Scare Tactics Now?

Ascentive, do you think I’m completely stupid? Comments to this blog must be approved by me before they’re posted. Did you honestly think I’d approve that little piece of irrelevant drivel?

Again, since I’ve not posted my full name to this blog, and since the folks at Ascentive have managed to track me down, the so-called comment that was submitted most likely came from someone there. If you think that trying to “expose” me to the world will intimidate me, you are very, very mistaken. Your comment wound up in the spam trap here, so, nice try, but it won’t work.

The things you tried to post are irrelevant to this topic. Your attempt to “expose” me is simply an indication of the kind of tactics that your company employs. For the rest of the readers of this blog, I’d like to post some links – just a few – to other sites that have discussed Ascentive, FinallyFast.com, and the products they sell:

The Blade
Workbench
Tech Support Guy
Whirlpool Forums
Web Of Trust

* I apologize to the sites above – I fear that Ascentive may come after them now.

I have many, many more, but you get the point.

So, Ascentive, do you see? No one has to take my word for it – I did my homework before posting my horrible comments about your bogus product. I even tested your product, as did several other sites that I visited.

If you think that threatening to “expose” me will scare me into backing off, you are quite mistaken. I was quite content when I made my first post about you to simply leave it at that, and move on. Now, though, I will make it my mission to post as much negative information about your company as I can, in every venue that I have occasion to visit on the web. Negative, factual information. You see, it is factual that your product is useless, that it infects customers machines with viruses, spyware, malware and adware, and that the things that it does do to improve performance are easily done by any user with even a minimum level of technical skills. Those are facts that you cannot escape, because they have been documented by many other sources, not just by me.

We can continue is this little game that you seem intent on playing with me, or you can just drop it, and move on. It really makes no difference to me.

Read Full Post »

Well, I Guess They Can Be Fast!

A small update to my last post:

I believe that I may have upset someone. I received a phone call a little while ago, which I was not here to take. The caller placed three calls, one without leaving a message, a second call in which the caller did leave a message, and a third which again had no message. Apparently, someone has read this post, and they’re upset with me. The message that was left says:

Hello, Stephen, my name is Elizabeth, and I was just on your web site, and was calling for more information. So if you could give me a call back, my number is ###-###-####. Thanks.

The number given in the message is not the number that appeared on my caller ID screen; however, the number on the screen is listed as belonging to Ascentive Software, 201 Spring Garden St., Philadelphia, PA. The number left in the message is someone’s cell phone number – I’m assuming that it belongs to Elizabeth.

That was very fast work. I’ve never posted my home phone number in this blog. Nor, to the best of my recollection, have I ever posted my full name – although, I may have. I’m not going to go combing through my blog to find out. If I am correct about that, then the only name connected with me is my mother’s name. Someone did some quick work in finding out how to contact me at home.

Now, I’m not an egotist. I know that this blog doesn’t see an enormous amount of traffic. Actually, I know exactly how much traffic this blog sees, and I can assure you, it’s not that much. This leads me to believe that either a very unlikely coincidence occurred – someone from Ascentive just happened to stumble across my blog here – or (and far more likely to me), Ascentive has their eyes and ears open so they can step in and do some damage control when things like my last post appear on the net. They must be very busy tracking this stuff, because there are countless web pages on the internet talking trash about FinallyFast.com. If they find my obscure little corner of the internet to be threatening, then they’re really in trouble.

So, for you folks at Ascentive, pay attention. I will not communicate with you verbally. If you wish to communicate with me, you can respond to my post about FinallyFast here on the blog, or you can send any correspondence to me at my home address. Since you tracked down my phone number so quickly, I’m sure you’ll have no problem finding my snail mail address. Be sure that you send any correspondence by certified mail, please, and I’ll do the same when I respond. I’m not going to put myself in the position of engaging in any communication with you that is not of a written nature. That way, there can be no “he said, she said” inconsistencies cropping up.

Read Full Post »

My Computer Is Finally Fast! (NOT)

Okay, probably not news to some, possibly news to others. My entry today concerns an issue that mystifies me, really. This is 2010. I would have thought that most people are by now at least somewhat familiar with things having to do with computers – particularly you twenty-somethings who spent your entire school careers with computers in your classrooms. At any rate, I want to take a look at something that’s been bothering me for a while. I did some research, asked some questions, and even made a phone call to a company just to check things out.

We’ve all seen them. Late at night, after a day filled with way too much caffeine, we sit there channel surfing through three-hundred-plus channels of garbage on the television, when up pops a cheerful commercial from the folks at FinallyFast.com. Normally, I don’t even bother to look into things like this. I have a reasonable level of skill with a computer, and all of the things that this company claims to do, I can do myself – at least, the things that are actually possible to do. Some of what they claim simply cannot be done. We’ll look at that in a few moments. Anyway, it was the middle of the night, I was punchy from a lack of sleep, aching bones, and the residual effects of too much caffeine. I decided to look into this oh-so-nifty product.

The commercial opens with a talentless actor saying, “My computer used to be fast. Really fast. Now, it’s only kind of fast.” Where do they find these people? I mean, if you want to break into acting, take some lessons first, would you? Then we watch as the screen flashes through images of people sitting at their computers frustrated with error messages, slow loading pages, even the dreaded Blue Screen Of Death (Hereafter referred to as the BSOD – that’s a Windows technical term, FYI.) All of these things appear to be happening on Apple computers. The implication from the voice-over announcer is that FinallyFast.com can fix all of these issues for you, at no cost! They even claim to be able to increase the speed of your internet connection by up to an amazing 375% – hell, I’d pay for that!

Now, I want to stop for a moment here. As noted, all of the computers in this commercial appear to be Apple machines – the one keyboard shot is absolutely an Apple keyboard tray. Yet, there’s a small disclaimer (The fine print part), that says this software can only be used on a PC. Wait, what? Then, why are all of the actors using Apple computers? Better yet, where did that BSOD come from in the commercial? The BSOD is a uniquely Windows phenomenon. By now, I was taking notes – I intended to ask some questions later on.

Let’s look at FinallyFast – the company, not the software. I’m going to get to that part in a few moments. FinallyFast is part of a company called Ascentive. The television commercial states that Ascentive has been featured in some prominent magazines, and while this is true, the articles were not about their optimizing software. Nope – the articles mentioned had nothing to do at all with Ascentive’s software. They simply contain quotes about business security issues from one of Ascentive’s corporate officers. And one of Ascentive’s claims turns out to be an outright falsehood. This quote is from Ascentive’s web site:

Spyware Striker Pro now includes the Award-Winning CounterSpy scan engine and definition database. CounterSpy has been awarded the CNET Editor’s Choice Award as “the only antispyware product that correctly identified every piece
of spyware… It did very well in active scanning, on-demand detection, and complete spyware removal.”

Okay, that looks good on the surface, right? So, I clicked on the link that says, “Read the review,” and was taken to CNET – a very highly regarded tech reporting presence on the web. Counterspy – not Spyware Stryker Pro, but Counterspy – did receive a very glowing review from CNET. The problem is, Counterspy is not, as far as I can tell, a product that was developed by Ascentive. It was developed and marketed by Sunbelt Software, now known as GFI Software. Spyware Stryker Pro is a component – a single component – of Counterspy that is bundled with that application. What does this mean? At best, it may mean that Ascentive is misleading consumers.

I want to go back for a moment, with another quote, just to drive home a point. Here’s another quote from Ascentive’s web site:

Ascentive is the maker of easy-to-use PC software products which have been used by thousands of home and business customers in 55 countries.

A Market leader in corporate and consumer software, Ascentive is a rising star in the industry and has received accolades from media organizations like The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Forbes, Tech TV and NBC. Here’s the proof.

Well, not quite. As I mentioned, none of these articles actually gives “accolades” to Ascentive’s products. They all simply contain quotes from one of the Ascentive corporate officers regarding security issues and the monitoring of employees while they’re using company computers – in other words, the advantage of using spyware to keep an eye on the workers. In fact, one of Ascentive’s products is called “BeAware,” which is marketed to businesses for the purposes of monitoring employee computer usage. Does anyone else see the irony here? This is a company that markets monitoring software – aka, spyware – while also marketing a product to consumers that purports to remove spyware from personal computers.

Okay, so let’s go back now to FinallyFast, and take a look at what it says it will do, and what it actually does. Because, Dear Reader, those two things are very different.

First, FinallyFast offers a free scan of your computer. There’s nothing misleading about that at all. The scan really is free – as in, free, no charge, it won’t cost you a penny! Now, that’s a bargain these days, right? Maybe…

You see, the free scan at FinallyFast will always find something wrong with your computer. Always. As in, every computer it scans is going to have problems. No, really – I know this to be a fact. How do I know this? Well, I’m going to tell you how I know this. I have a good friend who recently bought a brand new computer. When he got it, he had specifically ordered that the computer have nothing installed on it other than Microsoft Windows 7. No added software, nothing but the operating system. When I found out he had ordered this new machine, I was still in the middle of doing some research for this post. So, I asked if he could help me out.

We fired up his brand new machine – right out of the box, never been connected to the internet, never had one thing other than Windows 7 installed on it. We went to FinallyFast.com, downloaded and ran the free scan. Can you believe it? Those bastards at Dell had installed all kinds of spyware, malware, and several viruses on his brand new computer before it had ever even left the factory! There were over four hundred registry errors that had been caused by “programs that were either out of date or no longer installed” on the computer. Some jerk at the factory had been playing around with this computer, I’ll bet – installing and uninstalling old, outdated software. Because, there’s just no way that FinallyFast could possibly be mistaken about these errors, is there? I mean, I just know that they would never engage in false or misleading business practices.

Now it was time to fix all of these “problems.” Uh-oh… Turns out it’s not so free anymore. It seems that now, you have to purchase the software to get rid of these issues. To be fair, the scans are listed on the site as “Free Trials.” The fix costs money. And this is where it gets really interesting. Not only do you have to pay to fix the bogus problems that FinallyFast found on your machine, but in order to keep your machine in good shape, you have to sign up for a subscription service that keeps your new software up to date. When you buy the initial package, you are automatically enrolled in this subscription program. There have been reports of unauthorized charges to customer credit and debit cards, and some people have reported that it’s damned near impossible to unsubscribe.

Now, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that FinallyFast doesn’t actually work. I’m not prepared to find myself in a lawsuit. Frankly, the software does work. But the problem is that it works by doing things that everyone – from novice to guru – can do themselves, at no cost whatsoever, outside of the time it takes to run legitimate free applications. FinallyFast does things like removing temporary internet and other temporary files, clearing the cache, and removing spyware and adware. There are free programs available that will do this for you – no cost, regularly updated programs that are very effective.

One of the most interesting claims that FinallyFast makes is the promise to increase your internet speed by up to 375% – and that’s a pretty amazing claim. You see, again, this is misleading, because it is literally impossible to increase the speed of your connection beyond the speed that your internet connection – your ISP – has provided. The only way to actually increase the speed of your internet connection is to purchase a faster connection from your ISP.

So, let me not even worry about lawsuits at this point. The claims that FinallyFast can increase your internet connection speed are completely, utterly false. Fraudulent. Lies. The same holds true for the claim that they will increase your download speed. Again, this is dependent on your ISP and the connection speed that you purchased from them. I repeat: This isn’t just misleading consumers, these claims are completely false. While the things that FinallyFast does may increase the speed of things like Microsoft Office or other applications loading on your machine, they cannot and will not increase your internet connection speed.

So, how can FinallyFast make the claim that they can increase your connection speed and get away with it? Well, it’s possible to make it appear that your connection speed has increased, while not actually increasing that speed. This is done by sort of “tricking” your computer into making it load web pages faster. Okay, so what’s the problem with that? If web pages load faster in your browser, isn’t that the same thing?

No.

If you’ve ever had a dial-up ISP, then you’ve probably seen something called a “speed-booster,” or “accelerator.” The way that this works is, the quality of the images you see in your browser is reduced – sometimes dramatically so. And remember, a web page is made up of a collection of nothing but images. While pages load faster, they also lose much of their color, sharpness, brightness, and often, the “fine print” on a web page is nearly impossible to make out. (I should note that it is possible to optimize what is called the “Receive Window” in order to take full advantage of the connection speed that your provider is giving you. However, you still cannot go any faster than the connection speed from your ISP)

While some would call this a fine line, I call it blatantly misleading advertising. In my humble opinion, it’s nothing but a fraud.

FinallyFast does nothing – nothing – for your computer that you can’t do on your own, at absolutely no cost. In fact, it does things to your compter that you do not want it to do. Remember that brand new computer that we tested the scan on? Well, after we ran the scan, we installed AVG free antivirus software on that computer, and AVG found something that it called TrojanHorse5.htp. Since the only place this computer had visited on the web was the FinallyFast site, I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about that.

The final piece of my research was a phone call to FinallyFast – the toll-free number that’s given in the television commercial. I didn’t tell them that I was researching them for a blog post, just that I wanted information about the product. They pushed me – hard – to purchase the product. The interesting thing was, no one there could explain to me just how this product works. I made three calls to them, speaking to a different representative each time.

One guy told me initially that the software won’t work on a Mac. When I told him that all of the computers I’d seen in the commercial were Macs, he said, and I quote, “Oh. Well, then I guess it must work on Macs, too.” (Remember, the fine print says that this product is only for PCs, and not for Macs) When I asked how the product increases my connection speed, one rep told me that by getting rid of junk files, my connection speed would be increased. Another told me that the product changes my internet options to increase the connection speed.

When I asked how this product compares to some of the freeware that’s available to do what this product is supposed to do, I was strongly warned to never, ever use free programs, because they’re all riddled with viruses, adware, and malware. When I told him about the experiment (thus blowing my cover), and finding a trojan on the computer after scanning at FinallyFast, he hung up on me.

The conclusion? This is crap. It’s a crap product, it will dump a trojan onto your machine, it does not do what it says it will do, it gives false reports about what’s wrong with your computer. There have been reports about unauthorized charges to costomers credit and debit cards. If you’re thinking of buying this product, don’t. It will potentially cause more problems than were already present on your machine. If you’ve already purchased this service, I recommend that you call your bank and block any further payments to the company, and remove the software from the computer yourself, if you’re confident that you can remove it completely. If you’re not, then take it to a professional and have it cleaned up.

I don’t do a lot of “product endorsements” concerning software, because no software is ever “one size fits all.” What’s convenient and effective for me may not meet the needs of others. In this case, though, I’m going to suggest some alternatives that will be much safer than using FinallyFast.com.

Fixing Registry Problems: I’m generally hesitant to recommend any registry cleaner, mostly because they can occasionally cause problems if someone is not familiar with working in the registry. However, I’ve been using one registry cleaner for several years now, and I’ve never had an issue that I had to fix. Also, this application sets a restore point, so that if something goes wrong, you can restore the registry to it’s pre-repair state, and then seek further help. The program is called Eusing Free Registry Cleaner, and you can get it HERE.

Clean Up Junk Files: Well, you’ve already started that process with the registry cleaner. Also, Windows has this neat feature called “Disk Cleanup.” Just run that, and you’ll get rid of all those little junk files laying around on your computer.

Remove Temporary Files: The term “Temporary files” can be misleading, because many of these files stay on your computer, hanging around, eating up space and slowing your machine down, until you actually remove them. That can be time consuming to do manually, but, there’s a nice little program called TFC (Temp File Cleaner), that will do it for you. You can get it HERE.

Remove Spyware: Spyware can be a pain in the ass. One of the best tools for spyware removal is available free. It’s called Spybot Search & Destroy, and you can get it HERE.

Remove Malware: Malware, or Malicious Software, can be a major problem. Malwarebytes offers both a free version and a paid version of their very effective malware tool. The free version is more than sufficient for most users. You can get it HERE.

And finally, to generally help with speeding up your computer, run the Windows Disk Defragmentation feature. This will put your files back into order, letting your machine find things faster, improving performance.

Oh, and a final note: If you want to “increase your internet connection speed,” make a call to your ISP, and upgrade your connection. That’s the only way you’re going to do it.

NOTE:

In light of events that took place a bit earlier this evening, not too many hours after I posted the original version of this blog entry, I’m going to play a little CMA here – Cover My Ass:

The opinions stated in this blog are just that: My opinions. The last time I checked, I still have the right to state my opinion in this country.

See the next post, which will be up momentarily, to see why I’ve added this.

Read Full Post »