SniperSpy – The Full Review!
WE NO LONGER RECOMMEND SNIPERSPY.
It will now notify anyone using the computer that it is being monitored, with no option to remove. Please check out KeyProwler for a better alternative.
Catching your spouse or monitoring someone is by far the hottest topic on my blog. When people ask me what the best PC spy software is, I almost always recommend SniperSpy. I used it successfully 6 months ago and it is amazingly effective for stealthy remote monitoring. Many people have asked me specific questions about SniperSpy in which I wasn’t entirely sure, so I decided I should do a complete review! I will run down exactly how to use it to catch a cheater and whether it is the right choice for you.
SniperSpy has some very unique features that give it huge appeal to curious investigators like yourself. One of these features is that it installs silently, hides itself from being detected, and shows no indication that the computer is being monitored. This makes it the most stealthy spy software of any I have seen.
Stealthier.. how?
In the US, computer monitoring laws are gradually putting pressure on spy software companies to make it harder to to monitor a person without their permission. Many other spy software have been forced to add alerts and messages that indicate the computer is being monitored, but not SniperSpy. They want their software to be as useful and functional as it should be, and leave it up to the customer to not misuse it. Computer monitoring law is still very unclear on subjects like whether you can monitor a computer you own without the person’s consent, but if you’re going into divorce court and you have proof of cheating because of SniperSpy, the judge is not interested in whether the information was obtained within the law – it is concrete evidence of infidelity. My point is most spy software companies have bowed under the pressure, but SniperSpy has simply moved their company overseas and kept their software stealthy.
How it works
SniperSpy creates a program they call a “module” that, when ran on a computer, will monitor that computer and upload the information to SniperSpy’s website for your viewing. Deployment is an essential step and basically involves getting the person to run the module on their computer. The most common way this is done is via email or sent via instant message from you along with a convincing reason to run the file on their computer, for example “this will make your computer faster” or “there is a new virus out and the program will prevent it”, etc. As soon as the module is executed on a computer, it immediately begins logging and uploading information. You can then simply login to your SniperSpy account from anywhere in the world to view the activity. SniperSpy even has a “live control” feature that will allow you to view the computer’s files, shutdown the computer, and other cool features.
The module is super fast to create and takes about 1 minute. I made a slideshow of that process below!
no images were found
Effectiveness
Ok, so how effective is SniperSpy? Once you’ve got the module executed on the target machine, it begins logging keystrokes, websites visited, internet searches, file changes, instant message chats, and taking screenshots of computer activity. I decided to install the module locally on my laptop which my girlfriend often uses. After monitoring the computer for a few days, I logged into the control panel to see what activity had occured. The first thing I noticed was that the control panel was very sluggish, taking around 10 seconds everytime I wanted to look at something different. While this was annoying, it really didn’t affect the information that had been logged. A number of websites had been visited such as myspace.com, tmz.com, hotmail.com, and I could see every key that was pressed while on those sites (including passwords entered). I then browsed over to the screenshot logs. A screenshot had been taken every 5 minutes (300 seconds), but none of the screenshots had a screenshot of her logged into myspace. I realized that every 5 minutes is too long of a time to capture myspace messages or emails that get read and then deleted, so I changed the capture interval to 10 seconds. In a single day, this maxed out the 100 screenshot limit, so you will either need to upgrade your screenshot limit or do what I did – look at the screenshot logs soon after she had checked her email/myspace. After that, there was nothing I couldn’t find out.
After a week of testing, I only noticed a few problems.
–Sometimes the keyboard input will “lag” producing a 1 second delay in the action desired from your keyboard. Basically, gaming sessions or typing long essays can be slightly annoying to the person being monitored. I tested this on two different computers and same problem – it is probably just a bug that will be fixed later. (fixed in latest version 7.0)
–The online control panel website was pretty slow when I tested, taking up to a minute to communicate with the monitored computer for some operations. Annoying, but probably because they have so many logs on the server. (fixed… extremely fast now)
-Module is detected by some virus scanners, but not the big names Norton and McAfee used by 90% of users. I also had no problem emailing it via Hotmail, Yahoo, and Gmail as an attachment. Here are the results of the virus scan 4/24 (16% detection rate):
If you are trying to convince someone to run the module and their computer has a virus scanner or firewall, you might want to give them a reason to turn those off and then run the module you sent them. Just say it’s an important windows patch for your computer ;).
Overall, SniperSpy is a very usefull product and absolutely perfect for monitoring a computer you don’t have physical access to. The online control panel makes it ultra portable requiring no install, extremely stealthy, and at $79 it’s a steal.
Grade: A-
www.Sniper-Spy.net
[stextbox id=”warning” caption=”Coupon Code”]
Retina-X (the company behind SniperSpy) has provided us an exclusive coupon that will save you 25% off your purchase of SniperSpy!
Enter “HYL25” when it asks for a coupon code.
[/stextbox]
They now require you sign and agreement that you wont track anyone but child or employees and will start notifying the user of monitored computer that they are being monitored! They gave a notice by email yesterday and gave 24 hours to uninstall and reinstall for it to change. If you log in the site you have to click accept or you don’t get on the site to check records!! They will NOT give any refunds! This is not what I purchased anymore!!
Yes, i just found out about this as well. I will be removing all recommendations of SniperSpy and their other products due to this, as it completely negates the point of SPYING.
Just realizing that it all relies on them trusting you to download something they have no clue about. And honestly they would delete it almost immediately after they are convinced it isn’t doing shit. The major flaw in your sell is that we are here because of distrust and the ones we are hacking wouldn’t trust us when we convince them to download some random link. I am not convinced by this program and I sure as hell am not gunna pay $80 dollars just to have it deleted/not working the next day.
So what your saying is that if the module is opened
remotely on a ipad it will not install?
Google chrome warns that a program is about to be installed and gives the option of stopping it, no matter what I do. I have not been able to send via email as a zipped file, because gmail, hotmail, etc, detect the exe file and fail to send it. I put the file on a web site with a convincing reason to open it, but again, google chrome intervenes, whether zipped or not. Any suggestions?
yes, i had that problem too.. also.. i just could check his work for one day. and then it is not working. disappointed.. :((
Hi, i bought this is check on my under aged kid (bcos he had a suicidal issue ) who lives in another country. but i did what exactly you have mentioned, and it worked well , but it only worked one day. second day, i didnt get any logs, and never again. do u know any reason for that?
can it be becaos of a virus cleanup???
Will sniperspy work on the user account if you install it via a guest account on the remote computer, or will it only be able to track the guest account?
Interesting that all of the most important issues raised in the questions above remain unanswered….
I have answered and replied to all questions I thought were important and not already answered. Did you have something specific in mind?