The end of Spybot.

[Steve Staubach]

Dear friends and developers of Spybot, I have always been fond of your utility and as a PC Reclamation and Networking Technician, and you will be missed. I would like to say that up until your sudden shift in business strategy, I toted your name and encouraged donations from every personal client I met, and even some people when I worked for IBM and DELL as a Field Service Technician as I preformed virus removals and registry restructuring.

It seems that your spirit of free marketing and non-profit antivirus solutions for the masses, has died. A short burst of cash from your current stature, will eventually lead to your inevitable downfall and destruction. Any technician worth his salt understands that there are a plethora of other free anti-virus solutions, even if its doing things the old-fashioned way.. A companies network and security structure, even down to a small business is not made up of executives willing to spend money. They will find one or several computer technicians to find a solution for them, and they (we) will pursue the most affordable option even if its not the "best", especially in this economy.

Your companies removal of its primary antivirus function in the free edition will lose you favor in the eyes of technicians, not because you don't have a wonderful product that has a history of efficiency and a long standing record of success (which I can vouch for), but because there are so many OTHER free (working) solutions, that your product falls short of when finances come into play. I started my personal business as a street technician, and preformed a full hardware diagnostic and virus removal for $20 to put food on my plate. Now, I'm not alone. The costs of removals and repairs in commercial are comparable to buying a BRAND NEW PC. The field of professional technicians who are capable of password removals, data recovery, solder rework and yes, even virus removal has all but dried up in this desert of an economy. My point is this: If I offered a virus removal for $40 (a little under what most local tech shops offer, which is 60-80 due to their labor and building slot costs) and I have to pay $50 for ONE copy of Spybot with antivirus, not only am I losing money? I am wasting time. My time. My clients time. And that is not a real figure. The reality is, A company, tech shop, refurbishing warehouse or home user will find the free solutions instead of purchasing ANY product, and that is the bottom-line.

Farewell old friend, and enjoy the coinage while it lasts. As of today I am permanently removing you from my toolkit.

[Steve Staubach]

Naturally as a technician, I cant complain about a problem without offering a solution.

I support Spybot and its community wholeheartedly, and I want nothing more than to see your continued success? and return to glory.

Lets talk money. Right now as I mentioned in my previous post, The cost of effective antivirus solution for your largest clientele (technicians) disappeared with the removal of your AV and AM solutions. Evaporated. You want to go big, we get it. You want to be successful, we know. We are sympathetic to the economic situations of both the staff of Spybot and our own clientele. But you need to consider how the AV industry has operated over the last decade, and use some solid business sense. you cant just label your product with a couple prices and throw a couple discounts at it expecting everyone and their uncle to pay for it.

Lets look at Business models. Specifically, Norton, Symantec and McAfee (for now). Successful? Yes. Useful? No. (duh.). But they obtained success through marketing to vendors and sheer advertisement after the earth fell from under their feet. They have a crappy product nobody wants, and chances are that the full education of the people at large will eventually spell their doom, no matter how many commercials, ad's, or pre installs they have on store-bought machines. Everyone sees the end coming for them. Even them.

Now lets look at the leading products on the market, your new competitors AVG, SAS, and Webroot. Avg has let the ball drop, but they have been largely successful in controlling the market in the past before they decided to omit certain features of their program from the free market (which is why they are dying now.). SAS Hot stuff right now, they are currently the favorite of new technicians for end user environments, and home users. They are the ones that are eating your market value like Cookie Monster in the land of Kebler Elves, as of your 2.0 revision. Now well look at our corporate powerhouse and long standing giant in business class environments, Webroot. They own the corporate market, in the same way symantec did. Completely. They have full adaptability not only windows, but mac, and certain linux distributions as well, and can be found on virtually any device to date, including smartphones and tablets, with a powerful and long standing history of success due to their product (comparable to the effectiveness of your anti-malware software in windows environments).

Every one of these businesses started from the bottom as a free product. Most of the more successful ones? Still offer free solutions to home users. AVG is known to have fallen short VS. Rootkits. symantec and norton have horrible, virtually non-existant antivirus protection and even slow computers down to the point that they actually emulate the effects of a virus! They are all still in business. Webroot has recently and suddenly died in the end user environment virtually overnight, because they decided to sell their product to specific vendors, and charge a fee to general users who don't use the proprietary systems that offer it for free. They did this knowing that they would gain a slight boost in short term profit from the vendors they sold to for free service because they already HAVE the corporate environment under lock and key for a long term solution and a fallback. And they will probably have it for a long time.

Spybot is a program that has no history of supporting large networks or corporate environments that I have ever heard of, and your largest clientele are more experienced technicians and personal computer owners. Almost entirely. Now the reason that the other more shoddy AV like Norton and McAfee are alive today? Are because their free. You can try to shut out the market and attempt to take territory from Webroot, but in all honesty? You have no compatability with other operating systems, network support on an OSPF on MPLS, or any kind of multi device environment like most major businesses have today. You probably will not succeed, because Webroot already supports windows 8 fully on corporate class networks, and your still struggling to have it run effectively on 8. They have entire teams of paid developers and open source contributors from all over the world, and you just don't have the resources to match that at this time. Maybe ever. What you DO have, is SMALL business and PRIVATE business support, and (for now) the support of technicians in many reclamation warehouses (like the one I worked in) or shops.

So touching back to the previous post, offering improved solutions and complete web protection and etc on a paid model is a GREAT idea. But if you take away the full function of your AV and AM away from your free addition? your just going to be replaced by something like SAS. The bottom line is that you cant afford to sacrifice the end-user market, because in the end you don't have anything to fall back on. Small and private businesses are DYING in this economy. There bean eaten by companies like Apple, IBM, Dell, Sun, Dish, etc.. And with the tax breaks on outsourcing to other countries, no small business will ever be able to beat or match their models, because they sell products then less then it costs to produce in the states. Your left with SaS, which is slightly (and ONLY slightly) inferior to your product, and they offer their AV for FREE. If you cant match that? You are going to pass by the wayside.

Popularity. For lack of a better word, the owning of assets. Whoever controls the market, controls the profit. If people stop using you? you die. Word of mouth is your strongest asset; In fact webroot was free until they had the resources to develop into a more flexible and corporate environment. AVG was free, and it was good until they omitted certain features of their AV in the free edition, and plummeted to its death. If you want the opportunity to own the market? Offer your full antivirus, antimalware and immunization for free, and use the additional products you have developed in a more expensive version. you can even offer a ghosting version to companies for a price, web protection etc. But if you don't want to be dropped like an old hat, you need to be made to understand that free AV is the only thing that kept you alive all this time, and sacrificing it will be destroying your largest asset. Cause SaS is already in with the new kids and you Barely offer a better AV. If old techs come back to you and your pay only? Your entire product value will disappear overnight and you will just be another dead AV who's updates ended in 2014.

[jefffranklin88]

Steve you got it going on, I couldn't have said it better myself. I fully agree with everything you have stated. I truly hope they listen as I have been a fan of Spybot for years and hate to see it go.

[Draon]

I have to agree with you Steve. As a technician I've recommended Spybot S&D for years and considered it mandatory for any new machine.
However after recently setting up a home micro-server and going through the motions, I've actually removed it. It's really sad to see a company which once provided a top class product go the same direction as Realplayer.

The application is now nothing but a shell of its former self.

Disappointed long term user.

[caogdin]

The "Technician" Edition, insofar as I can tell, has been developed by a middle-school team of students.

You're now charging competitive rates, with pathetic customer service.

I've bought a product which, in the latest version has 1) an uninstallable service (forgot to include it in the code?), 2) an utter lack of documentation, and 3) even though I've paid for a Technician's Edition, it still shows "Free Edition" and keeps displaying Donation requests.

If I don't see a stable, reliable and useful product in the next couple of WEEKS, I'll have to ask for my money back. Given that many of these complaints go back to last year, I am not sanguine about the likelihood you'll be able to solve the products' many problems.

I applaud you for turning Spybot into a venture from which you can make a living. But, your experience in dealing with customers and their needs, in pricing your products, and in product documentation makes it clear you're in desperate need of some experienced, adult business management!

--Carol Anne

[motenis]

The "Technician" Edition, insofar as I can tell, has been developed by a middle-school team of students.

You're now charging competitive rates, with pathetic customer service.

I've bought a product which, in the latest version has 1) an uninstallable service (forgot to include it in the code?), 2) an utter lack of documentation, and 3) even though I've paid for a Technician's Edition, it still shows "Free Edition" and keeps displaying Donation requests.

If I don't see a stable, reliable and useful product in the next couple of WEEKS, I'll have to ask for my money back. Given that many of these complaints go back to last year, I am not sanguine about the likelihood you'll be able to solve the products' many problems.

I applaud you for turning Spybot into a venture from which you can make a living. But, your experience in dealing with customers and their needs, in pricing your products, and in product documentation makes it clear you're in desperate need of some experienced, adult business management!

--Carol Anne

Interesting thread, started in 2013. I read the reply to Steve's early post from a Spybot team member and what impressed me was that Safer Networking had done their own search of the available AV services and licensed the best they found. I trust their judgement. I have been donating for many years because I am independent myself and I want to support non-multinational entrepreneurial endeavors that have the public welfare in mind in everything they do. GOOD JOB Safer Networking Ltd!! Les Walker

[Melchior]

I have to agree with you Steve. As a technician I've recommended Spybot S&D for years and considered it mandatory for any new machine.
However after recently setting up a home micro-server and going through the motions, I've actually removed it. It's really sad to see a company which once provided a top class product go the same direction as Realplayer.

The application is now nothing but a shell of its former self.

Disappointed long term user.

I feel the same way... I use Spybot S&D (v1.6.2.46) I know where everything is ;^_^; the UI is simple and straight forward and I always have it in advanced mode, I HAVE ALWAYS RECOMMENDED/installed TO ANYONE's PC that I have worked on or tweaked and/or cleaned up ;^_^;

when a doantion came to me after my bicycle accident(August 2010) in late 2010.. I gave Spybot a small donation ;..D

I wish the the safer-networking team better times and my thx for a tool that has help me save the lives of my PCidians loi ;D

I still use it and check every Wednesday for updates ;^_^

[JimSheba]

Steve,
First of all the original Spybot that you have been using for years is still available.
Their new version which you're complaining about has additional features that you never had in the past anyway.
The developers at spybot also have families and mouths to feed and up till now they have been busting their butts and only asking for small hand-outs.
Instead of you paying $$ why not suggest to the people whose computers you are repairing, to buy a Home version of Spybot. It's less than $15 and you can tell
them that they won't have to call you back again. Of course you probably wouldn't like this idea as it means $$ out of your pocket.
Give these guys a break, they work hard, and are not asking for much in return.
Also you, as a technician you should have portable copies of security software that you can carry around, on a CD or USB.
Jim.
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownloa...ad-178289.html

[Steve Staubach]

Licensed Windows 7 OS x64
1 Black hat Bomb (custom) 400 Viruses + 1 SW rootkit / Hook entry 1 HW rootkit / Reinstaller

Ran 2.0 First in Administrator:

72 Tracker 0 Trojans 0 Adware 0 PUPS 0 Malware 0 Hijackers 0 Browser 0 Rootkit? Entries.

72 Issues Fixed Immediately

Ran 1.6.2 in Administrator:

72 Tracker 3 Trojans 210 Adware 69 PUPS 5 Malware 22 Hijackers 1 Browser 0 Rootkit? Entries.

338 Problems Fixed Immediately
44 Problems Fixed After Restart


This is indicative that 2.0+ no longer supports antivirus or malware protection and only supports spyware removal. It is logicical to assume that definition updates for 1.6.2 have ceased, due to the missed 18 viruses. This is a controlled test from a live and current V bomb. Sources are certain members of the white hat community and certain black hat cooperatives that provided the bomb on the condition that the full project details and log file were reported back to them. (they were also provided to the white hat community as anon ^^)

[Steve Staubach]

The History of ratings since around 2004 on file forum. Notice the sudden drop of ratings (1-2 Stars) since 2.0 was introduced as a pay-only platform for its AV and AM function.
http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail...y/1043809773/1

Softpedia 1 review, 1 Star.
http://www.softpedia.com/progViewOpi...e-178289,.html

PC Mag review 1.5 stars, all time low for Spybot, backed by customer reviews(v2.0)
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2412372,00.asp

I hope I have spent enough time writing these articles to convince you to change your business strategy. I want you to understand that I am committed to this project, and there are a lot of people out there besides me that want to see your team and assets succeed. Bring back the spybot we knew and loved, and forget this pipe dream of a perfect world where everyone buys good products, cause in reality? Your Pro version is probably just going to get cracked, modded and then put up for download on the pirate bay. THAT is reality. You need the support of the population if you want to make any profit, and we are ready to help use you and share you among our clientele if you are willing to maintain your status as primarily freeware.

If anyone else would like to share their thoughts or opinions, please feel free to comment. Keep it constructive, positive and proactive please!