About us

About Team Spybot & Safer-Networking

In 1999, while still an Applied Computer Sciences student, Patrick Kolla-ten Venne’s computer became infected by malware. In those days there was nothing available to get rid of the infection so he wrote a piece of software that automated the removal process – the very first Spybot.

The Computer Press published a question Patrick had about this special malware. Soon Patrick was getting requests from readers for his software. It was then called Spybot – Search & Destroy and made available to the public. During the first years of this century a community of people called Team Spybot started to work on this project. Their communication platform was and still is a forum. They searched for new threats, analyzed malware, translated the software and the website to more than 40 languages and helped others with problems in this field.

To provide a robust infrastructure to distribute the software the company Safer-Networking was formed. In the following years the demand for complete security solutions grew, so nowadays Anti-Virus is also available with Spybot. Along with this trend the necessity to protect user’s privacy leads to new tools, like the Anti-Beacon.

Mission & Vision Statement

First and foremost Team Spybot believes in the individual’s right to privacy in the Digital Age. This is what drives us to produce software and not the commercial interests of investors.