It seems these days that everyone has an anti-spyware program on the internet. And some are even worth the download for the work they do to sniff out and eradicate the malware on your machine. As the security conscious internet user I am, I have a typical arsenal including Spybot, AdAware, Windows Defender, HijackThis, and ZoneAlarm. So naturally I was curious about the All Seeing Eye, a self-proclaimed way to avoid the “confusion and extra work for users to be able to monitor all necessary aspects of their computers.” I’ve never felt that a monthly double-click to run AdAware was confusing and extra, but hey, to each their own.
Spyware programs are created for one job only. To search your system for spyware based on a database that needs constant updating. But what if an application constantly monitored your system for any out of the ordinary changes? The All Seeing Eye attempts to do just that. After some training, the program supposedly runs silently in the background until it finds something you should know. Could ASE really be so helpful?
Installation was fast and easy. It does not install any unnecessary icons, just an entry in your program menu. When you boot it up for the first time, you see two messages and ASE will “open its eye” so to speak by turning on all of its guards and trackers. ASE took about 15 seconds to prepare itself the first time.
ASE uses a dozen separate tools to keep watch over your system. It has trackers for your Processes, DLLs, Drivers and Event Log. The Guards cover Autostart, Services/Drivers, ActiveX Objects, Browser Helper Objects, Winsock Layered Service Providers, the Host File, your File System and the Registry.
I installed the program on April 17th, to give it 10 days to acclimate to my computer. ASE’s creators claim: “After only a couple of days, there will practically be no alerts at all, as long as nothing suspicious is going on.” I hoped this was the case, because the program was very annoying at first. Especially with programs that rely heavily on DLLs. You can try to open all of your frequently used programs, and reboot to authenticate all start up processes, but to be frank, no amount of preparation will halt the coming storm.
ASE uses three types of alerts to ‘help’ you monitor your system. These alerts are color-coded so you know which need immediate attention and which need immediate attention. Since every type of alert tells you what happened in your system and prompts you for action, I could never decide why it had different kinds. But to be thorough; Surveillance Alerts are red, Surveillance Warnings are yellow and Surveillance Notifications are blue.
I did come across a annoyance difference between the alerts and notifications. You can choose the default action (authenticate DLL) for alerts, but you have to open the drop down box and choose “Ignore this event type” for notifications. If you simply click “OK” on the notifications, the default is “Continue to show this alert”. Being forced to click “OK” 20 times every time you boot up is a hassle to say the least. Also keep in mind that all installations and uninstalls will need to be authenticated. For your convenience, the notices will open during the install process, right on top of any other dialogue boxes. Because, if security is not in-your-face, how will you know its working?
So here we are well over a week later, longer then the “couple of days” and I have concluded that ASE is really just a clever way to drive me insane. The notifications have not slowed down in the least, especially because of the frequent downloading and installations I make as the FreewareFrenzy author. If I haven’t made it clear to you yet, avoid the All Seeing Eye. I suppose the old adage is true: what sounds too good to be true, probably is. I wanted to like this program; I thought the training process would be a minor hindrance, such as the occasional popup I get from Zone Alarm. But boy was I wrong. After writing this review, I eagerly opened Add/Remove Programs and a sudden joy came over me as I watched the program disappear from my system.
As I always do, I am including the URL for this program: http://www.fortego.com/en/ase.html
Downloader Beware!
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