PestPatrol, Version 4.0

PestPatrol, Version 4.0

These days almost everyone knows to be wary of e-mail carrying a harmful virus. What many might not know is when you are online, there are other things to be aware of that can damage your computer, expose your data and even cripple your network.

Trojans, hacker tools, spyware and password crackers are just a few of the threats your office is exposed to every time one of your computers is online.

PestPatrol comes in two flavors — Corporate and Home Edition. The Home Edition is for individual computers at a price of $29.95. The Corporate Edition is for use in a network environment of more than one computer and has more features than the Home Edition, such as CookiePatrol, which runs in the background, silently catching and deleting unwanted cookies that are secretly placed on your computer from various Web sites (I was amazed at all the cookies that were being placed on my hard drive without my knowledge).

The Corporate Edition protects your server and can scan your workstations, which I found to be a big timesaver. It also can plug into MailMarshal software and Check Point VPN Solutions. The price for the Corporate Edition starts at a five-user license for $127.50.

There is a trial version of both the Home and Corporate editions on the PestPatrol Web site you can download and use before shelling out the money. It will find all of your hidden pests but will not get rid of the pests until you license the product.

Tech support is available online 24 hours a day, seven days a week at PestPatrol’s Web site. Unfortunately, there is no phone number to call for live tech support, so it’s a good thing the site is chock-full of goodies, such as white papers and “How to” information, as well as a user forum.

I found the program easy to install. Once installed, I did have a problem getting the program set up properly, but after finding the setup documentation on their Web site, I was able to get it up and running quickly.

When you start the program, you have several options available in the control panel, such as choosing what to look for and which drives (and in the Corporate Edition which workstations) to scan. The logs are saved for viewing at any time, or you have the option to send the logs to PestPatrol’s research team.

The first time I ran a complete scan on my server I was amazed at everything that was found.

Fortunately, it was nothing serious, but nonetheless there were many pests that I would rather not have on my machines. I then ran the program on my husband’s laptop (an expert surfer) and many pests were found and deleted.
The program shows you the pests found, information about the pest, file information, a link for more information, and a recommendation as to what the course of action should be.

You have the final decision of whether to leave alone, delete or quarantine the pest. This is a good thing, because one of the pests found on my computer was the GoToMyPC program that runs in the background of my server, which I would not have wanted to be deleted automatically.

The program doesn’t scan for pests automatically; it’s launched either by manual scanning or by creating a task to automatically start up a scan via Microsoft Scheduler.

What does run automatically (in the Corporate Edition) is MemCheck and CookiePatrol.

MemCheck checks all programs that start (you would be surprised at what you have running in the background) and will make sure no pests are involved.

CookiePatrol will make sure you are not receiving any spyware cookies. I could not believe all the spyware cookies that had been detected and deleted. I thought I practiced safe surfing, but PestPatrol showed me otherwise.

After using PestPatrol, I don’t know how I got along without it.

It’s a valuable addition to your virus protection and firewall from intruders. I would definitely go with the Corporate Version if you have more than one computer to protect.

PestPatrol Inc.
(717) 243-6588
www.pestpatrol.com

Price: $29.95 for Home User Edition; Corporate Edition starts at five-user license for $127.50
Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP

Reviewed by Sheryl Cramer, a legal technology consultant and legal office manager at Cramer Law Firm in Lawton, Okla.

Feb/Mar '03 Issue

PROS
It will find all the hidden pests you didn’t know were on your computer and get rid of them.

CONS
A little difficult to set up right out of the box without reading the Help file.

VERDICT
I would not be caught without three things on my laptop: virus protection, a firewall and PestPatrol. I highly recommend it.