X-Cleaner

[Mark Warner]

http://www.xblock.com/download-freeware.shtml

I've been using this program for a couple months, ever since a fellow
yahoogroup member discovered he had a keylogger installed on his machine
and another member found this program for him. It cleaned the machine in
question of the keylogger; it also performs a lot of other anti-adware
and track-clearing functions, ala Ad-aware and Spybot S&D. When they
refer to "spyware," their emphasis is on keyloggers and other stealth
programs, as opposed to adware and the like. (FAQ:
http://www.xblock.com/faq.shtml ) I run all three on a regular, rotating
basis.

The download is for a new version, dated yesterday. It's a 415kb
no-installation executable. Just download it and run it. A nifty little
program.

 

[YoKenny]

http://www.xblock.com/download-freeware.shtml

Crippleware!

 

[Mark Warner]

Crippleware!

I'll grant you, the freeware version does not have as many features as
the payware version, but I have found it to be useful, and my
acquaintance successfully rid himself of his keylogger with the free
version.

What would differentiate "crippleware" from free versions of programs
that have more feature-rich payware counterparts? Zone Alarm, AVG, and
Ad-aware come immediately to mind as examples. Is it the fact that they
are disabled in the GUI? If they weren't shown as being available at
all, would that make a difference?

Not trying to start a debate/argument -- just wanting to hear your take
on it.

 

[Richard Steven Hack]

I'll grant you, the freeware version does not have as many features as
the payware version, but I have found it to be useful, and my
acquaintance successfully rid himself of his keylogger with the free
version.

What would differentiate "crippleware" from free versions of programs
that have more feature-rich payware counterparts? Zone Alarm, AVG, and
Ad-aware come immediately to mind as examples. Is it the fact that they
are disabled in the GUI? If they weren't shown as being available at
all, would that make a difference?

Not trying to start a debate/argument -- just wanting to hear your take
on it.

Personally, I think "crippleware" only applies to programs that cannot
do what would legitimately be part of its normal function as a member
of a particular software genre. Something like an antivirus that
couldn't do a full disk scan or something. Or which had a
ridiculously limiting constraint - like a file downloader that could
only download ten files in a row per session or again an antivirus
that could only scan 1000 files at a time.

For instance, my wallpaper changer WallMaster limits you to fifty
wallpapers per showlist; however, it allows unlimited showlists. To
me, although using it is a bit of a pain because of the limit, the
fact that it allows unlimited showlists AND correctly resizes images
larger or smaller than the screen while preserving the aspect ratio
makes it NOT crippleware.

As usual, YMMV.

 

[Aaron]

http://www.xblock.com/download-freeware.shtml

I've been using this program for a couple months, ever since a fellow
yahoogroup member discovered he had a keylogger installed on his
machine and another member found this program for him. It cleaned the
machine in question of the keylogger; it also performs a lot of other
anti-adware and track-clearing functions, ala Ad-aware and Spybot S&D.
When they refer to "spyware," their emphasis is on keyloggers and
other stealth programs, as opposed to adware and the like. (FAQ:
http://www.xblock.com/faq.shtml ) I run all three on a regular,
rotating basis.

My own experience is less good. The only time it found something, it
was a false positive.

Aaron (my email is not munged!)