Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

Free is a byword on this blog. I’m always looking for good free stuff. My Win7 system is sluggish so I went to ZD.net Downloads to see what was available as a Free download for system optimization. System Optimize Expert came up when I filtered for Windows and Free. Its description sounded good so I downloaded and installed it. I ran Scan and soon as I ran it a pop-up for their Pro version popped up. Seconds after I started the scan System Optimize Expert reported that I had hundreds of problems and did I want to fix them? I replied affirmatively and it said, the free version only fixes 5 problems, did I want to upgrade to the Pro version. I clicked cancel, went to Control Panel and uninstalled the program. Frankly I don’t care if it is accurate or not, the practice of claiming to be free and then finding some outrageous number of issues that can only be fixed by upgrading seems highly suspicious. I might add that ZD.net should more accurately evaluate if a download truly...

There is an interesting thing about some of the free software being offered at Cnet and Zdnet. It’s not so free anymore. You don’t have to pay a fee but even at these “reputable” sites you may not be getting a fee but you are getting the shaft. ZDNet’s Download Digest and cnet both recommend Glary Registry Repair 3.1.0.800. I read the description and thought it was worth testing. I downloaded it smoothly from ZDNet, I tried downloading it from cnet and it dragged and dragged and I finally stopped the download. Don’t know what was wrong with cnet. I went to install it and it brings up the ubiquitous license screen. If you aren’t careful and if you don’t read the screen carefully, you not only get Glary installed, you get the Ask toolbar, Ask is set as your default search screen and other crap is loaded as well. I canceled installation and deleted the software from my system. Free or Freeware is not an appropriate term if they are going to be reaping financial benefits b...