Ease of Setup/Use:  

Spyware Doctor's main screen and controls are well-designed, allowing easy navigation. We found features including  Scanning, Immunization, and Active Protection with little effort.

Detection Effectiveness:  

We found Spyware Doctor fairly effective at detecting spyware, detecting most of the spyware and adware we used to challenge the program. If it had detected more of our samples, we would have ranked it higher. Even so, Spyware Doctor does an above-average job removing spyware and the like.

Removal Effectiveness:  

In the ever evolving world of spyware detection and removal, Spyware Doctor removed nearly everything we threw at it without rendering our computer useless by taking up resources. Spyware Doctor is also one of the best at preventing spyware and malware from being installed in the first place.

System Performance:  

Spyware Doctor does require a little more power to run effectively. In our experience, systems with less than 1 GB of memory will show a noticeable performance decrease. 

Scan Performance:  

Scans were relatively quick, but not as fast as that of our top two products. It's a good idea to use their scheduler and run your scans when you don't need to use the computer.

Support/Documentation:  

PC Tools offers a few different support options for Spyware Doctor including a built-in help application, email support and a FAQs page on their website.

Spyware Doctor by PC Tools is a good product for detecting spyware and adware. The program is intuitively designed, but could use more features to increase its convenience and usefulness. Even so, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more easy to use program that's so affordable.