We don’t mind constructive criticism but it hardly seems likely that name-calling fits into the category of constructive criticism. We make errors like everyone else and if we do, we’ll admit and correct it.<\/p>\n
But constantly re-evaluating things we’ve recommended in the past and withdrawing our recommendation if the product we’ve recommended changes for the worse does not fall into the category of flip-flopping.<\/p>\n
It’s a far reach to extrapolate politics with software but that doesn’t stop people from doing it. People just love to categorize and put things in boxes or jars and label them. Our so-called flip-flopping is in your best interest – not ours. We are not going to keep recommending software that we feel has changed for the worse,\u00a0 just to keep from eating crow. When we learn that a program we’ve recommended in the past has changed for the worse or has become ineffective or dangerous to use, we’re going to let you know; if that makes us flip-floppers then so be it — we are proud of it.<\/p>\n
Malwarebytes, Microsoft Security Essentials, IncrediMail, Spyware Doctor, Registry Mechanic, Reimage and many others were at one time at the top of our recommended list – but we no longer recommend them. Why? The software business is not static, it’s constantly changing. Companies are purchased by other companies, good\u00a0 and reliable software becomes garbage or worse. If we withdraw our recommendation for a program, it’s because the program has changed over time and is not the same program as the one we recommended.<\/p>\n
Microsoft Security Essentials was, at one time, consistently in the top ten antivirus programs. We highly recommended it and it was (and is) free. But it has been seemingly neglected by Microsoft and on many anti-virus testing sites, you won’t even find it in the top twenty five. In fact, the last time we checked its detection rate had fallen to 78%. Do you want us to recommend an antivirus that doesn’t detect 22% of the viruses and other badware it encounters? Should we not flip-flop and keep on recommending it because it’s free? We cannot imagine doing that.<\/p>\n
IncrediMail is one of the examples that those who love to call us flip-floppers like to point to. Since the time we first recommended IncrediMail,\u00a0 the company who makes it has changed hands twice. Its new owner, Perion, has turned IncrediMail into a virtual station of malware and malware add-ons. Should we keep on recommending it because we used to? Should our readers suffer because we are resolute and stick with our original assessment of a program no matter how much or how many times that program changes?<\/p>\n
We highly regarded and recommended Malwarebytes until we became aware that it was not detecting the malware that it once detected — and it just so happens that the malware they stopped detecting was precisely the malware most people were most likely to have. We even took steps to contact Malwarebytes to ask them what was going on. They never answered. We gave them extra time. They never answered. Finally we pulled our recommendation. Just about the time we did, Malwarebytes posted a blog stating they were going to back to detecting PUPs and the things they used to detect — and asked the Internet community to join them in their efforts. This was, apparently, all for show, we’ve seen computers with Malwarebytes installed and running which were full of PUPs.<\/p>\n
Yep! We will always flip-flop!<\/strong><\/p>\n We promise you that we will always flip flop whenever we find that something we’ve recommended in the past, changes for the worst – or becomes ineffective or, worse, becomes malware. We will not hesitate to pull our recommendation and warn our users. That’s how we are and that’s how we’ll always be.<\/p>\n So we will continue to be flip-floppers — and we’ll continue to be proud of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We don’t mind constructive criticism but it hardly seems likely that name-calling fits into the category of constructive criticism. We make errors like everyone else and if we do, we’ll admit and correct it. But constantly re-evaluating things we’ve recommended in the past and withdrawing our recommendation if the product we’ve recommended changes for the worse does not\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6326"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6326"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15036,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6326\/revisions\/15036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}