I've been planning theme based posting for a while so here we go,
first theme PC maintenance
If you use your PC regularly you will sooner or later end up with a bunch of programs, utilities, drivers that needs updating.
Recently I thought I would step up on my PC-maintenance, considering how much I use it - so a years subscription to versiontracker for $29.95 seems a bargain.
Versiontracker are supposed to keep your alerted and help you update drivers and software installed on your PC.
Short version - versiontracker is not worth it's price
My expectations were
- Ability to be alerted about drivers to be updated
Works partly, some of the driverlinks listed in versiontracker did not work or in one case the drivers were for wrong version (vista only and not XP)I strongly suspect that quite some drivers were not identified at all ... see next item
- Ability to be alerted about updates to my software
Works less than partly, less than 50% of software installed were recognised (I did not spend time calculating the exact figure - but versiontracker missed a lot of my installation).
Basic expectations from the claims made on the site, but even worse I find the lack of support and attention to feedback.
- I alerted versiontracker that they link to a scamsite for the excellent freeware EasyCleaner, scamsite is a total ripoff the original site trying to charge money for the software - no reaction or update to links from versiontracker a month later.
You find the real free EasyCleaner website here (tool for cleaning up registry, unnecessary files and more) - Some version are listed incorrect by versiontracker, either wrongly identified on PC or newer version available - again, it appear versiontracker pay no or very slow attention to feedback.
I acknowledge it can be difficult to identify correct version all the time, but response to feedback should be better.
The new version 4.0 might be better, but as it crashed on first scan of my PC I had to revert back to version 3.6.1.
Apparently I'm not alone about being disappointed, feedback and review on versiontracker site for versiontracker are in the very low end !
My recommendation
Grab the free download of versiontracker with a one time scan of PC included - update what versiontracker happens to find and move on ....
To bad - better executed the software and service could be a huge success
BTW, better executed means
- Recognise more of installed software
- Detect versions better
- React to feedback !, update version and links, might even consider a "thank you" mail and "update done" mail too !
- Ability to ignore beta version as a global option or for a specific software installation
Version Tracker Review verdict: 2 out of 5
