PC Magazine free utilities - safe?

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eapplegate

Does anyone have experience with the utilities offered by the PC
Magazine site? Years ago, this mag was the bible of home and
business computing, but in recent years it's become a thin,
electronics magazine.

How are their utilities in comparison to Sysinternals.com and
Karenware?
 
Does anyone have experience with the utilities offered by the PC
Magazine site? Years ago, this mag was the bible of home and
business computing, but in recent years it's become a thin,
electronics magazine.

How are their utilities in comparison to Sysinternals.com and
Karenware?
Click to expand...

PCMag's utilities are all 3rd party utilities/programs. If you're not in
a position to completely trust the source (author/developer), then it's
probably not a wise idea to fool around those programs.
 
That depends on what you consider safe. They are certainly not addictive :)
They do what they claim to do, I never had any problems with any of them.
 
Does anyone have experience with the utilities offered by the PC
Magazine site? Years ago, this mag was the bible of home and
business computing, but in recent years it's become a thin,
electronics magazine.

How are their utilities in comparison to Sysinternals.com and
Karenware?
Click to expand...

They are not exactly free anymore. You have to pay about $15.00 a year now
to download them. I use 4 myself. No troubles.
 
Hi,

I'm one of the authors who worked for PC Mag and I wrote some of these
utilities.

First, I'd like to mention that these utilties are no longer free. You have
to pay a smal fee to download them unless you download them from a site that
is not sponsored by PC Mag, in which case the download is illegal. This
change in their distribution policy caused much trouble and most of the
authors leaved the development team (and so did I). It's a very strange
situation now where people have to pay for a software that once was free and
delivered with full source code. I never understood this move.

As authors we were paid to write these programs - under control of PC Mag -,
write the documentation, participate in a thorough beta testing and provide
support and maintenance for a reasonable period of time after the initial
release. Sheryl Canter, who was responsible for the Utilities column was
very demanding regarding quality and I can assure you that the focus was
really on it. Moreover, since the source code was delivered, it was easy to
see how carefully these programs were written. Finally, each author had to
write an online article explaining how the program works and explaining to
other developers how it was designed.

So I think that you can use these programs with confidence. Note that I'm
not getting any money from their sales and that I no longer have any
relationship with PC Mag. I just got a one shot compensation for each
program. So I'm not *that* biased when talking about these programs :-) .

Regards.
 
Does anyone have experience with the utilities offered by the PC
Magazine site? Years ago, this mag was the bible of home and
business computing, but in recent years it's become a thin,
electronics magazine.
Click to expand...
How are their utilities in comparison to Sysinternals.com and
Karenware?
Click to expand...

If they post the source, the program is completely safe (it's
impossible to hide a Trojan in source code). It's one of the reasons
Karenware is "safe" - thousands of eyes have seen that it is.

Way back when (when a fast modem was 300 baud), they published the
source code - you had to copy it into your computer by hand and
assemble/compile it. Now, unless you see the source code you just
have to trust the magazine.
 
Patrick said:
Hi,

I'm one of the authors who worked for PC Mag and I wrote some of these
utilities.

First, I'd like to mention that these utilties are no longer free. You have
to pay a smal fee to download them unless you download them from a site that
is not sponsored by PC Mag, in which case the download is illegal. This
change in their distribution policy caused much trouble and most of the
authors leaved the development team (and so did I). It's a very strange
situation now where people have to pay for a software that once was free and
delivered with full source code. I never understood this move.
Click to expand...

I also never understood this move either. But I'm guessing that since
the PC Mag ulities were very popular, PC Mag decided that they can now
charge people to download the utilities.

But the thing is that there a better freeware programs which can do
almost the same as PC Mag ulities. I still have a few PC Mag progs on
my comp such as Dupeless & Enditall2.

But I want to warn everyone who comes to this newsgroup, don't bother
paying the fee to download the PC Mag apps (I never & I will never pay
the fee to PC Mag) because there are many freeware apps which do the
same as the PC Mag apps. Even though I still use Dupeless (PC Mag app)
to check for duplicate files, programs such as Easycleaner
(http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/ecleane.htm ) can check for
duplicates & also clean the system registry (there was a few registry
cleans from PC Mag), et al.
 
Patrick said:
Hi,

I'm one of the authors who worked for PC Mag and I wrote some of these
utilities.

First, I'd like to mention that these utilties are no longer free. You have
to pay a smal fee to download them unless you download them from a site that
is not sponsored by PC Mag, in which case the download is illegal. This
change in their distribution policy caused much trouble and most of the
authors leaved the development team (and so did I). It's a very strange
situation now where people have to pay for a software that once was free and
delivered with full source code. I never understood this move.

As authors we were paid to write these programs - under control of PC Mag -,
write the documentation, participate in a thorough beta testing and provide
support and maintenance for a reasonable period of time after the initial
release. Sheryl Canter, who was responsible for the Utilities column was
very demanding regarding quality and I can assure you that the focus was
really on it. Moreover, since the source code was delivered, it was easy to
see how carefully these programs were written. Finally, each author had to
write an online article explaining how the program works and explaining to
other developers how it was designed.

So I think that you can use these programs with confidence. Note that I'm
not getting any money from their sales and that I no longer have any
relationship with PC Mag. I just got a one shot compensation for each
program. So I'm not *that* biased when talking about these programs :-) .

Regards.
Click to expand...

I still use a free version of RoboType which is very handy.
If anyone knows of something as good I am interested.
Also StartUp Cop looks good so same question.

Lou
I eat my peas with honey.
I've done it all my life.
It makes the peas taste funny.
But it keeps them on my knife.
 
Does anyone have experience with the utilities offered by the PC
Magazine site?
Click to expand...

I stopped using those programs after discovering the Pricelessware site
(alt.comp.freeware) as many of the Pricelessware programs were better
written, easier to use, and more reliable.

The Priceless Ware site does not toss a program simply because it is
old. It stays so long as it is the best freeware program for the
purpose.
 
I also never understood this move either. But I'm guessing that
since the PC Mag ulities were very popular, PC Mag decided that
they can now charge people to download the utilities.

But the thing is that there a better freeware programs which can do
almost the same as PC Mag ulities. I still have a few PC Mag progs
on my comp such as Dupeless & Enditall2.

But I want to warn everyone who comes to this newsgroup, don't
bother paying the fee to download the PC Mag apps (I never & I will
never pay the fee to PC Mag) because there are many freeware apps
which do the same as the PC Mag apps. Even though I still use
Dupeless (PC Mag app) to check for duplicate files, programs such
as Easycleaner
(http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/ecleane.htm ) can check
for duplicates & also clean the system registry (there was a few
registry cleans from PC Mag), et al.
Click to expand...

I beg to emphasise the neatness of the PC Mag utilities. On XP, I
still love and use PC Mag's Printkey2000, scraper, Hotkey Detective,
etc.

Got to admit I could never make Context Edit work. Very odd.

Patrick mentioned testing and I find the general quality very high.
They are rock solid with very few bugs, quirks or temper tantrums.

You are dead right about not paying the fee for them as a glance at
this group's archives shows.
 
If they post the source, the program is completely safe
Not necessarily. How do you know that the accompanying source code matches
the accompanying compiled executable exactly? It could be just a subtle
change, for example allowing a master password, with the executable allowing
a master password but that code snipped out of the source code before
release.
(it's impossible to hide a Trojan in source code).
Click to expand...
No it's not. It's no more impossible to hide a trojan in source code than it
is to hide a trojan in an executable - they're just two versions of the same
thing, and the fact that there are security scanners for source code is an
indication that it can be quite a serious problem. Source code is regularly
posted to places like planetsourcecode with gremlins hidden in the code. One
common trick is to use excess space/tab characters to push malicious source
code off the screen so it can only be seen if you scroll over to it, leaving
only the 'friendly' source code visible. Another example - malicious code
can be embedded in another file such as an image file, then extracted by the
source code and executed - because all the malicious code is embedded in
another file it's not readily visible. These are just two simple examples.
 
On 29 May 2006 13:45:07 -0700, "Eugene Esterly III"

there are many freeware apps which do the
same as the PC Mag apps. Even though I still use Dupeless (PC Mag app)
to check for duplicate files,
Click to expand...

< snip >

Same here. Nothing is as good as Dupeless.
 
Not necessarily. How do you know that the accompanying source code matches
the accompanying compiled executable exactly?
Click to expand...

Thousands of people (myself included) assemble or compile the program
ourselves and compare it against the released executable. That's the
beauty of open source - there are many eyes constantly checking,
constantly trying to break something. It's why the best encryption
algorithms are all open source.
No it's not. It's no more impossible to hide a trojan in source code than it
is to hide a trojan in an executable - they're just two versions of the same
thing
Click to expand...

Not exactly - anyone who can read the source code can find any
"hidden" stuff - it's not hidden.
and the fact that there are security scanners for source code is
Click to expand...

Is an indication of either laziness (let the software look at it so I
don't have to), paranoia or lack of understanding that source code is
nothing more than text, so you can't "hide" anything in it.
Source code is regularly
posted to places like planetsourcecode with gremlins hidden in the code. One
common trick is to use excess space/tab characters to push malicious source
code off the screen so it can only be seen if you scroll over to it, leaving
only the 'friendly' source code visible.
Click to expand...

I see you develop a lot of code.
Another example - malicious code
can be embedded in another file such as an image file, then extracted by the
source code and executed - because all the malicious code is embedded in
another file it's not readily visible.
Click to expand...

And it can be imbedded in your motherboard or your cabinet. As I
said, paranoia. But what do I know - I've only been developing code
for over 30 years. Maybe if I keep at it another 30 I'll find
examples of what you're afraid of.
 
You can try this EnergyKey
This may be help you.
Now I always use EnergyKey, it helps me so much in my work.
Click to expand...

Anybody got a nice xnews filter to kill this guy's spam? If not, I'll see
if I can come up with one.
 
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