A little disappointed, maybe embarrased...

Hi,

I downloaded SpywareBlaster for trial to determine if this was the right product for a problem at one of my financial clients offices. The client is having terrible problems with spyware / adware. I setup SpywareBlaster on my own PC and configured it. It was nice to use, I understood what it did, and it was exactly what I was looking for. I appreciated the efforts of the programmers, and clicked on the donate now button and donated a few dollars to the cause. I have always supported programmers whenever possible and I was happy to do it in this case.

Then, I decided I would turn on auto-update and much to my disappointment, there was a cost associated with it. I felt pretty stupid donating the few dollars (more then it cost for the annual auto-update) and then realizing I needed to spend $10 more to make the product complete.

My suggestion to the SpywareBlaster folks is that they should not intentionally, or unintentionally hide the actual cost of running SpywareBlaster. It's very easy to lose the trust of your customers when there is any sign of impropriety. I was embarrased and felt like I "fell" for something. I'm assuming that this was not intentional, but it was my experience.

A little embarrased, yes. A little disappointed, yes.

Thanks for listening.

 

Hi WorkForFood... after reading your post, and being surprised of a cost myself, I went to the Javacool website and found the following:


SpywareBlaster offers two updating options:
1.) AutoUpdate - keep your protection up-to-date automatically!
2.) Check for Updates - manually check for and download the latest updates

The built-in Check for Updates function is completely free.

To access Check for Updates, simply click on the "Updates" tab on the left side of the SpywareBlaster interface, and then press the "Check for Updates" button.

If you would like the convenience of the AutoUpdate feature, more information can be found in SpywareBlaster itself. (Click on the "Updates" tab, and then the "AutoUpdate" tab.)


Instead of the auto-update, why not manually update? At least you know that is free and I'm sure manually updating isn't that difficult.
Just food for thought! ~ *

 

Hi tildestar,

Thanks for comments, and yes, I was aware I could update manually. That isn't really a practical approach to managing a client PC, and that is doubly true if it's not your PC. I think Microsoft found that out and now they are defaulting to Windows update to auto-update. Fact is, no one remembers to update untili after the catastrophe.

In addition, I specifically looked at the website to determine if I could in fact auto-update because I wouldn't have looked at the product if it wasn't possible. What I didn't do was dig into actually turning on the auto-update before I decided to send my donation (and thus my embarrasement).

I'm not crying over the few dollars, it's really just a principal thing. I was lax in my due diligence and it seemed like I was taken advantage of. There is now some question as to whether I will roll out SpywareBlaster to my clients PC's because my initial experience wasn't very positive. It's only 5 PC's and while I would have made sure that a 5x donation was given to the developer, it's unlikely that it will be missed. I just thought that if the developer(s) happen to browse this forum maybe they would take my suggestion to heart.

Thanks

 

Hi,

At the bottom of the SpywareBlaster donation page is the following text:

However I will be making changes shortly to make it much more obvious - just to help ensure that such mistakes do not happen.

And certainly I'm not trying to hide the cost of AutoUpdate at all - that's definitely not my intention. (AutoUpdate does add to the bandwidth costs, and to keep things running I had to charge a nominal fee for it.) Many people don't want or need the convenience of the AutoUpdate feature - it was included at user request.

But I may be able to make things a bit clearer in the first tutorial screens - your point is very valid. (I'll also, as said above, change the donation page to make that text much more obvious.)

That said, I don't believe there is a "hidden cost" associated with running SpywareBlaster. The program is free and the updates are free via the Check for Updates feature built into the program. The program is complete in that configuration - you have your protection and you can update it. (For the added convenience of the optional, separate AutoUpdate feature there is a cost - and it goes to cover the additional costs on this end when you use that feature. But you can still update using the Check for Updates feature, completely free.)

Best regards,

-Javacool

 

Hi Javacool,

Thanks for the reply. I understand that it is costly to provide the bandwidth necessary to accommodate any form of daily / weekly update. So there isn't any justification needed in that regard. I really appreciate you taking the comments as they were intended, to simply make the software experience better for the next guy. And, I'm glad you are considering a revision. That's a good idea and I will look for that in future revisions.

I'm glad your software is doing well (I know it's downloaded a lot at CNET), and I hope you continue to prosper. At least from your response you seem like one of the good guys. No problems using your software as I move forward with my client.

You know my client feels they have lost close to 100 hours of productivity over the last 2 month due to the spyware and adware on their systems. In layman's terms, that's close to $7,500 lost in productivity over the last 2 months. They also paid a previous consultant over $1500 to correct this (but he failed). Yes, that's right $9,000 lost due to spware/adware just in 2 months and the problem is worse then when it began! This makes $9.95 seem real cheap if it truly aids in the elimination of these problems.

I'm currently reinstalling the O/S on all 5 client PC's (2000 / 98 ) then adding a full complement of utilities to "inoculate" the PC's including a personal firewall, your software and 4 spyware elimination utilities. These guys (my clients) are very serious about making this problem disappear. If you happen to have any strong recommendations on any of this, I'm very happy to listen. Not to worry though, your product *will* be part of the mix, we will pay for the auto-update and we will also make donations on a per PC basis. I'm assuming all conscientious clients will do the same!

Thanks again.