Webroot has begun offering their Spysweeper antispyware product free for one year. Sounds like a great deal, right? A couple of years ago, we would have whole heartedly agreed. Spysweeper was once a darling. Effortlessly removing infections like Nail, and Aurora when manual removal efforts required much more effort.

However, Spysweeper hasn’t kept pace with recent infections, and we rarely recommend it. It’s mostly irrelevant these days. Even worse they’ve chosen to install the Ask! toolbar by default. While this leads to more revenue for them, it potentially leads to less privacy for its users.

If you’re old enough to remember Happy Days you may know where the term “Jumping the Shark” comes from. Just as Fonzie jumps the shark to try and revive ratings, in my opinion Spysweeper is jumping the shark by offering a free year trial to revive its flagging Spysweeper product. Too bad they didn’t chose to improve it instead.