I used to use Spybot and I knew what to do

[bgranat]

I used to use Spybot and I knew what to do because it was obvious -- you clicked something, and something else happened. When the scan was done, you were told in plain English what was going on. I stopped using Spybot for a few years, and I recently downloaded Spybot 2.4 and donated a small sum to support the free edition.

Concerns:

1. I am finally getting around to using the program, but I cannot find anything that tells me what I have to do or what the program is doing on its own.

2. I ran a scan manually, but the results look different than the old display, and I don't know what to do about each item.

3. I don't know anything about how the program works and can find nothing on my level of understanding (basic computer user).

4. As mentioned above -- I don't know if the program is constantly scanning or what.

Can someone point me to answers or shed any light on the above for me? If so, I would greatly appreciate it.

Is this program for people who know a lot about computers? Was I wrong to download it? Should I stop using it?

[Zenobia]

There's a first steps tutorial here:
http://www.safer-networking.org/supp...teps-tutorial/
(You can ignore the part about sdhelper,that is no longer part of the program.)
There's a How-to section here:
http://www.safer-networking.org/support/how-tos/
Also,at the top of Spybot start center,you can click Help,then Spybot Help,which covers a lot,too.

4. As mentioned above -- I don't know if the program is constantly scanning or what.

There's a comparison page,with checks so that you can see what your version does.If you want to know more,the links are clickable:
http://www.safer-networking.org/private/compare/

2. I ran a scan manually, but the results look different than the old display, and I don't know what to do about each item.

My first two paragraphs here tell how to find out more about the results:
http://forums.spybot.info/showthread...l=1#post458816

Is this program for people who know a lot about computers? Was I wrong to download it? Should I stop using it?

I think sometimes people are kind of shocked when they see the newer version,and it makes them nervous because the 1.6.2 and below versions followed such a similar format for so long,and everything in the newer versions looks so different.But no,I wouldn't say it's for people who know a lot about computers.It's just quite different looking than the old ones,and takes some getting used to.No need to stop using it,it's quite simple once you know where everything is.Whenever a new version is released,I usually just go through and look at stuff,and look up what it does in the help file or the website.
That being said,the Spybot 1.6.2 version is still available if you ever decide you'd like to go back to the old version.It's under other downloads:
http://www.safer-networking.org/dl/