Start Enforcers
Installation - 93%
STOPzilla's installation was very simple and the steps were self explanatory.
You'll be walked through a simple install wizard, asked to register your software, then current antispyware updates will download.
A reboot is needed after the installation is complete.
User Interface - 90%
The user interface is simple enough to navigate even for a new user.
The main components of STOPzilla, Spyware Protection (real-time protection), Site Guard, and Pop-up Protection, are displayed on the Home screen letting you turn them on/off without prompting you to navigate to any other screen.
If you try to turn off any of these features, STOPzilla will provide you with information about that feature and also suggest that you don't turn it off.
Another set of tools that are very useful on the Home screen are: "Erase Cookies" and "Clear History". These two options will let the user remove all cookies and clear the browsing history without having to do it from his browser.
The Quick Settings section will let you configure more settings like "Automatically update the definitions", "Sound alarms", or "Display an icon in the system tray" etc.
Overall, STOPzilla's user interface is clean and easy to use.
Pre-Infected Machine - 100%
$9.95
We pre-infected our testing PC with spyware, adware, trojans, and other malware, then installed STOPzilla to see how well it would perform.
STOPzilla detected all of our spyware samples. Every one.
We tried our best to get some dangerous files past it, but STOPzilla's antispyware software caught everything*.
Real-time Protection - 100%
Real-time protection performed equally well.
We turned on STOPzilla, then tried to infect our testing computer with several trojans. As the trojan's tried to access the machine, STOPzilla antispyware detected them instantly.
When we tried to load spyware files, all were successfully blocked as well.
Adware pop-ups were also blocked.
An excellent performance for real-time protection*.
Manual Scanning - 100%
Manual scanning made an excellent score as well.
After infecting our testing PC, we launched a full-system, manual scan.
STOPzilla detected all spyware, trojans, adware, and other malware.
STOPzilla's manual scanning performed better than expected.
Resource Usage - 90%
| Real-time protection: |
Manual Scanning: |
| Memory usage: 15 MB |
Memory usage: max 62 MB |
| CPU usage: 0% to 2% |
CPU usage: 4% to 55% |
| Page file usage: 263 MB |
Page file usage: 337 MB |
Definition Updates - 92%
The spyware definition update is configurable at the time of installation. You can choose whether to go for automatic update downloads or manual downloads when they're available.
Customer Support - 75%
Even though STOPzilla doesn't provide a customer service or technical support phone number, the support section seems to be adequate.
Options like Support Request, chat, Top Questions, Online Help, and Tutorials on registration, installation and uninstallation, are all readily available.
Still, a free technical or customer support phone number is really important these days. Sooner or later, every needs to talk to a real person. Without a toll-free phone number, STOPzilla can't rank very high for us despite their otherwise extensive support section.
Un-Installation - 95%
You'll only need two clicks to uninstall STOPzilla if you ever need to.
Just open your ADD/REMOVE Programs feature from the Windows control panel, then click yes to uninstall. That's it.
We didn't find any unnecessary registry traces left behind. A very clean unistallation.
Special Features - 92%
STOPzilla has an additional feature called "SiteGuard" which will stop any site that automatically downloads malicious content or spyware to your computer.
The antispyware software will maintain a record of these malicious web-sites and update this repository frequently. Whenever you access a website, STOPzilla checks the URL against the database and blocks it if its found. Very handy.
System Requirements
- A PC running Windows 2000, XP, or Vista.
- Browser: Internet Explorer 5.0 or later.
- STOPzilla requires that your computer be at least a Pentium II 400 with 128 MB of RAM.
Conclusion
$9.95
On the whole, STOPzilla antispyware software seems to be a good bet for people who want to protect their computers from spyware and adware software.
This antispyware software has passed all the tests we ran, and it also has an additional feature (Site-Guard) that protects Internet surfers from malicious websites.
One negative side of this software (not so negative though) is the log file is not very clear. One has to really look through the entire contents of the log file in order to find out full details of a blocked spyware/ad-ware.
Another drawback is that the main browser toolbar you need to operate STOPzilla only works with Internet Explorer (IE). So, if you use Firefox, or some other browser, you're out of luck. But since most people us Internet Explorer, this shouldn't be too much of a problem.
That being said, we can still recommend this software to do a good job at protecting your PC from spyware and adware.
