TDS software line discontinued

just damn.......

 

To DCS team:

I hope that you can continue the great work on the other products, improve and innovate your techniques against threats to protect us...

Best Regards

 

there are some other ashes as well that needs serious consideration some times

 

I won't be too angry so long as I see some significant improvements in other programs, especially ProcessGuard.

 

hi,
stunned...
hope you keep current customers in the loop re release of the new product.
It would seem to me that any new product may block any intrusive software in a manner in which it is said that the norton av program was originally developed to stop any av being able to be effective but was abandoned in favour of a model that would provide a continued income.
Couldbe

 

Sent,expect a email from georgewcarver_AT_nj_DOT_rr_DOT_com

 

Having a nervous breakdown now!! No trojan protection? When new suite come out?? help

 

For what's worth...not much, i know... i have been surfing for 6 or 7 years and i got one trojan years ago and a year or two later a trace was found by TDS..........granted, i don't do porn, but i sometimes go to sites that might upset some people( those of right wing persuasion ) so where are all these nasties coming from ?....................don't misunderstand me...i know they are abundent...just wondering.....that said, i will always use anti-trojan programs because that first one wiped me out.....no more of that thank you very much....

 

I have been away a while but not really suprised.

Well it seems there are alot of understanding people here. I for one am not one of them even though I am a happy PG3 user. I am glad though that I did not purchase TDS-3 even though DCS did promise a free upgrade to TDS-4... Marketing ploy maybe? Yes I understand that DCS is now saying they will give TDS-3 users a license to one of their other products but that is not what was promised but yet constantly they said not to long before TDS-4 is ready. That is all we read over and over again...in the near future...blah blah blah. I am not one to downgrade vendors for trying, but to keep people waiting for this incredible super product and then just say sorry we are not releasing it now just makes no sense to me.

"Not much development time has actually been wasted as a lot of technologies developed for TDS4 will be seen in our next product release, which we're keeping a tight lid on for now but that is literally just around the corner." How many times did we hear this??

Good luck in the future but I think I will stick with vendors who actually release the products that they tell people they are working on.

Thanks,

Chris

 

Use either or both of the free AT's alongside PG, and a firewall. Big protection

.. use an alternate browser too

 

Very well put Blue, this has been my opinion for quite a while now. We would all do well to consider alternatives to scanner based protection.
One of the biggest problems with scanners is the introduction of more False Positives which can cause nearly as many problems as real malware in terms of system damge and fear.
The other main problem is the sheer number if signatures that these scanning tools add up to, AntiSpyware, AntiTrojan, AntiVirus, consider adding the KAV, TDS and Giant MS sigs together - roughly 300,000 - All have to be processed using valuable resources and with their inherent FP danger.
I find it all too much and consider preventitive tools far superior. ProcessGuard, RegDefend and Tiny come to mind but, as yet, none of them are mainstream user friendly programs, this I am sure will change fot the better as the train gets up to speed

Looking forward to more innovative tools from DCS in the near future.

 

So, there's lies, damn lies, statistics, and vaporware.

 

I would not call it a lie. At the time, the above statements were made it was probably intended to release TDS-4.

Several months ago, it was another developer who was accused not to deliver.

"Heh, that time of the month again is it? Your "a2" scanner doesn't detect any versions of The Beast or any other trojan as far as anyone here can tell because it's still just vaporware, yet once again you're wasting more time attacking other anti-trojan scanners?"

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=98706&postcount=42

"So how about it - put your money where your mouth is and release a2 to show us all how it should be done - let your software do the talking, nobody can argue with you then."

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=98720&postcount=49

As regards DCS: I believe that they did not intentionally mislead people. It "just" did not work out as expected. DCS, an Australian Ltd., probably HAD to stop the development of TDS-3/TDS-4 in order to avoid getting into a difficult financial situation. As an owner of a Ltd. you must be careful not to continue to operate a company and incur liabilities if such company is over-indebted or has liquidity problems. Therefore, it is necessary to stop a loss-making project before it's too late.

 

This comment is all unneeded, we all do know there never was a lie or misleading people.
Financial situations are not the case here, as many have offered to pay a yearly renewal fee to keep the project going.

Most of us feel bad and frustrated, waited long but we all do know there has never been any intention to put any user on wrong feet and we do know the technologies we are using already for a great part while we can expect the new stuff to come with just not the name TDS Pro on top of it.
TDS became over the years much more then trojan defense with all the new inclusions it it's growing databases, so the name of the flagship did not completely cover it's contents and value anymore since long, it is so much more.
Think of our position as well, the moderators supporting the programs all these years and we can read and write with it, while we also realise the possibilities are limited only by our imagination.
Remember the good times with a whole users family scripting together and planning new options till remote controling our whole house with it, all voice commanded with the included technologies and whatever serious extras people created for system and network administrators. Discussions and scripting should have continued, as the projects were really good in many cases. All those TDS users supporting other users all over internet.
For these (remote) administrative and network tools TDS will still serve us, we can have our own IRC chat in it, i love the traffic bridge, several of the very handy plugins, and lots more.
We can still use the CRC32 integrity check, you name it.
It's just the scanner not updated anymore but still ahead with the current database of many others.

Anyway, we can trust lots of our wishes will be included in future products where possible and much more then we even can think of.
Just patience can save us for now. So again support and encourage the new process and direction in stead of adding new frustrations.

 

Whoops! Sounds like I've made people nervous when it wasn't at all my intent. Certainly I'm comiserating with Wayne, and trying to explain from THIS side of the "reality" why I don't blame him a bit and how I wish *I* could find something more peaceful to do. And in fact, we did come pretty close to going under nearly a year ago owing to very slow sales, and like everyone else in this (including Wayne) I am persistently amused by the assumptions (particularly on DSLR) that we "evil vendors" are getting fabulously rich doing this. Heh. We'd gone from 15 people in 1998 down to four this year while the workload ramped up past "insanity" all the way to "I wanna slit my wrists." Fortunately we all managed to work very hard putting in very long hours and we survived. And as I said, the reality isn't the upfront costs for this kind of software, it's the MAINTAINING and lab work. That's what Wayne also realized. MOST software, you write the code, make sure it's good, SHIP it, get paid and move on to the NEXT project.

But in our case, because things finally turned around for us, we've been hiring lately and have been very fortunate to find some very good analysts which are now just about fully trained and ready to relieve me of "lab duty," "hunting and gathering," and the email. All of this the result of some major government and corporate sales which will fund us for the next four years at least on the BOClean side of the house, even if we don't have one single sale to individuals. That in turn frees me up to go back to work on coding new versions of our "flagship" NSClean and IEClean software as well as some other things which have fallen by the wayside in the madness of the malware explosion of this past year. CODING is what I always liked doing best, and sitting in a lab blowing up machines and figuring out "how do we stop this?" had gotten to be extreme drudgery. I *know* this has also gotten to Wayne and Gavin as surely as it's gotten to me. You can't develop if you're tied up doing the mundane INSTEAD of what you do best. And you can't keep people happy if you don't have time to properly respond to emails when one of your support people doesn't know the answer to a really strange question. Wearing too many hats isn't conducive to continued sanity.

As to my comments about individuals, yes, some can be "high maintenance" type people but then some of the MCSE's I've dealt with have been dumber than a box of bowling balls. "Normal" people usually appreciate a good answer whereas "so-called experts" want to argue the most mundane and arcane parts of theories that in the greater scheme of things, really don't matter at all in the "real world." We see that here and on other sites as well. You know what I mean, the "What if Sparticus had a Piper Cub?" kinda things.

But yes, we intend to be here PAST another four years, that is assured with many new long term contracts - the major advantage is that this old burned out coder is going to be passing the drudge work to new people here. And more importantly, they're funding the research for their own needs that are already providing improved code for the next versions of BOClean and many entirely new directions for it.

About the only thing likely to change is the licensing for the individual versions of BOClean for "home use" but no plans are currently in the works to do that now. And anyone who's read their license.txt file knows that we've made promises, and we KEEP those. That license may change in the future along with the pricing for NEW customers at a later time, but nothing's changing now or for the foreseeable future. Bottom line is we're more stable now than we've been in years.

But we've seen some REAL challenges, especially this year. Man, I miss the days when 7 trojans a MONTH was a rough week.

 

How do we know that? I don't know that.

At least three years went by since the release was "right around the corner". There are many cases of vaporware in the software industry, but can you show me another one where the vendor so constantly said that the release date would be "soon" and "a couple months" so consistently, and for so long--only to have the whole product scrapped afterward?

I know the cheerleaders hate people like me, but that's not my fault. I'm just being objective. How does "a month or two" become a dead product after two or three years or more?

At the very least, they should have put the brakes on new feature development, and released what they had.

Or, tell me why they could so constantly and consistently think that they were very, very close to a release, but never really be. Tell me. I want to know. I realize that software development is difficult, but how do you ride the cusp of "soon... really soon..." for years? How?

I wonder if there ever was a TDS-4 in the works at all. I wouldn't doubt that they were just stringing people along to keep new users buying TDS-3.

 

They did:
ProcessGuard
Port Explorer
AutoStartViewer
OpenPorts
Advanced Process Manipulation
Andvanced Process Termination
TaskMan+
CmdLine
DelLater

and updates
etc.

And more repeated: the technologies developed for TDS-4 we are using and more will be included in the new products.

 

I am upset !!!!!

I just purchased tds-3 on June22.

I wrote support 3 days ago requesting a refund.....no answer

 

You will probably get a response on Monday, Perth time, though I suspect DCS's mailboxes will be rather full on Monday

 

Hi Pete,

My best guess is that TDS-3 probably could have survived if a correct purchase/subscription revenue model was in place from the beginning. Providing a lifetime of updates without any revenue in return is ultimately going to exhaust any company. This is why this situation could have been predicted (at least by anyone who has owned a software company). The failure here, unfortunately, was in the mistakes made at the very beginning, and the inability to find a way out of the problem (e.g. how to collect revenues on signature updates and future upgrades).

Ultimately, the problem was solved by discontinuing the "non-revenue" producing product and moving the technologies to new, revenue producing products (e.g. ProcessGuard). It's a very tough decision to make, and I understand how difficult the processs must be for DiamondCS. However, I do think that there is a better way to handle new TDS-3 customers, who did not receive fair value, and I hope that DiamondCS finds a avenue/solution that more fairly compensates new customers. I strongly believe that this is a requirement for DiamondCS as it goes forward into its next generation of products and its new company model, which I am sure will have a more reasonable long-term revenue model.

Cya,
Rich

 

If I was in bussiness and had to supply thousands of people a product that would put my company in the whole I`d discontinue it too. Then I`d take that same product and rename it and sell it for what it`s worth. My company is back on it`s feet and the people can re-buy it. Now that`s what I`d do...don`t know about anyone else.

 

In the AV,AT software market with the updates required you have to charge a yearly sub. I can certainly understand what happened, but I believe that the money was just part of the reason. We will see what happens in time. If some new new type AT program emerges from DCS then great. But I do feel that the old loyal TDS folks should be offered a deal on it.

 

If i read this correctly, you are suggesting that DCS may rebadge TDS4 and sell it under a different name? Interesting thought. All these 'new and innovative' idea's they said they had for TDS4 but kept them a secret. It could be that they drop the scanner, keep all the 'new and innovative' stuff and sell it as though it's something new. Now wouldn't that a novel way of not giving the free upgrade on the actual upgrade? I was waiting to see what TDS4 had to offer. Maybe i will see TDS4 after all, just with a new name!!!

muf

 

I wouldn't say "huge" in terms of our paid commitments to several governments (curiously not our *OWN*, they believe in SYMANTEC) and some major corporations ... but ADEQUATE. Enough for us to hire up a few more very talented people in several locations across the globe (curiously ALSO, only one or two here in the states) and that makes the difference. We can remain solvent and maintain the job, but then we've always operated on a shoestring and treat our people very well.

A bit MORE "truth" to this for folks to consider ... Wayne and I discussed well over a year ago the rising costs of doing what we do (and hopefully he will see this and CONCUR) and the unexpected consequences of the primary culprit (Windows XP, the swiss cheese of OS's) and wanted to BOTH (like I said, WE nearly went under as a COMPANY around that time) see about going to the "subscription model" for the databases. Alas, some of the newcomers to this "industry" (heh) who still were wet behind the ears decreed to the "marketplace" ... "we will NEVER charge a subscription." Instead, when the costs started mounting up for them as well, they just raised the PRICE of their "shareware" from US$40 to US$50 and simply stopped updating as frequently as they once did. In doing so, they began missing a LOT of trojans. But they remained popular, and both of us were forclosed from being able to recover those costs.

With the option of covering our (mutual) costs on a "hey, sorry lads, this is EXPENSIVE" and going to a subscription, Wayne and us were forced to just "eat it." I can't speak for Wayne's situation, I don't really know, but those costs are unbelievable, and have multiplied continually and STILL do. I see a major "falling out" of a number of the "shareware people" who truly believed that "security software" was a gravy train. Forgive me, I'm laughing my teat off, this is REAL work and requires one HECK of a commitment. I think back to my buddy "Merijn" with his CWSHREDDER ... an "amateur" who did a bangup job until it began to take a serious toll on him. He TOO was smart enough to say "enough" and bailed ...

Like Wayne's operation, we may be "corporations" or "Ltd's" but in truth, we're all small "mom and pop" type operations on a shoestring who have to deliver the equivalent of multibillion dollar NASDAQ-listed corporations without the resources of conglomerates. And both Wayne and we have managed to do just that. But having to spend all of our efforts on first "backdoors" and then "spyware" which is now employing the SAME people who once wrote the old calssic trojans and doing VERY well financially, it does become difficult. At least WE have the resources and are able to keep up with it. I suppose that's the reason why I've always bristled at places like DSLR (a MUCH larger "corporation" than any of us) calling us "evil vendors" ... SMALL companies are swift to do things - no "meetings," no "study groups," no "vision statements," just get it done. And with more mouths to feed in a world of "free," there's less and less for each "player" in the pie. And a number of the "free anti-whatevers" are trojans themselves!

But the biggest issue has always been the "newcomers" who do not know what it really takes, do not have the resources, make promises that they are not keeping and then impose on the others unrealistic expectations among the public. Wayne apparently got tired of trying to fight a nearly impossible situation. I *commend* him on doing what he did and I do not do so as a "competitor" ... Wayne can confirm that he and I were the BEST of friends over all these years and at least WE shared, joked and got along well.

What TDS will GET out of this (as well as all of YOU) is the loss of a major drain on him, his company and his people. TDS is now FREED of a literal "albatross" and can now focus on all sorts of new toys and new treats, and move forward. The only reason we're able to survive is that we're managing to cover most of the costs and that will allow us to continue providing what we have as WELL AS finally being able to get back into development ourselves. WE'VE been concerned about people's expectations of a BOClean "5" and sadly, all of the work just keeping up with what was on our plates completely halted any hopes of developing that as we were mired in trojans with too few hands to do them.

So when folks whine about "TDS4 is vaporware" I twinge at that myself. I'd hoped to have a whole new generation of BOClean "5" out at the end of last year. Sadly, there was never any time to CODE it. And now, we're not even planning to go in the direction we'd thought - "file scanning" which I've always abhored (after all, your AV does that, why would anyone think we'd do any better at it than companies with THOUSANDS of people) that concept. We're headed in an entirely different direction ourselves and now I too will have some free time as our new lab people are coming up to speed.

Folks REALLY need a better understanding that what's going on over at TDS really IS a good thing for existing users - it frees them up to do some GENUINE whizbang. And were it not for BOClean's future being assured by others, I'd likely have made the same decision myself at some point, and provide something even better to our customers as we're planning to do by the end of this year in addition to maintaining the familiar BOClean.

Wayne is doing the RIGHT thing though for HIS customers ... even if it's a bumpy ride at the moment.