What FREE Eraser program has most updates?

I am using Eraser from Heidi, but it never seems to get updated. The same old version has been out for ages.

What FREE Eraser has the best support of being updated regularly?

Thanks

 

There's nothing that really needs updating in an eraser type program. It's already Vista compatible and completely effective. It may be possible to add more bells and whistles, but that wouldn't make it any better or more effective, just bigger. Finished products don't need regular updating and releasing new versions just for the sake of making it look more maintained is pointless and can actually cause problems with software like this.

 

Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks for your reply.

 

Looking at it: in fact Eraser has been under furious devt for about 4 yrs ...not bad for a free tool of such effectiveness

 

I can't help but notice that a lot of people have the mistaken idea that the way to judge an application or its vendor is by how often it's updated. I'd call it "update-itis" and it's contagious to the newer and less "techy" users who value the opinions of others here.

Some apps have to be updated constantly. These include anything that detects unwanted code by signatures like AVs, anti-spyware, etc. Most apps do not fall into this category.

Apps like browsers, mail handlers, and the firewalls that are actually security suites need updates when something needs fixing, patching, improving, etc. Most internet apps fit here. Even the security suites don't need half the updates they get. Too often they're altered to pass some new "leaktest" that has very little to do with reality. "Leaktest-itis" is another disease that needs to be gotten under control. It's paranoia overriding comon sense.

Most other apps that don't fit into the above seldom need updating. These should only be updated when a bug is discovered, a conflict with another app is found, or a new version has a truly useful new feature. Eraser, the better encryption apps, system utilities, etc fit here.

IMO, the best way to decide is this:
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. That new fix might not be as good as you thought. It may have other problems the previous version didn't. It may even conflict with other apps the previous version worked with. I've run into that last example several times. Newer isn't always better, but it is usually bigger, more demanding on your systems disk space and resources, and less efficient overall. With modern PCs having almost unlimited resources, memory, and disk space, this might seem pointless to some, but not everyone can afford the new hardware. Some of us run some pretty old stuff. One thing is certain. An app doesn't have to be big, heavy, or demanding on a system to be powerful. Too many software writers use the near unlimited resources as an excuse to write sloppy, inefficient code because the modern systems can run it. I think most of them either never learned or forgot how to write efficient code. Sure, there's exceptions to this, but for the most part, apps keep getting bigger and more demanding, but don't give much more to the user in return.

 

I remember a long thread on here where folks were debating how good Eraser was in it's newest form. Some of the resident experts were saying they used the older releases because the last few iterations were released by a new developer, and I guess there were some quality issues? I don't have time right now to dig for the thread, but will try to locate it later.

 

That was pretty much it. A "kid" (16-18 range I believe) took over lead development on Eraser, and introduced a couple of bugs so a lot of the community had a kneejerk reaction and started denouncing the new lead and said they were sticking with older versions.

I don't know if that's enough of a reason, but that's my understanding of what happened. (I think some even argued that the "updates" really didn't bring anything significantly new to the table, just the bugs.)

 

There are loads of free eraser progs out there. If you simply want to erase a file or two, you need to check that the app overwrites the file, rather than deleting it. You also need to check that the app removes the filename. This is seperate from the file being deleted or overwritten.

If you are looking for an app to wipe all the various caches, mrus etc, then yes, you will need one that is updated every now and then to cover new operating systems as they are released and also one which will include various "plugins". The plugins are there to cover the wiping requirements of various applications - eg, you may use Woed, Outlook, Pagemaker, a particular picture viewer etc. each of these will keep a list of mrus (most recently used files), caches, databases, etc - your eraser of choice will need to include plugins to cover these apps and even possibly ones specific to a particular version - eg one to cover Word 2007 for example.

Hope this helps.

Chris

 

Hi Chris, I notice you use AntiLogger. Is this free?

http://www.zemana.com/list/list.asp?ktgr_id=417

 

Here's the deal folks:

• Stay on thread topic
• Leave the personal comments at the door, they are simply not welcome nor appreciated.

As for the thread topic, the fundamentals of erasing technology really haven't changed for, quite literally, years. Some user desires/needs have evolved and updates in this area will reflect that, but let's keep a reasonable perspective on updates and so on in this application area....

Blue