Stay away from CyberDefender!!

Posted on: October 11th, 2008

CyberDefender is a controversial antivirus/antispyware software. It has been heavily advertised lately. To my astonishment, I found their paid advertisements on two of the download websites that I’ve trusted. A client who inadvertently clicked on their ad brought my attention to this software.
Here are some facts about CyberDefender.

Once CyberDefender (CD) is downloaded and installed it comes up with a screen showing numerous “problems” with the computer. This is a scare tactic used by many fake security softwares. CD’s finding is more of an exagaration than a true fact. I can say that because I worked on a computer that had CD on it and found it perfectly healthy. These so-called “problems” then can only be handled if you buy the full version.

Also if you simply uninstall CD their toolbar will still remain on your computer – it does not clean itself out as any reputable software supposed to do. I also found that it stores its program files in an obscure location and not in the \program files\ folder as any other regular software. This is another suspicious behavior. Besides this aspect, CD does not infect the computer with trojans, like many fake antivirus does. However for a regular computer user it’s hard to get CD off their computers completely.

I’ve found mentions of CD pushing advertisement on the computer, even using their paid version. It was a 2007 article so it might not be true anymore. Looking at user reviews about this software, I saw widely differing opinions ranging from high praise to angry note about being ripped off.

At any rate, this software is not a top performer by any comparative review I could find on antivirus or antispyware software. So it’d be definitely a waste to pay $30-$40 for CyberDefender.

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