It's kind of amazing how this product is offered free on this site like it is some sort of great promo. HDD Control can be found for free on the ashampoo facebook page everyday, as well as many other sites. The "upgrade" to HDD Control 2 price is no different than any other upgrade price. I noticed that the mods did not permit any posts about this info on the giveaway page. No wonder this site has such a poor reputation as just a bunch of scammers.
HDD Control from Ashampoo (today's giveaway)
(13 posts) (7 voices)-
actionjackson
MemberPosted 13 years ago # -
actionjackson
MemberJust in case nobody believes me, here is the link-
http://www.ashampoo.com/en/usd/lpa/gift?c=springtimePosted 13 years ago # -
Anonymous
Unregisteredgreat promo think not as its very old as for poor reputation not that bad as you can check with MyWOT or SiteAdvisor look ok to me and if you don't like the eMail from Ashampoo go back untick all & you be ok look out for one down low on the page allso check with http://www.urlvoid.com/
Detections 0 / 18 (0 %)
Status CLEAN (so 18 say Ashampoo is ok)Posted 13 years ago # -
mikiem2
ModeratorIt's kind of amazing how this product is offered free on this site like it is some sort of great promo. HDD Control can be found for free on the ashampoo facebook page everyday, as well as many other sites.
I think that's just Ashampoo marketing. Ashampoo's very aggressive, always doing sales, specials, & giveaways like many companies that sell iPhone apps, or Amazon giving away e-books for their Kindle. Paragon & EASEUS & many video app makers do the same. None of that stuff's *always* free, but it helps get the word out & create demand -- look what it did for the Angry Bird devs.
At any rate, I think the only thing GOTD has ever claimed or advertised is a free, normally payware app each day. And Ashampoo HDD Control fits that definition.
The "upgrade" to HDD Control 2 price is no different than any other upgrade price.
I don't believe anyone said it was different. The line on the GOTD page says that's what it'll cost folks who download & register the GOTD -- that doesn't mean you can't get that price otherwise... again, Ashampoo markets aggressively. In fact if you register a trial & opt to receive their e-mails, you're just about guaranteed to get some offers with *Very* inexpensive pricing sooner or later.
Posted 13 years ago # -
mikiem2
Moderatorgreat promo think not as its very old
FWIW I agree, but haven't said much because I don't know that there's anything useful I could say about Ashampoo HDD Control. Enough people apparently like it that it's made it to version 2 -- Ashampoo does not further development on unsuccessful products -- so no reason to spoil any enthusiasm they might feel. It doesn't harm anything that I can see, has reasonable [minimal] impact on Windows, & works. OTOH the developers were/are a bit lazy -- e.g. all languages & both 32 & 64 bit drivers are copied to the hard drive -- & personally I don't see much use for the app.
SMART data is very imperfect, many (most?) motherboards monitor it already, & I've never done more than glanced at it *VERY* occasionally [like once a year... maybe] out of curiosity. I've had drives fail & not only did SMART not predict failure, it still showed the drive as good. Benchmarks are cool if you just bought a drive & want to write a review to help the next potential buyer, but I'm not going to throw a drive out because it got a bad benchmark -- if I was going to worry about its speed I should have read someone's review before I bought it. :-) Temp readings are cool, IF you just put together a system & want to make sure there's airflow to the drives. After that watch your CPU if you want to watch anything -- on most PCs if a fan(s) fail the CPU will heat up 1st & more, hopefully shutting down your system before it melts. Defragging hard drives in the background is cool for some folks, but I normally do stuff like defrags, virus scans, & backups while I'm doing something else.
Now there's nothing wrong with liking HDD Control &/or using it. It just doesn't offer me anything I could or would use, but that's me.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Whiterabbit-uk
Games GuruTo action jackson, this site has been operating since October 2006, bringing hundreds of thousands of users almost 1800 software packages for free with only several days off for updating. Not all the software has been ground breaking and not all of them have been worth downloading, but the site has for me (at least) opened up a Christmas box of surprises over the years; software I'd never heard of before and others that I'd not been able to afford and other software I never knew I'd need. We've had some brilliant giveaways over the last five years.
As for your statement about how poor a reputation this site has, it would not have such a good standing with the big search engines if it had a poor reputation. There was only one time the site was labelled red on Site Adviser and that was because someone had posted a freeware program riddled with malware in the freeware section, which was removed as soon as it was discovered (though it took site Advisor several months to remove the red rating).
If you search for a specific string of words via a search engine like Google it will usually find the post within seconds. That alone is not the sign of a site with a poor reputation; also, thousands return religiously virtually every day for their free application fix and sometimes for a free game at weekends.
Just because Ashampoo are offering this software elsewhere as well doesn't mean the owners are a bunch of scammers. On the contrary, Ashampoo know that the software will be exposed to a much larger audience for allowing it to be given away here on the giveaway site. There are tens of thousands of users downloading software from the giveaway site every day because the majority of users know they can 'more often than not' get trusted software from trusted developers that is generally useful.
Posted 13 years ago # -
There is not much to add, thanks guys for your answers.
Just to the user's wrong claim that the giveaway is freeware: the springtime offer on the Ashampoo site is no longer active, it was one of their several promotions; the version of today's GOTD costs $ 14.99.
The version you can download from ComputerBild is a "Special Version" (free) Programmart Spezial-Version (kostenlos).The only input made by this user in the past, are similar accusations.
Not very helpful.graylox
Posted 13 years ago # -
actionjackson
MemberTo Whiterabbit-uk : I'll briefly address your points.
As for the poor reputation of this site: there have been numerous times that this site has distributed programs that are from sites rated RED by WOT. And many of those sites are rated RED because of ties to distribution of malware, spyware, phishing schemes, etc. Many of those sites are not only rated red on WOT but have been listed on hphosts and other malware domain lists as malware distribution sites. This problem is enhanced because of the editing of posts on the giveaway page which tries to let site visitors know about poor site reputations of the free product. There are several examples of this over the past several months. I actually remember one time when a product was listed as the giveaway of the day which included a "whistler trojan" which the developer readily admitted to in a post. But he was allowed to upload a "non-malware" version on giveawayoftheday without reservations by this site. You can check the reputation of giveawayoftheday on security forums such as wilderssecurity and others. This site has a poor reputation because of the ties to the distribution of products from vendors who distribute malware, spyware, etc.Posted 13 years ago # -
"there have been numerous times that this site has distributed programs that are from sites rated RED by WOT"
The software is scanned by the GOTD team before release. False positives are often reported by users - a fact of life and a regular occurrence.
WOT and how ratings are determined, have attracted a lot of criticism over the years and while a site may be rated down because it links to other RED sites, it does not follow that the application hosted by GOTD is dangerous. (Throwing around terms like "distribution of malware, spyware, phishing schemes" is simply wrong).
Considering how much software GOTD has made available to users for free over the years, the attention to ensuring user safety has been excellent.
I do agree that some websites that have supplied software to GOTD have previously come to the attention of the net police after being accused of doing the wrong thing. But the giveaways have been tested and checked prior to release and offered in good faith.
It is much easier to address specifics - rather than going in circles talking about "several examples over the past months" or suggestion people go to other forums to read other opinions on why other anonymous users think GOTD has a poor reputation because they gave away software from a site someone believed had in the past done something bad.
Please provide references on this site to support vague claims.
GOTD doesn't condone malware or spyware and the giveaways are checked to be clean. Your argument I believe is baseless.
Did you ever sit down for a meal with someone who once got a speeding ticket. Does this mean you have no regard for the rules of the road?
Posted 13 years ago # -
It's kind of amazing how this product is offered free on this site like it is some sort of great promo. HDD Control can be found for free on the ashampoo facebook page everyday, as well as many other sites
Do you really expect that GOTD will every day find a unique application that has never been offered anywhere else on the internet (including on the developers own website/facebook page).
Ashampoo also run their own promotions, and other sites will also offer the apps.
So you know somewhere else you can get it for free. Pat yourself on the back for being so clever, and move along.
I noticed that the mods did not permit any (my) posts about this info on the giveaway page
I noticed that too.
No wonder this site has such a poor reputation as just a bunch of scammers.
... who didn't approve your complaint about the Ashampoo giveaway.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Simples
MemberSince I'm happily leeching software for free, I'm not getting into the above at all but...
if you download and uninstall HD Controller 2 (and perhaps other apps) from Ashampoo at the moment, your browser will whisk you to an offer similar to the above, so that anyone can download (some version or other) of HD Controller, Anti-malware etc for free as part of Ashampoo's own lovely marketing effortff.
Posted 13 years ago #
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