CyberDefender Service Call

All articles on this site are by Harry Skevington unless otherwise noted with another byline

March 3, 2008

CyberDefender Service Call
Result: A happy Valentines Day
CES is a great place to find products and services you have heard about and some you had no idea existed. CyberDefender is an Internet Security Company among other things. I have it seen mentioned for years but never really checked it out. When walking the aisles at ShowStoppers during CES I met Alan Wallace, CyberDefender Senior Vice President Corporate Communications who was kind enough to pass the word about a Valentine week special. It was a free service call for anyone who dialed their number and mentioned the word “Valentine.” Of course I totally forgot about it even though I had many issues with my 4.5 year old Dell Dimension 8400 desktop. A week prior to Valentines Day I received a reminder email from Alan about this free gift. It took me until the last day of the offer to make the call. I am very glad I did.

What did I find?
Great service, friendly support personnel, and solutions to my many problems.

What were the problems?
MMC.exe (Microsoft Management Console) would not work. This meant I could not access any of the Windows XP Services areas including Device Manager. Diskeeper and other tools that needed MMC.exe would not open. The system was very slow. I had several files that caused problems when XP was closing during restart or turn off. I had 87 running processes when I checked Task Manager and much of my 1 gig of memory was tied up running junk. Restarts often did not work after a shutdown so sometimes I had to pull the AC plug to cause a Cold boot, wait a while before plugging it back in, and start it again.

I picked up the phone and called the number 877-377-3765 to begin the day at 8:15 AM. It was answered by a friendly guy who made me feel comfortable from the start. We discussed my issues in detail.

I have never liked the idea of allowing someone to access and control my computer from outside but this experience made me more comfortable with that situation. First I had to go to a website that allowed him to take control. Then he pointed out that I could regain control by clicking and moving my mouse. I could also close out his access at anytime if I noticed he was doing anything I didn’t like.

Then he went to work. We downloaded several programs to my Dell. One was an anti-spyware program. Even though I use Ad-Aware Personal edition frequently this program found and removed many possible problem files. Then he ran an antivirus program that found one or two questionable files even though I use McAfee Security Center on the Dell. These two programs took about 2 hours so we agreed that I could call him back when activity stopped on my screen. I was able to take control of the computer and work on some articles and check e-mail. During that time he continued to work on the computer. The system was slower due to his programs running in the background. I was still able to get some work done. When I called him back we started to work on the various problems one by one. As I explained them he worked on solutions.

I must say his patience was astounding. We worked together on and off for another 4 hours. We finished at about 3:00 PM. This was a Sunday. He instructed me to use the system as I normally would and make note of any issues that came up. He gave me a job number and asked me to call him with any other problems I might see. I also received several emails that included information about what was done.

The Results:
I now have more free memory to work with. My active running processes went from 87 to 55. The system reboots as it did when new. I have no problems with MMC.exe related programs like Diskeeper and Device Manager. I guess you could say I am a happy camper.

The best part was when he called me the next morning to see how I was doing and reminded me to call if I needed anything. I have left his name out of this article as I don’t want to give the impression that he is the only guy at the other end of the phone. During the day I had to call back several times due to loss of connections at my end. His boss answered once and he was also very easy to work with. There are a number of support people available.

CyberDefender has a number of choices in its product line.

CyberDefenderFREE™ an advertiser supported version that is free to download,
CyberDefender Early Detection Center™ 2.0 at 29.99
CyberDefenderCOMPLETE™ 2008 at 59.99 with 24/7 anti-malware phone and email support and 2 gig of online storage
CyberDefenderULTIMATE™ 2008 at $99.99 with 24/7 ALL-in-One phone and email support and the 2 gig online storage. This is the one that comes with the full phone and email service I tested here. There is a 3 computer license version that costs $159.99.

The bottom line is they made me a believer. I hope you will feel the same.

For more details and comparisons with other products of a similar nature go to the CyberDefender website by clicking here.