Spybot and Carbonite

[sanfranman59]

I recently began using Carbonite to backup my precious computer files. More accurately, I've tried to get Carbonite to work on my computer. I've been back and forth with their tech support for a month now trying different things to get the darned thing to work properly. Their latest advice is to uninstall Spybot. Here's what they said:

"The program, Spybot-Search & Destroy doesn't play nice with Carbonite (and other programs). Since you have Norton and Windows security protecting your computer, may I suggest you uninstall Spybot S&D? Once you do you'll most likely see your problems with Carbonite disappear."

Is anyone out there successfully running both Carbonite and Spybot on their system? If so, did you need to do anything special to get them to "play nice"? Any thoughts or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

[drragostea]

That seems to be a problem, because they are not playing well in terms of relationship (like the marketing kind : l) not compatibility.

I do not use the Carbonite online backup feature but from prior knowledge, I can already tell you there is no incompatibility whatsoever. Spybot-Search&Destroy remains as an anti-spyware application not a virus scanner.

Can you describe what problems you are having with Carbonite? And I would like you to ask them what such "incompatibilities" are there with these two programs.

Online storage and spyware scanners are two different things. Don't really see what's wrong. And Symantec's Norton works solely (primarily) as an anti-virus scanner, now integrating some anti-spyware but it's not fully dedicated to anti-spyware yet.

Thanks.

[sanfranman59]

Carbonite simply will not initiate a backup. After tweaking some settings within Norton and the Windows firewall and several reinstalls of Carbonite, I finally got it to backup a bunch of data for me (although I think it took 5 days running night and day to backup something like 15 or 20 GB of mostly photos and music). But now the software interface is showing only 2 GB of files backed up and it shows 96 MB of files awaiting backup.

It seems possible that the Spybot-SD Resident is interfering in some way with Carbonite. So I think I'm going to do as they suggest just to see if Carbonite functions as it's supposed to. If it does, then I guess I'll need to choose between Carbonite and exposing my system to spyware intrusion.

[PepiMK]

Hmm... you don't really want to hear my opinion on companies that recommend to uninstall legit security software... :flame:
I just mailed their CEO asking for details. If there is an incompatibility, we would try to resolve it of course, and if there is not, that's slander.

You would not need to uninstall Spybot-S&D to test that - you can just disable the TeaTimer or even close it to test.

[sanfranman59]

Just to humor them, I've completely uninstalled Spybot. Not surprisingly, this alone did not change the behavior of Carbonite. My guess is that they're now going to suggest that I uninstall and reinstall Carbonite yet again (this would be the 5th time) and to do so with Norton AV and Windows Firewall disabled (they've told me that Carbonite may not properly install unless these things are disabled). Then I assume that it will once again go through the 4 or 5 day process of backing up all of my files (for the third time). Then we'll see if it functions as it's supposed to in the absence of Spybot. I have my doubts.

If you get a response from Carbonite's CEO, I'd appreciate it if you'd post it here.

[PepiMK]

The feedback I received so far was quite positive and focused. They agree that support should never recommend to uninstall permanently, only disable or take temporary actions. I'm waiting for details on their startup entries now to see if we can do some more whitelisting to ensure that no problems are possible if the user clicks the wrong way in TeaTimer.

[sanfranman59]

Thanks for the update. The Carbonite technical support person I've been dealing with seems pretty convinced that their product doesn't function well with yours, so I've not yet reinstalled Spybot. The other day, they finally sent me a fix file that seems to have worked (based on the log file it generated, it apparently repaired 3 files). Since then (knock on wood), Carbonite has been functioning as advertised. My plan is to give it a few more days and assuming that it's still functioning properly, I'll first re-enable my Windows firewall (which they had me disable) and then reinstall my spyware protection. Hopefully everything will get along after that. It's now been 6 weeks that I've been trying to get Carbonite to work on my system. It stopped functioning immediately after I paid for a 1-year subscription following my free 15-day trial. I've had two or three email exchanges each week with their technical support since then (it usually takes them 2 or 3 days to respond to each email I send). What a hassle! If I hadn't forked over the $50, I'd have given up long ago.

[paultru3]

I recently got a message from Carbonite that said I needed to disable the resident teatimer due to compatibility issues. So, I've relectunatly done this. I've had carbonite for almost a year now and have generally been happy with it. Is there anything I can do?
Thanks!
Paul

[raysooch]

So last night I also tried to install Carbonite and discovered the alleged problem with Spybot. So after 2 years (the original post on this site for this issue), the issue remains. I have decided to de-install Carbonite as I will not remove a product (Spybot) that has served me well for years to remove unwanted crap from my machine. I am not even going to give them a second chance as I don't have days and weeks to spend with help desks to resolve. The good news is that there are alternatives to Carbonite.

[paultru3]

What are some good Carbonite alternatives?