Rick and I don't sell anything either on the show or in our businesses. We specialize in the service of helping people through their problems not solving problems by throwing more products on their computer.
When we recommend a product like AVG Antivirus or Cloudmark spam filter we do so because we love the product, no company pays us anything for our recommendation.
Since we are so brand neutral, our advice has changed over the years as we have discovered new products and techniques for solving and preventing common problems.
Here are some old points of advice that we have given over the years that we have either changed or modified completely.
Norton Antivirus is the best – That's right, up until 2003 we recommended Norton Antivirus to almost every caller with virus problems. We also said that it didn't really matter which antivirus you used, as long as you kept it updated.
Since then, experience after experience (since Norton 2004) has proven that Norton is not the product that it used to be and few antiviruses do as well as AVG Free edition. It simply catches stuff that Norton and Mcafee don't. There are other good antiviruses out there besides AVG. TrendMicro and Panda are two good examples of other decent antivirus programs that work, but why pay the $40 when you an get AVG for free?
Stay away from Compaq – We used to tell people that most brands of computers were the same, but Compaq should be avoided.
We saw several lemons in the late 90s when computers were still expensive and there really was a difference between brands. Today most computers all have the same internal parts made by the same companies and HP purchased Compaq. There really isn't much difference between a Dell, Gateway, HP or Compaq anymore. Instead of recommending brands we have made our advice much more simple. Buy based on features and price and don't buy custom built from a computer shop.
Run Scandisk and Defrag to keep your system running smooth – We used to tell callers with slow systems to run these two tools routinely to solve slowness and lock-up issues.
Today WindowsXP and Vista do such a good job at keeping things running smoothly that Defrags and scandisk are not necessary in most cases. Todays hard drives are so large that there is no need to consolidate free space to keep the system running smoothly. Most computers are at least 3/4 free space.
Epson Photo printers rule – This is still true, Epson photo printers do tend to produce the best photo prints, but they are extremely expensive to use.
I used to send photo enthusiasts to Epson for printing their own photos before digital lab developing was available and affordable. Today it is much cheaper and the results are often much better than anything you could print at home. By comparison a self printed photo often costs as much as $3 per page once you calculate wasted prints, expensive paper and ink costs. Lab prints cost under $.20 for 4×6 and as little as $3 for a 10×17.
AOL is the worst possible Internet service provider – While we still prefer that people stay away from AOL whenever possible, recent changes to the company's business model have made the company suck less.
AOL used to charge $26 per month for worse service than was available from companies like NetZero for only $10 per month. Late last year AOL finally caught on to the fact that their business would die completely if they didn't change their fees or improve their service.
Since improving their service wasn't an option, they chose to change their fees. AOL now charges only $10 per month for dial-up customers and they offer their "services" for free to anyone on a broadband connection.
Of course AOL didn't volunteer to lower the price for their current subscribers so if you are still paying $26 per month and you are using dial-up or you are paying anything and you are using AOL on broadband, you need to call AOL and have them lower your price.
We are firm believers that in order to keep up with the changes in technology, you must be willing to change your opinions and advice as technology evolves.
Today we recommend AVG Antivirus, Canon digital cameras, Epson scanners, and Sprint cell phone service, but all it would take is a better product or a decline in current standards to make us change our advice. That is why it is so important to tune in often to our show and visit our website at least once per week.
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I agreed, until found out I couldnt make a Rescue disk of it using win xp.Help file said it doesnt support it, just earler operating systems! So now considering spending money for another AV, so I can make a rescue disk. Know of any work around? Also, an on-line scan by Trend-micro the other day caught a lower risk trojan, that AVG missed.Looks like if I need to buy, perhaps Trend-micro would be best?