AceSpy and its sister products AceSpy Mac, SniperSpy and NetSpy Pro are designed to keep tabs on what your family, friends and employees are doing on their computers. The feature list is pretty comprehensive, placing the software in a middle-of-the-range position. However the makers of AceSpy, Retina-X, could easily improve in a few areas to instil greater confidence in consumers and boost the software's overall rankings.

So how does AceSpy stack up against our Activity Monitor buyers guide criteria?

Type of activities recorded

AceSpy covers all the basic and more. By default it will monitor everything that occurs on the target computer from emails to IM conversations and web browsing activity. The software can act as a keylogger that records activity in text format, it can take snapshot images of the desktop or it can even record activity as a movie that can be replayed.

You can selectively block access to certain websites at pre-determined times of the day - a very useful feature when children are in the house.

As a unique bonus, the software also allows you to record what is happening in your house via a webcam, secretly recording goings on off them computer.

Remote monitoring

Log files can be automatically emailed to you, but to view other activity content you must access the software on the machine. AceSpy is not a remote activity monitor.

Stealth mode

AceSpy runs in complete stealth mode on the target PC and does not show in the Task Manager, System Tray, Add/Remove Programs or Active Process List.

Multiple licenses for business

Retina-X provide a dedicated business software called Net Spy Pro that is designed for networked environments. AceSpy can be used to protect multiple computers in the home or small business, with each additional licence costing the same price.

Help and support
This is where we found Retina-X to be lacking. The company website is slow and often contains broken links (at the time of writing the Buy Now page was full of broken image links). This does not instil confidence in the vendor. We have hear reports of very slow or ignored requests for help and assistance too.

The software itself seems feature rich and well made. If Retina-X could just smarten up their website and after sales support we would likely see AceSpy as more of a contender in the Monitoring category. For now however products such as PC Pandora and WebWatcher have little to fear from this particular competitor.