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by objective
The reviews and opinions below are posted by SnapFiles visitors. They do not necessarily reflect our opinion, and are solely based on the experience of individual users.
- Free Trial ($179.95)
Win (All)
Excellent, and easy to use 
Activity Monitor version 3.91
- Interface: 5
- Features: 4
- Ease of use: 5
- Value: 3
- Overall:
Activity monitoring software isn't the easiest genre of software to test. There are so many different approaches used, it can be confusing. Activity Monitor was a breath of fresh air (pardon the cliche, but it's true!). Installation is straightforward. And once you launch the client (which they erroneously call the "server" in the readme.txt of version 3.92), you'll find a very straightforward, easy-to-use interface. You won't be aggravated by a complex, confusing, cluttered interface. The look and usability is very polished and professional. The two things that disappointed me were the price (although there are some that are much more expensive), and the fact that there is no option to lock the server PC. You can log a user off, or invoke their screen saver, but those are not good alternatives (the former can be too harsh, the latter easily defeated).
Review date: Jan 20, 2007
- Freeware
- 98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista
Excellent and easy to use
SmartSniff version 1.30
- Interface: 3
- Features: 4
- Ease of use: 5
- Value: 5
- Overall:
I used CommView and Ethereal/Wireshark, but their complicated interfaces and options always confused me and slowed me down. SmartSniff doesn't provide all the advanced features of those heavyweights, but it is vastly easier to use if you simply want to check what a certain program is doing. I rate the interface only "Good" because the display and capture filters require you to manually type strings into a text box--an inconvenient and error-prone way of doing things.
Review date: Oct 13, 2006
- Free Trial ($24.95)
- 2000/XP/2003/Vista
The best I`ve found
DriveSitter version 1.4
- Interface: 5
- Features: 5
- Ease of use: 5
- Value: 2
- Overall:
I have now tried a slew of S.M.A.R.T. utilities, freeware and shareware alike, and I've found none better than DriveSitter. The interface is very, very nice--windows remember their size and positions, columns auto-adjust, context sensitive help abounds, tooltips provide helpful advice, and so on. There is an option to avoid querying drives while they are in sleep mode, which is an option I found mysteriously lacking in competing software. You can configure DriveSitter to monitor only overall S.M.A.R.T. status, individual S.M.A.R.T. metrics (with the ability to exclude individual metrics; an important feature), or both--and you can do this on a per-drive basis. Nice stuff. I did find it a bit hard to swallow having to buy a "family license", but given that I have a laptop and a desktop, each with two hard drives, I'll take the plunge. To me, it's worth it to have the best, and to potentially prevent a real hassle.
Review date: Jul 13, 2006
- Free Trial ($29.95)
- 2000/XP/2003/Vista
Simply phenomenal
Total Uninstall version 3.20
- Interface: 5
- Features: 5
- Ease of use: 5
- Value: 5
- Overall:
Writing a review of Total Uninstall 3 is a relief for me--because for once, I don't have to list bugs and issue upon issue. I was a long-time user of Total Uninstall 2, and once I tried version 3, there was no going back. The improvements in this version are solid, as is the overall product. The scanning speed is tremendous (faster than InCtrl5!), the interface is very nice, the learning curve is gentle, and product support is good. Total Uninstall 3 is not freeware, but it's most definitely worth the price. I recommend it very, very highly.
Review date: Mar 29, 2005
- Freeware
- 98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista
Helpful, but seriously, seriously overrated
WinPatrol version 9.0.0.2
- Interface: 3
- Features: 3
- Ease of use: 4
- Value: 5
- Overall:
Let me put things into perspective here, so people who expect truly good design, like me, don't get a surprise. WinPatrol is handy, but could use serious improvement. And I'll tell you why. It doesn't prevent registry changes; it just tries to undo them after the fact. It also polls only once per minute, at most. These two factors in combination reduce its effectiveness greatly. If I were a malware author, I'd add a startup entry, and immediately after that, I'd make your system crash. WinPatrol would be none the wiser. And 90% of the time after installation of a normal program that requires a reboot, you will have rebooted before WinPatrol noticed anything. There are other bugs and problems inherent to WinPatrol, but I'm out of space... So, it can be handy, but it's far, far from a panacea.
Review date: Mar 20, 2005
- Freeware
- Win (All)
A step in the right direction...
SmartClose version 1.0
- Interface: 5
- Features: 3
- Ease of use: 2
- Value: 5
- Overall:
I was eager to give SmartClose a try, because the concept was so unique. I had been using PC Magazine's EndItAll utility, which is nice, but doesn't handle services at all. Alas, SmartClose didn't work very well for me. I found it freezing up completely, during the part of the process when it tried closing programs. No, it wasn't a waiting game--it really was frozen. I also didn't like the fact that it SmartClose failed to obtain the full command line that applications had been started with (or, if it is supposed to, it didn't work properly for me). I found that I had to exclude many applications, and close them all manually, for this reason. Oh well, back to EndItAll and "net stop" command scripts.
Review date: Mar 08, 2005
- Free Trial ($29.95)
- 2000/XP/Vista/7
Junkware!
Diskeeper Home 2010 version 9.0
- Interface: 3
- Features: 1
- Ease of use: 3
- Value: 1
- Overall:
I'd love to use colorful language to describe my Diskeeper Home Edition experience, but SnapFiles wouldn't have posted this review if I did... The story is a short one: I installed Diskeeper 9.0.515, and it wouldn't analyze or defragment any one of my drives, giving only unhelpful error messages when I tried. The support site didn't work correctly for me, and wouldn't even let me log in after creating a profile. All I got when I called technical support was an answering machine, and a charge for the long-distance call. I'm disgusted, to put it mildly.
Review date: Feb 25, 2005
- Freeware
- 2000/XP/2003/Vista
Solid, free solution for registry backup
ERUNT version 1.1.g
- Interface: 4
- Features: 5
- Ease of use: 5
- Value: 5
- Overall:
Huh? Restoring could not be easier. Open the ERUNT readme.txt file, and look for the section titled "Restoring the registry with ERDNT". Each restore folder contains its own copy of the restore utility (ERDNT.EXE), which makes each backup self-contained. I've used ERUNT for years, and restored with it many times, and it hasn't let me down yet.
Review date: Feb 09, 2005
- Freeware
- 2000/XP/Vista
Very handy, barring conflicts
Volumouse version 1.10
- Interface: 4
- Features: 2
- Ease of use: 3
- Value: 5
- Overall:
I found Volumouse handy, especially when combined with KatMouse (because I used to enable the setting to have the volume adjusted when the cursor was over the task bar, which KatMouse helped facilitate without hassle). Ultimately, though, I removed KatMouse, and Volumouse conflicted with too many applications, no matter how I configured it. I went back to Sound Control, which has a much-better OSD anyway, and greater configurability.
Review date: Jan 28, 2005
- Free Trial ($19.99)
- Win (All)
A pretty face, with a fatal flaw...
AnyWhere Pro version 6.2
- Interface: 5
- Features: 3
- Ease of use: 1
- Value: 2
- Overall:
AnyWhere Pro looks great, but test one thing before you register: Try moving files from one location on a given drive to another location on that same drive (this is best illustrated with large files). See how long it takes? Now, try a drag-and-drop with Explorer; it's instantaneous. What's the problem? When Explorer (or any other utility I know of) moves a file on the same drive, it doesn't touch the file itself; it just updates the file system pointer so that the file is listed as existing in the new location. But when AnyWhere Pro moves a file from one location to another on the same drive, it actually does a full, s-s-s-s-slow copy operation, followed by a delete operation. This is awesomely inefficient, can make your anti-virus software grind your CPU, can significantly add to file fragmentation, and can lead to hair loss if you try moving some really big files around, then end up waiting eons for it to finish, when it actually should take only a moment.
Review date: Jan 17, 2005
- Freeware
- NT/2000/XP
Nice, just one problem...
pserv.cpl version 2.4
- Interface: 2
- Features: 4
- Ease of use: 3
- Value: 5
- Overall:
The only thing keeping me from using pserv.cpl is the one-dimensional (and seemingly random) column sorting, which drives me nuts. For example, I can't sort the list so as to have all running services at the top, and also have them in alphabetical order. For me, this makes finding individual items a pain. NirSoft ServiWin is much better in this regard, but it lacks some of pserv.cpl's features.
Review date: Jan 07, 2005
- Freeware
- Win (All)
Overrated
Starter version 5.6.1.38
- Interface: 2
- Features: 3
- Ease of use: 2
- Value: 4
- Overall:
Oh come on--it's not THAT good. For example, there is no way to select multiple startup items, and disable or enable them all at once. (When I want to disable all of my several startup shortcuts, I find it bothersome to have to do each one manually.) Nor is there any way to enable or disable all entries at the same time, such as with a toolbar button. (Ironically, when I asked the author for such a feature, he said that it was too dangerous--yet, he provides a facility to kill running processes. Go figure.) Another thing that prevents me from using Starter is the fact that it refuses to let you include quotation marks in startup items. Enter them, and it strips them. I find this annoying. Starter is pretty good overall; I just wish these few points were remediated.
Review date: Jan 05, 2005
Create educational quizzes in Flash format that can be distributed online or as standalone .EXE file.
A powerful monitoring solution to record PC activity, including keystrokes, email and more.
Create interactive Flash movies and tutorials to show how applications and systems work.
