The pricetag

Does anyone think this software is overpriced ? Noone seems to think so . Everyone seems to be clammoring to buy it . I like the program . I like the author . He is helpful and makes some really good things . But , $ 25.00 U.S. ? That is the discounted price . Take PG for instance . Great program . Price is about the same , unless you buy other DCS products , then you can lower it more . Most people pay for convenience . PG has this . Comes with many defaults and very easy for even a noob to configure . RD comes with only a few defaults set . it is configurable but , not very easily . Dealing with the registry can be tricky . With PG , you add a program and tell PG what to allow it to do . RD , you must go to the registry . How do you know what to look for ? How do you know what to add ? I think this is a very good product . I just think it is overpriced . This is not an attack . Only the feelings from a person that can pay for the program but , can $ 25 be spent better , IF , at all ? With RD off , I passed the two RD tests . No problem . I will not say what saved me but , I was saved . I would still like to have this program . But , maybe after more defaults ( alot more ) are added . I already know most everyone on this board that has used DCS in the past , are going to buy this with no questions asked . I am wondering if anyone else feels this is overpriced software based on how it is right now . Thanks .

 

With RegDefend being better than the other classics "pollers", I don't think it is overpriced at all, considering the fact that it is a lifetime licence and that you will never have to pay again for all of the future upgrades.

25$ Lifetime overpriced ? I don't think so.

Regards,
gkweb.

 

Hi hollywoodpc,

For myself I think this is good money spent and I don't regret it. Exactly like
PG, these two programs can save you lots of headache.

 

Maybe if your 99 years old... with all respects to the older members

 

You arent dealing with a multi billion dollar company with dozens of products here. By purchasing this product, you are not only getting a unique solution to a pressing security issue but are contributing to further development. You have to understand a small business. I recently paid over 350 dollars for a custom gimbal set for my Hotas (joystick). A man in austrailia cutom milled these parts out of aluminum. Is it worth 350 dollars? Yes, because I paid it. He is a one man shop and his income is partially derived from this product. Considering the time he put into it, it is a bargain. A major corporation can sell certain products at massive discounts because they have others to pick up the slack. I, for one, appreciate the time and effort put into these products and have found the support to be well above anything you can expect with many other companies. Diamond (TDS-3) comany is another example. What is your time worth?

 

I chose to pay the full price, not the discounted price, because I wanted Jason to get a maximum return for his efforts (at least from me). As someone who has used polling registry monitors for many years, RegDefend's approach is what I always wished for.

Nick

 

I don't particularly want to have a dozen $10 apps protecting my system, but I do think that RegDefend could better justify its cost with additional functionality and friendliness. For starters, I think that proactive, hook-driven, configurable registry key/value protection just naturally yearns to be paired with an equivalent form of directory/file protection. I think that trying to market a separate application to do the same thing for files and directories would be over the top.

I also have some concerns around development and support issues like RegDefend's user friendliness, responsiveness to enhancement requests, inability to rearrange groups or edit group files, lack of a useful wildcard facility, encouraging complex use of overlapping rules operating on a single key from across multiple groups (debugger optional), etcetera. I'll try to post more specifically about these qualms as time and courage permit. I, too, think Jason is an extremely talented programmer, but RD is far from reaching the potential I see for it. I'm just not sure whether any of the potential I see is actually in the game plan.

It also concerned me today to notice the recent effort spent on writing psuedo-malware to persuade me that I need to pay protection. When the ex-author of ProcessGuard distrubutes scare-ware that tries to quietly disable ProcessGuard in order to sell RegDefend, I have to cringe. I understand that Jason wants us to be aware of our vulnerabilities, but anything he writes will undoubtedly be studied at length by people with very bad intentions. It seems hard to avoid the very fine line between super-ultra-persuasive sales tool and "just a friendly warning unless you choose to ignore my well intentioned and non-threatening advice".

 

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion so I will state mine.

If I was going for a "pay for each version" pricing structure the price would be lower, but not much, probably $25 base, $20 with the discount. I'm not sure if you can try and compare paying $25 to other products because for nearly everyone you don't get a lifetime license.

You basically say that at this stage you don't want to buy RegDefend as you want more features added.. well you can wait if you want, you are the consumer you have the choice . New RegDefend versions will be released with new features etc and I guess with each version you can then decide if you personally think it is worth it at that stage.

I'm not sure exactly when, but I will be adding a greater discount pricing structure for owners of existing software. Basically you will log into the members area and put in your registration details so that it attaches that sale with your Ghost Security Member account. Then you will receive a greater discount than the 15% .

 

I'm not sure about your comment regarding "quietly disabling ProcessGuard" ?

RegTest targets no particular software and everything it does is generic. I guess you are talking about the simulated shutdown sequence? As far as I am aware ProcessGuard still protected the system from one of the prongs of attack even though the GUI was shutdown so I am not quite sure where you are coming from earth.

RegTest isn't a showcase just for RegDefend, there are a few other products out there which protect against both attacks nearly 100% aswell. It's aim is to show people that most of the registry protection programs out there aren't too good at their jobs. From idea to release it took a week, and most of that wasn't even me working on Regtest specifically, rather it was the BETA testers testing it extensively. For instance in that week I also released another RegDefend which took 3 days to complete. So I consider that what RegTest shows people is important to spend that time on.

 

I realize that $25 may seem expensive to some potential purchasers. Everyone is in a different position. For me the cost is minimal compared to the cost of trying to recover a machine and data, should I be attacked. (I've gone through that experience). Truthfully, I would pay more for both PG and RefDefend. I believe that for what they are doing, they are priced very well.

 

I guess I'll throw my 2 cents in too.

I agree with Jason ... $25 for a Lifetime Membership isn't just reasonable, it's outright cheap. This type of membership is extremely rare, you don't see it too often. The same can be said about the unlimited home use license ... that's even more rare.

I also agree with Rich that the cost of the license is nothing compared to the potential costs of recovery, and the resulting loss of time and productivity. The very same reason we also pay good money for imaging programs like Acronis. I also wouldn't like to admit it ... but I too would've paid more than the asking price. ~Which would still be worth every penny~

Really this all says a lot about Jason / Ghost Security, they are asking a very reasonable price for an excellent product, and fabulous support & service, when in all reality he could've priced it higher ... or even offered it without lifetime upgrades ... and the ability to purchase an unlimited home license.

True Value for the Money

Steve

 

Thanks Jason for a highly valuable security tool...one of a kind...at a most reasonable price. Please keep 'em coming and keep 'em simple to use like the current Regdefend is.

 

If it is worth having, it is worth paying for; there is no free ride. Thanks Jason.

 

Hello again, Jason, and sorry for the earlier outburst. It was a mix of several frustrations all trying to come out at once. Guess I should have gotten some sleep before I pressed Submit.

Obviously, I didn't know what RegTest was doing, but I saw PG block the installation of a driver/service and I saw an HID popup to confirm an attempted shutdown of procguard.exe, followed by a reboot. AFAIK, PG's protection was not effected, but I "saw" procguard looking threatened, and suddenly my grasp of what's happening was dwarfed by what your knowledge of PG might be able to cause. Apparently, it touched a raw nerve. I've had concerns about the future of PG since you left DCS. All of a sudden, I was aghast at what appeared to be an attack on PG. I understand now that it was not.

Thankfully, even after allowing RegTest to execute, my system didn't fall into its trap until after I dropped two more layers of security. Still, it was a very strange and unsettling experience. Even though I know that you're "one of the good guys", I watched RegTest try to take control of my system and I was struck by the possibility that competition to improve the features of security programs could become secondary to creating a series of increasingly dramatic "simulated-exploits" that motivate customers to "buy now".

My reaction to RegDefend, itself, has also been mixed. As soon as I installed it, I opened two separate registry editors and watched it do what no other program I know of can do. Kudos to you for setting a new standard. Unfortunately, I find RD's interface quite awkward. After completing a trial and making suggestions, I'm now stuck waiting for signs that RD may one day come to a comfort zone near me. So far, though, I've got very little idea what to expect in the future.

Although I think that file protection would make a great enhancement down the road, I think RD is currently missing two key features. One is editable .ghst files and the other is wildcard matching. In lieu of wildcards, you suggested we manually specify the same keys for every user account on a system. Wildcards, however, can be used for much more than spanning users. In order to monitor the same keys that I currently watch with MJRegWatcher (via 99 lines in a text file), I would have to manually select 691 (I think) registry keys. Admittedly, I'm not sure how many of those registry keys I could safely leave off the list, but I'd rather just protect them all without doing a lot of research. Assuming I select, parameterize and proofread them all, I've still only protected one boot partition. I have four computers with a total of 12 boot partitions, each containing three user accounts.

The thought of sharing security settings with other Ghost users seems ironic when I can't even share settings with myself. Hopefully, someday it won't be so difficult. I think that restricted user accounts running alongside more privileged security processes will likely remain a fact of life. Not protecting all reasonable possibilities could impact the reviews of RegDefend's "out of the box" protection.

Once again, Jason, please accept my apologies for spontaneously venting and for any unfair criticisms. Best of luck to you, for now, and maybe I can enjoy RegDefend at a later date. Any vision of RD's future that you can share would still be appreciated.

Best regards

 

The features you mentioned will be added (wildcard + importing text files) definately, I use RegDefend a lot and since release with everyones feedback I have realized that there is some more conveniant ways of doing things. So they will be incorporated. Originally I wanted RegDefend to have almost zero resource impact on the system which it does now, so when things like WILDCARD support come up at the time I thought it wouldn't be feasible to do it without some impact. After some research into some optimized techniques in the last week I think it will be possible to do this without affecting performance much at all.

One thing I have learned with programs like PrevX and ProcessGuard (to a lesser extent) is I personally don't like having protections which consume a lot of resources, the lesser the impact they have the better. So with all my future (which includes RD) programs that is the number 2 goal after being "good and secure" programs.

In regards to your "outburst", don't worry about it. You should have seen some of the things my beta testers said to me when they ran RegTest for the first time.

 

Seeing as the thread has mostly played itself out now, I also think that for what it is RegDefend is good value for money (even in its infancy)

Look at the other AV and Firewall vendors that charge for ongoing support, the "lifetime" costs of those products become a lot higher over time...

I'm really glad to hear that Jason is planning to add in some of the requested features because even though I have purchased it I only have the RegRun set of keys being monitored right now (being a conscientious objector to poor user interfaces, I'm choosing not to use the GUI for now . So MJRW is polling away alongside its big brother doing the job properly....

This way I'm supporting the future development of the program (at the start) when the income stream possibly means more seeing as getting the word out takes a little while

 

Thanks Jason, that's really good news. I think you've got me hooked now too.

 

Having read all this, I must say Jason (Ghost Security) has produced a wonderful security app at an unbeatable price. It's not a bargain, it's a give away and that's why I bought it yesterday.
I don't know that many companies who would sell you an app with Lifetime Membership, although I'm willing to pay for it as long as it plays nicely on my system and gives me the protection I need.

This app can only get better, then it already is, in new releases.
I've every confidence it will.

Congratulations Jason.

 

The only thing that worries my here is that Jason is a prime target for being bought out by one of the big players once they decide that they want this sort of technology

Lets face it, there are a limited number of good windows systems programmers that program in assembly and have taken the time to prod around header files and do lots of testing and probably at least a bit of reverse engineering on the current set of windows interfaces

As a big company looking at time to market, I think the option of paying Jason a relatively small sum (to them) for his company and a big salary for at least a while afterwards would be a quick and relatively painless way forward

 

I have already had very lucractive offers to work for other companies but I find that when I am in the position to make the calls I can do the best work and help the most people. I have no interest in selling "Ghost Security" , I just want to help people and make enough to "get by".

Plus you are forgetting about all those russians who program in ASM whilst in primary school... they love Ring 0.