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- on Fri 12 Sep 2008
- 04:59:16 AM UTC
My comments on PC Doc Pro.
Even if I had never heard of pcdocpro.com I would have rated it 'red'.
http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/pcdocpro.com
My comment contains only a small part of what I discovered.
I'm keeping some bits back - to answer any challenges from the site owner. :-) -
- on Fri 12 Sep 2008
- 07:22:00 AM UTC
Status update
Pcdocpro was listed on hpHosts database, but was recently removed (http://forum.hosts-file.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6...
and the reputation reflects this new situation. I think the conclusion of their study was that Pcdocpro for example removes redundant registry entries.However, when we have ran our tests, we haven't been able to see any improvement in response times or boot times, though. We will run more extensive tests and report the problems and the severe problems (these are the terms used by Pcdocpro) that Pcdocpro finds and eliminates to the software manufacture, Microsoft. When we get their answer we will share it with you.
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- on Fri 12 Sep 2008
- 10:02:06 AM UTC
Just a note ....
pcdocpro.com, windocpro.com and spyresearchcenter.com, were all re-added today :o)
Regards
Steven Burn
Ur I.T. Mate Group / hpHosts
it-mate.co.uk / hosts-file.net -
- on Mon 15 Sep 2008
- 03:54:04 AM UTC
umm...
...is "overpriced" the same as "fraudulent"?
What WOT should do now, is to step up and loudly claim "their" ("our", I am a member as well) video, now labeled as "fiasco", to be an "honest" mistake, instead.
By making an effort in informing people, and users on the websites first page, regarding "the mistake" WOT will also automatically block all attempts of an attack.
But, by trying to kill the situation with silence and a careful "we're asking microsoft what they think" WOT is killing itself in the long run.
I like WOT - This is not a governmental institution. No one has to endure painful consequences - just a little responsibillity!
- Fictional Quote, that has small chances of becoming real ...unfortunately
- "Yes - we made a mistake, true, but we realized it and we are changing our outlook. This is both the strength and weekness in our, sort of, democratic organization. There's a risk that we make mistakes in judging website, but we are even more prone to correct our mistakes, learn from them and evolve. This would not happen if we were driven like any other despotic corporation, which hardly has any room for admitting mistakes, or evolving without replacing the whole board. We do still they have a dangerous "vendor rating", since the price of the license isn't adjusted to the market. You can find other programs that do the same thing for only five percent of that of PC DOC PRO's, and some of the best registry cleaners are even free - that is why we reacted, or rather, over reacted I'm afraid.
I'd very much like to see that, on the front page, because, I'd hate to see trust turn into snake (WOS).
It's not to late.
Thank you!
This is an annoying signature
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- on Mon 15 Sep 2008
- 07:09:31 AM UTC
Why I rate PC Doc Pro red.
NEVER trust a web site that makes bogus claims!
Please read my report:
http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/pcdocpro.comThe web site owner uses unethical SEO tricks.
SEO - Search Engine Optimisation, a bafflegab term.
It's not the search engine that's 'optimised' but the web-site's position in search results.
In simplest terms, search engines add up links to sites from elsewhere on the web - more links = higher ranking.
SEO tricks are used to put bogus links out.PC Doc Pro posts entirely bogus self-promoting 'product reviews' with links on entirely bogus ezine sites.
Quite apart from that, I am not inclined to trust an 'expert' who thinks it's a good idea to turn off the auto-load for my anti-virus programs.
There is only one time I ever turn off virus checks - after unplugging the internet connection! And I only do that when compiling lots of video files on a single core computer.
The bottom line is - I would not even trust this site owner to wash my car.
My mission statement:
I will boldly go, where only spammers have gone before. -
- on Mon 15 Sep 2008
- 07:39:17 AM UTC
Re: umm
..is "overpriced" the same as "fraudulent"?
Making up problems, claiming they are "Severe", and asking money for fixing them is fraudulent. This program's only purpose seems to be scamming ignorant users.
Yes - we made a mistake, true, but we realized it
You're not working for them by any chance, are you? :) Btw, would you care to explain why democracy doesn't work in your opinion?
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- on Sun 21 Sep 2008
- 10:45:24 AM UTC
My opinion...
If playing around with the SE hits and and claiming to make better products than you actually are is "fraudulent", then we'd hafta put 99% of all organizations, politicians, religions and various authors behind bars.
Well, then okay PC DOC "PRO" IS fraudulent. But so was the WOT video. The video was either pure prevarication or just blond naivety.
Sami,
"Democracy... is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike."
"Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty."
"Democracy passes into despotism."
-Plato"By going back to burning books
ripping apart things that doesn't fit
one times one equals nine
Your make-believe
reality is full of shit
It's fucked to hear one idiot's words
worse to see others believe it
fucked up minds in fucked up times
it's up to you to foresee it"
- Nicke & AlexI know it's hard to believe, but all your life you've been lied to by various authorities, often beginning with parents. You are a slave in psychological chains with very limited rights to think and feel the way your individual expression "needs". The ship of grown-ups have arrived - and they WILL stop this madness by showing us that the lord of flies is just a pig's head in a bag.
Köp inte grisen i säcken.
P.S. btw, some WOT admin, I think, is removing my comments which doesn't "fit" into his view. I don't work for PC DOC PRO, I'm with an organization (several groups) that promotes and delivers true copyright. I'm just here to evaluate the motives of WOT.
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- on Sun 21 Sep 2008
- 12:51:00 PM UTC
Re: My opinion...
claiming to make better products than you actually are
The program is lying to scam people out of their money, pure and simple. The "severe" problems it finds are not even problems.
all your life you've been lied to by various authorities
You might feel the need to blindly oppose all authority, but you should still be able to understand the difference between a scam and a slight marketing exaggeration.
You are a slave in psychological chains with very limited rights to think and feel
Oh no, that's exactly what they what you to believe! (That's right, you're not the only one who saw Fight Club... =)
some WOT admin, I think, is removing my comments
Comments containing profanities or clearly baseless accusations are usually deleted when they're reported to us, especially if the comments involve individuals.
I'm just here to evaluate the motives of WOT.
That's just silly. If there was a conspiracy to silence the truth, they'd be on to me by now and they know where I live, so I probably wouldn't even have time to finish this sent
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- on Sun 21 Sep 2008
- 12:50:34 PM UTC
My perfect opinion...
Mr. Perfect: "I know it's hard to believe, but all your life you've been lied to by various authorities, often beginning with parents..."
And you are an authority on that..?
Mr. Perfect: "You are a slave in psychological chains with very limited rights to think and feel the way your individual expression "needs".."
We have to belive in Free Will - we've got no choise!
Mr. Perfect: "The ship of grown-ups have arrived - and they WILL stop this madness by showing us that the lord of flies is just a pig's head in a bag."
Quite lyrical, but I'd prefer something more logical. Could you spill some beans instead of alluding to Mr Golding..?
Mr. Perfect: "I'm with an organization (several groups) that promotes and delivers true copyright."
A secret organization? Don't even have a website you can refer to..?
What's "true copyright"? In any case, I think true originality should also be promoted...Mr. Perfect: "I'm just here to evaluate the motives of WOT.
Okay, wot do you think of us then..?
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- on Sun 21 Sep 2008
- 01:00:18 PM UTC
PC Doc Pro
It is a rogue program whichever way you look at it. I have run it on a clean installation, checked for bugs and malware, checked the Registry etc and the machine is clean
Run PC Doc Pro and it finds files and folders that are 'contaminated' and 'high risk' threats.
Considering that I run everything within a sandbox this is hardly credible is it?
It's simple, close the sandbox and everything contained within it disappears as it only ever existed in a virtual area, so how does PC Doc Pro find so many infections on a clean machine just as variations of Antivirus 2008 etc does?
Good hype to panic users into buying something that will only add to their problems.Colin
http://cotojo.wordpress.com - Free PC Security -
- on Sun 21 Sep 2008
- 02:04:22 PM UTC
Words, words, words!
Democracy: a system invented by the ancient Greeks wherein citizens of Athens had all the rights, and everybody else in the then-known world had none.
Freedom of speech:
1 ... The duty to speak out against those who wish to cause harm to ourselves and others.
2 ... The duty to speak out against those who wish to put obstacles in the way of our exercise of our duty to speak.(Waves at Sami) I have to go now, there's someone at the door with a gagging order from PC Pr
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Protect and Surf. -
- on Sun 21 Sep 2008
- 02:44:38 PM UTC
Geeezzz . . . all this
Geeezzz . . . all this philosophical and political BS aside (yes, I'm speaking to you, Mr. Perfect), the fact remains, as Sami and other posters have said, that this PCDoc Pro stuff IS a scam. Scaring novices with false positives IS a scam. Plain and simple English . . . no philosophical or political (or poetic) red herrings to cloud the issue.
And as far as quotes go, to make a ridiculous argument one can always find a quote to support it, That doesn't prove a thing except that the perpetrator is using a logical falacy (red herring is one of them) to "support" the argument.
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- on Mon 22 Sep 2008
- 08:58:00 AM UTC
Further test results and Microsoft's response
We ran a new test on Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 from MSDN Disc 4455.01 with the latest updates applied.
PC Doc Pro found 483 problems, out of which 11 were on severity level "Severe", 13 "High" and the rest "Elevated". We reported these problems, or registry errors as PC Doc Pro also calls them, to Microsoft. According to Microsoft, the findings of PC Doc Pro are not problems, and when explicitly asked if they recommend removing these registry keys from the registry their answer was "no".
This confirms the conclusions of our earlier tests.
My concern is that when a PC user with some performance issues runs this diagnosis by PC Doc Pro, the scan report may lead him or her to think that the performance issue gets fixed by removing these "problems" while that doesn't really have anything to do with the real problem. Furthermore, an unaware user certainly gets scared when told about "11 severe problems" on his/her PC. In our test case removing these registry keys didn't have any effect on the performance or the stability of our test PC.
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- on Mon 22 Sep 2008
- 09:31:26 AM UTC
My compliments to your
My compliments to your diligence, Esa S.
That would seem to prove the point that PC Doc Pro IS scamming at least novices, and anyone foolish enough to delete a registry key without knowing what it means, and just relying on scam software to say that it is "Severe".
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- on Mon 22 Sep 2008
- 10:55:13 AM UTC
Now I wonder...
First of all, thanks to Esa S for the final post. Solid proof ought to end the discussion...
Then, I wonder about the agenda of a certain reviewer. Who? Mr Perfect with the annoying signature and secret background. But I guess he/she wont be back;
there's no longer a grayzone of doubt to exploit...Finally, I wonder why Siteadvisor still rates this site green?
Unbelieveable...
:-( -
- on Mon 22 Sep 2008
- 04:47:36 PM UTC
Could it be their forums are
Could it be their forums are bogus too?
It's full of answers from post 1/2 users, all answers are "Powered by Yahoo! Answers" and I don't seem to be able to spot any big-time posters there. Not a single one! No stickies etc. which usually indicate a vibrant community ...
Not to mention it seems all subforums are quite evenly filled with similar amounts of threads/posts. Quite uncanny imho :)
Are they in fact getting their so-called content from Yahoo Answers?
Usually activities in forums concentrate on certain primary areas, and others don't get quite that much attention.
"Men make good pets."
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- on Mon 22 Sep 2008
- 09:55:33 PM UTC
The scam just got worse!
PcDocPro.com is using a very devious scheme to promote their website.
The whole of "their" forum is lifted straight out of Yahoo Answers, via a feed.
Some of the people who answer questions are widely known in the web antimalware community.
Because it is not clear to the average web user that the "forum" is a mirror of Yahoo answers, it may appear to some users that widely-respected web security experts are actually endorsing this bogus website by contributing to its "forum".
Compare these two web pages:
http://www.pcdocpro.com/forum/index.php?topic=8824.0
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=200...Note that Susan S is using pinurl - a clickbank affiliate!
http://pinurl.com/tools.html
{quote}
Finally, Real AntiVirus On ClickBank!
Google, Yahoo, & MSN Conversion Tracking
Join Our Affiliate Program And Earn 75% Profit!
{endquote}Is Yahoo an innocent party to all of this webspam and scamming?
You can answer that question for yourself: try to report this abuse of Yahoo's T&Cs to Yahoo. I wish you luck - you'll need it.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Protect and Surf. -
- on Tue 23 Sep 2008
- 05:27:52 AM UTC
Just a note folks .........
Just a note folks ......... after further testing, whilst I do consider this program highly undesirable (mainly due to it's price and the length the licence is for), I no longer consider this program rogue, and thus, have delisted it from hpHosts.
Regards
Steven Burn
Ur I.T. Mate Group / hpHosts
it-mate.co.uk / hosts-file.net -
- on Tue 23 Sep 2008
- 10:44:21 AM UTC
Just a question...
An overpriced product, false positives and a fake forum!
How can this not be a rogue...? -
- on Tue 23 Sep 2008
- 01:09:15 PM UTC
Hey logicman, Now that I'm
Hey logicman,
Now that I'm using Sandboxie, I went to those red donut sites you linked to.
Something else I noticed on that fake forum. All the posters are reflected as "Newbies".
So, in addition to being a mirror of the Yahoo answers forum, someone must have doctored (hence the name "PC Doc"?) all those posts to show "Newbie".
I don't know if a novice would notice it, but every single poster being a "Newbie" is pretty suspicious itself. If I went to a forum where all the posters were marked that way, I'D BE SUSPICIOUS.
And if a novice user were astute enough to figure out that the forum was new, then I would also think that they'd be suspicious of that anyway.
Bottom line, yes, I did see the corresponding Yahoo answers forum.
BTW, cotojo, either someone is using the same screen name on Yahoo answers, or your post there got "hijacked". If that's you, then you would definitely have a case to claim abuse at Yahoo.
And I certainly agree with phantazm . . . Geeezzz, MysteryFCM, what would it take for you to declare a site rogue?
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- on Tue 23 Sep 2008
- 01:19:18 PM UTC
@ BobJam
Someone has indeed hijacked the answers from Yahoo Q&A, along with others that I am in touch with so I will be contacting them too and together we will file a complaint to Y!Q&A.
There is NO WAY I would submit anything to PCDocPro, I've run it myself within a sandbox, never mind the claim to scan in 5-10 minutes I waited 3 hours and had previously cleaned my registry yet this rogue software still found over 500 entries which did NOT exist.
I shall be making a video to post and back it up, it is definitely fake software and they claims made are ridiculous.
All they are doing is ripping off the innocent.Colin
http://cotojo.wordpress.com - Free PC Security -
- on Tue 23 Sep 2008
- 01:30:25 PM UTC
Well . . . I think we beat
Well . . . I think we beat this one to death (clearly this is a scam), but I'd still be interested to see how cotojo fares with his Yahoo complaint, and also MysteryFCM's response to this rogue issue. Is it a definition thing or what?? (Though I think common sense should prevail over any strict definition, if that's the explanation).
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- on Tue 23 Sep 2008
- 01:35:37 PM UTC
Complaint filed
Complaint filed to Yahoo, now I sit and wait lol,
Will post response from them as and when I receive it, but don't hold your breath!
Colin
http://cotojo.wordpress.com - Free PC Security -
- on Tue 23 Sep 2008
- 02:57:17 PM UTC
Well done cotojo!
Well done cotojo - and no, I am not holding my breath.
Meanwhile, why not post a Q&A session on Y!Q&A, with help from your friends:
Q: Is PC Doc Pro a scam?
A1 - yes, just go to the forum and see all the Yahoo answers posted there to make it look good. What a scam!A2 - Hey! They've even copied this very topic: (URL here)
A3 - Wow! What a scam! Pc Doc Pro is using my web reputation to boost theirs. I'm off to see my attorney.
A4 - I'm a systems administrator with a major publishing corporation. I used PcDocPro on all of our systems. Hey! It relly works. All of our computors are running twice as fast now! Please ignore all of these bogus answers given by jealous competitiors.
Spot the bogus answerer. :-)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Protect and Surf. -
- on Tue 23 Sep 2008
- 06:32:01 PM UTC
Hey logicman
Posted it as a question on Y!Q&A, now wait for responses :)
I also complained to 2 different depts on Yahoo and guess what?
The Forum has GONE...it redirects to blog now!
Think someone got a little upset? hahaha
Colin
http://cotojo.wordpress.com - Free PC Security -
- on Tue 23 Sep 2008
- 03:10:53 PM UTC
To answer ...
... the questions;
1. The price and forums do not make it rogue (stupidly expensive and undesirable, yes, but not rogue)
2. I tested PCDocPro on a clean XP SP2 installation a couple times, and it did not produce any F/P's
I most certainly don't agree with PCDocPro's pricing model, and would certainly never recommend it, but in this case, it did not fit the criteria for receipt of the FSA classification.
Regards
Steven Burn
Ur I.T. Mate Group / hpHosts
it-mate.co.uk / hosts-file.net -
- on Tue 23 Sep 2008
- 11:12:52 PM UTC
Sweet irony...
logicman: "Meanwhile, why not post a Q&A session on Y!Q&A,
with help from your friends."Hah! Sometimes I just looove irony; why not do it..?
(And let us know how it went...)PS: Mysteryman, could you explain what "FSA classification" means?
(It seems to be a cardinal point somehow...) -
- on Tue 23 Sep 2008
- 05:38:42 PM UTC
This is from the hpHosts
This is from the hpHosts page: "hpHosts is a community managed and maintained hosts file that allows an additional layer of protection against access to ad, tracking and malicious websites."
I think the consensus of the users here, EVEN IF hpHosts DOES NOT CONSIDER A SCAM AS "MALICIOUS" (and I'm not talking about adware or tracking cookies, but rather the third element, "malicious", of the hpHosts community statement above), is that this PCDocPro IS malicious.
And as far as false positives go, you might say that if it detected anything amiss whatsoever that actually existed, no matter how trivial it might be, then that was not a false positive. Though I saw in your discussion that in one test early on you could not find any evidence of registry entries that PCDocPro detected as being faulty . . . and that's a false positive if ever there was one. So what convinced you that there were no false positives . . . the second test??
Whether or not it is "rogue" by FSA standards is something that you can speak on more knowledgeably than most of us, and since you're the administrator of this thing, it's your call and not ours. So in that regard, I can't really argue with you there.
Nevertheless, the site is considered "malicious" (especially considering that you yourself even got spammed by their email affiliate, who along with the rest of the sites affiliates are "running wild") by the overwhelming majority of raters here.
I'm not a "last word" freak, so feel free to respond.
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- on Tue 23 Sep 2008
- 08:33:33 PM UTC
Re: PC Doc Pro forum
It would appear that someone has done something as the forum has disappeared and link is now forwarded to their blog instead.
Not heard from yahoo as of yet, so don't know if they took steps in removing this or not.
Colin
http://cotojo.wordpress.com - Free PC Security -
- on Wed 24 Sep 2008
- 05:08:29 PM UTC
Registry programs like PC Doc Pro are not malicious
The statements in this post are misleading and really lack insight with all due respect here about the registry, no pun intended on anyone.
The fact is that registry cleaners will find heaps of entries on a clean install and its plain wrong to assume that a fresh install will not have registry errors as everyone is incorrectly assuming here.
I have tested scores of registry applications and to a different degree they found entries that could be removed even in a fresh install as Windows does a poor job of keeping it tidy. There is nothing malicious about it.
As for a sandbox, its not even relevant to any registry tests and why tests would be different in this environment really puzzles me and shows real lack of understanding.
I just ran Registry Supreme, 5 star rated and a favorite amongst users. In an aggressive scan found 1500 errors on a fresh install. The interface is quite basic but the scan was the highest of any scan I have seen. More than 75% were classified as medium severity and less than 6% as low. And this was a fresh install! Registry health was rated at 60% and this is a fresh install
If anyone wants to download it and run test for themselves – please try and select aggressive mode
http://www.macecraft.com/regsupremeClaims over false negatives do not apply and this assumption is grossly incorrect. These registry programs like PC Doc Pro hunt for invalid entries produced by the Windows registry with more generated and left behind the registry after uninstalling programs and clean this up.
Programs have different error counts and this depends on how aggressive they are when it comes to the registry and what they scan for. Some freeware ones like ccleaner are quite light and don’t scan all the hives of the registry and probably the safest to run because it wont affect anything serious
If the registry is not cleaned properly then it can lead to unpleasant issues especially if a backup is not made. An affective registry program safely removes invalid entries and makes this judgement about what is good to remove without causing harm to your PC
It would have been more appropriate for wider tests of registry programs for effectiveness on ‘well run in’ machines, rather than a fresh install and sensational claims on a single application run on Vista Ultimate.
PC Doc Pro
Why does PC Doc Pro now have a green rating? It used to have a dangerous rating and the software was shown in a video, which had proved that the software is Rogue since it costs almost 30 dollars for a 30-day version.
Best regards, Brian (Galaxyfox) www.TechAirlines.com "Shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."