Spybot S&D updating

[lewisje]

Just use the manual updater.

[Donald Thomson]

Still no increase in immunizations with the automatic or manual updater. I am still not convinced that the updater works at all.

[GreeneNY]

Don T, If you look at all the dates, you can see a couple of new updates each week 8/10, 8/17, 8/24. Do not remember checking immunizations data though.

Still no increase in immunizations with the automatic or manual updater. I am still not convinced that the updater works at all.

Automatic does not seem to work as the only time I saw the new dates was after a manual! Which OS & version of S&D 2.0.# beta are you running?
Would you please explain more (or PM me) about the problems & WinSockFix? See my post about Logon Failure after I installed 2.0.5 beta

[Donald Thomson]

Uninstalled the beta, reinstalled and immunized. Patterns dropped from 182,170 to 173,335 and Firefox immunizations from 193, 3*15042 to 193, 3*14961. Automatic update followed by manual update and immunization. No change to pattern number but Firefox immunizations returned to 193, 3*15042, which they have been for weeks.

The packages (except PosOS.sbs) match on Installed and Online date, whatever that means since the dates aren't recent. None match the Released date.

PosOS.sbs has an installed date of 7/28/11 and online date of 1/21/2009.

When I did the first few manual updates today, some packages were flagged red. When I got into the manual update again, the red flagging had disappeared and did not return when a manual update was tried again.

I don't know what all this means but it doesn't look good.

My corrupted registry earlier probably had nothing to do with Spybot S&D. Of course, I ran a thorough scan and a boot scan with Avast but found nothing. Same with Spybot S&D.

[Donald Thomson]

I should have said at the beginning that I was using XP. I put in a bug report and they said it's a Beta and you aren't supposed to use it as if it was a proper release. Told me to go back to 1.6.2.

I've always regarded Beta releases as normal use releases that will have bugs that brave or foolish users should report. A change of terminology? Anyway I'm going back to 1.6.2.

[bitman]

< SNIP >

I've always regarded Beta releases as normal use releases that will have bugs that brave or foolish users should report. A change of terminology? Anyway I'm going back to 1.6.2.

The Beta terminology has been distorted by much larger organizations wishing to drive interest in their newest releases. Since they have much larger resources, they typically perform both thier Alpha and Beta phases in the background with increasingly larger test groups of 'trusted' users they've developed over time. By the time these products reach the final Public Release phase virtually all the true 'bug's have been discovered and removed, with the final Beta really closer to the Release Candidate phase with only polish and rare minimal bugs that affect small pockets of users. Since the larger organizations recognized the public interest driven by 'new' releases, they've also learned to take advantage of this buzz and so purposefully release these products as 'beta', driving huge amounts of public interest and installations.

Spybot S&D Betas have always been much more real, with significant bugs and even many product interface questions needing user input. This simply reflects the smaller organization that they are and thus the closer relationship between the developer and you the user. This also implies that the potential for danger to your system, which all products claim you need to assume during a Beta, might be higher.

With a malware removal type of security product, the potential for system damage is always high, so the danger is even more real. Thus you should always use only the release versions of the product unless instructed otherwise by that organizations own support. In other words, "Beta does not mean better".

Bitman

[drghughes]

With a malware removal type of security product, the potential for system damage is always high, so the danger is even more real. Thus you should always use only the release versions of the product unless instructed otherwise by that organizations own support. In other words, "Beta does not mean better".

But we have been asked to use the beta version - see http://forums.spybot.info/showthread...ferrerid=48204 which says:

Please help with beta-testing so Spybot-S&D 2.0 final will be rock stable.

For someone on the Spybot Advisor Team bitman, you seem to be way off message.