PC Pitstop tests?

What do you think of the PC Pitstop tests? Is that a good indicator of
a computer's performance?

I use them whenever I build a new machine or upgrade in any significant
way. What the heck, it's free. I find them interesting and amusing,
but I have no idea how reliable of an indicator the score is.

They don't like Firefox, use IE if you try it.

http://www.pcpitstop.com/betapit/pitstop.asp

ToolPackinMama wrote:
What do you think of the PC Pitstop tests? Is that a good indicator of
a computer's performance?

I use them whenever I build a new machine or upgrade in any significant
way. What the heck, it's free. I find them interesting and amusing,
but I have no idea how reliable of an indicator the score is.

They don't like Firefox, use IE if you try it.

http://www.pcpitstop.com/betapit/pitstop.asp

It did not want to run on firefox, and I dont want to run on
I.E. so....NO!

ToolPackinMama wrote:

http://www.pcpitstop.com/betapit/pitstop.asp

No, not really free. One, you MUST install their ActiveX control to run
their client on your host. Two, you must open a "free" account so they can
cull your e-mail address (they WILL spam you later; at least make sure to
deselect all their "notice" checkboxes). Three, you MUST install Adobe's
Flash ActiveX control to run their tests. Four, you answer a SURVEY (so
they can gather stats on how to best target your e-mail address by their
"affiliates"). Five, they WILL find problems whether real or imagined.
Six, they will SELL you a solution for the "problems" they claim to have
found (they will suggest you pay $50 for their PC Matic version that will
"fix" the problems it claims to have found).

No thanks. You get suckered if you want.

On 3/12/2010 12:48 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
ToolPackinMama wrote:

http://www.pcpitstop.com/betapit/pitstop.asp

No, not really free. One, you MUST install their ActiveX control to run
their client on your host.

That doesn't cost anything.

Two, you must open a "free" account so they can
cull your e-mail address (they WILL spam you later; at least make sure to
deselect all their "notice" checkboxes).

I have been a member for years. They never spammed me once. Oh and
signing up is free.

Three, you MUST install Adobe's
Flash ActiveX control to run their tests.

Which is free...

Four, you answer a SURVEY (so
they can gather stats on how to best target your e-mail address by their
"affiliates").

I think I skipped that part. Anyway, that's free.

Five, they WILL find problems whether real or imagined.

How do you know? Doesn't sound like you ever tried it.

Six, they will SELL you a solution for the "problems" they claim to have
found (they will suggest you pay $50 for their PC Matic version that will
"fix" the problems it claims to have found).

Um, no... you are thinking of the products that they advertise on their
site. The test and results are free.

They can't sell you anything if you don't buy it. I never bought
anything from them.

ToolPackinMama wrote:

On 3/12/2010 12:48 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
ToolPackinMama wrote:

http://www.pcpitstop.com/betapit/pitstop.asp

No, not really free. One, you MUST install their ActiveX control to run
their client on your host.

That doesn't cost anything.

Oh really. One item that I forgot to test was if their AX install added an
entry in the Add/Remove Programs applet. Does it? If not, you don't
consider software that you install but has no uninstall entry in Add/Remove
Programs a means of polluting your hard disk with software that you may
longer want? If you no longer want to use their online scanner (which
requires their AX control on your host) then you get the joy of having to
figure out how to ferret out their AX control and all remnant file and
registry entries for it.

Two, you must open a "free" account so they can cull your e-mail address
(they WILL spam you later; at least make sure to deselect all their
"notice" checkboxes).

I have been a member for years. They never spammed me once. Oh and
signing up is free.

Did you sign up using a unique e-mail address that ONLY they received from
you? Or did you signup using your true e-mail address. If you use an
e-mail alias that is unique and only given to them, you can check if you
ever get any spam through that alias. After all, it is unique and divulged
to only one source. If e-mails come through that alias, you know to
exactly whom you gave it. If you give out your common true e-mail address,
you'll never know if they or their affiliates spammed you.



Three, you MUST install Adobe's Flash ActiveX control to run their tests.

Which is free...

So much for it being a free ONLINE scan since it has to pollute your
computer with their AX control and Adobe's AX control (which is stupid
because there is no need for Flash content to show a guage for bandwidth
performance that could've been done in HTML).

Getting AIDS is free, too. Later there's the cost.

Four, you answer a SURVEY (so they can gather stats on how to best target
your e-mail address by their "affiliates").

I think I skipped that part. Anyway, that's free.

You don't realize the point of the survey? It's marketing data. And it's
tied to the e-mail address that you give them.

Five, they WILL find problems whether real or imagined.

How do you know? Doesn't sound like you ever tried it.

I ran a test. One "problem" was the Internet buffer size (suggesting that
I move away from the 1500 bytes per packet size but which is necessary for
compatibility with my ISP). There were so many bogus problems that they
listed that I didn't really care about any particular one. Oh, I remember
they claimed that I had to defrag my hard disk despite that it was just
defragged.

Six, they will SELL you a solution for the "problems" they claim to have
found (they will suggest you pay $50 for their PC Matic version that
will "fix" the problems it claims to have found).

Um, no... you are thinking of the products that they advertise on their
site. The test and results are free.

Um, no, I'm talking about the page of results which suggests you get their
PC Matic program to do a better scan of your host. However, any "problems"
it reports it will not fix until you pay the $50 for it.

They can't sell you anything if you don't buy it. I never bought anything
from them.

Same for spam e-mails and phish sites, too.

ToolPackinMama wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

Three, you MUST install Adobe's Flash ActiveX control to run
their tests.

Which is free...

In Firefox, I have a quick script that disables/enables Flash
Player simply by saying "flasher". You can probably find an add-on
for Firefox to do that with a single click. Firefox is amazing
after you have gotten used to struggling with Internet Explorer.
And then there is the ad blocker...

Might be off topic, but Firefox is cool

Requires you install Adobe Flash. No biggie if you already have it but
their web pages do NOT require Flash to simply show animations. However,
after installing Adobe Flash, you'll want to go back and uninstall the
superfluous download manager. And, of course, if it requires another AX
control besides their own, why not add another, like Silverlight, and
another and another. If they use Flash, why not use the scripting already
available in that AX control?

They require you install their custom AX control. Unlike the Adobe AX
control, there is no entry in the Add/Remove Programs applet to remove
Pitstop's AX control. Yeah, have fun digging it out of your computer should
you decide you don't want to use them anymore. Think about it: are you
really going to be running the scan every day, every week, or every month?
No, you'll run it once (and maybe one again after making [some of] their
recommended changes) and then it's over; however, leave your host polluted
with their software. If you get around to running the scan in another
several months or a year, they'll have a new version to download, install,
and pollute your host (without removing the old one). This is why I use
Zsoft's Uninstaller to monitor installations so rude ones like this are easy
to uninstall despite they don't provide their own uninstaller.

They warn you that their client will transfer information from your host to
them. They don't provide a policy or notification as to just what is that
data they are grabbing or how they are allowed to use it. You will have to
separately find their privacy policy web page (assuming it applies to THIS
client they are installing and to this scan service). I did not see where
they actually state their limitations on divulging your information that
they collect. Saying it is part of their "market research model" says
nothing to you about what they do with your data.

Correction: You do NOT need to create an account to run their scan. Even if
you do create an account, you can specify a bogus e-mail address. They
don't send you a confirmation e-mail where you have to click a link to
proceed with the scan.

"Problems" reported by their scan:

- Internet (receive) buffer not at optimal size. And what is the solution?
The first solution they present is to BUY their Optimize download which
fixes nothing until you pay $30. Oh, they do list the manual steps later
knowing that the same users that are using their scan are the same ones
that will not edit the registry. Notice that in their "report" that they
never do tell you just how much of a *real* speed boost you can expect to
experience with this change. You don't get a before and after picture.

I did a test. Measured 5 times my Internet speed and got an average. Did
that before the registry change they said I needed, and again after I made
their recommended change. Result? No change in Internet speed. This
lines up with past tests where I've found these tweaks were of no
significant value.

- Defrag drive C: (43%). A legitimate measurement but neglects that I'm
using NTFS and just lowering the fragmentation is not itself a guarantee
of improved performance. Unless you are running a file server, you will
not likely see much improvement in the responsiveness of your host after a
defrag. Guess they neglected to check Task Scheduler to see that I
already have defrag scheduled for once per month (this month had lots of
deletes and file copies for cleaning up multimedia folders hence the big
fragmentation). Most users only need to defrag once or twice a year.
This test in their scan simply gets the numbers rather than perform an
actual benchmark so, again, you don't see a before and after picture.

Does make me ponder if their scan recognizes SSD drives where
fragmentation is meaningless and where fragmentation is deliberate "wear
leveling" (due to oxide stress).

- Reduce System Restore capacity. They're trying to claim that the entire
disk space *reserved* is currently allocated right now. The value (in
percentage) puts an upper limit on how much disk space COULD be used, not
how much is currently used. I don't rely on SR to restore my host. I do
daily image backups, and also before installing a large app or an invasive
one, like security software (anti-virus, firewall, etc). I have found SR
handy to show me what was installed and when. Besides the installs
triggering a restore point creation, I can create my own with my own
comment. Makes for good journaling with the benefit that SR *might* help
solve a problem. Since that percentage of disk space is not allocated
until used, it still remains available to the OS and my apps. If they use
up more than the percentage reserved for SR then SR doesn't get any more.

"Problems" FIXED by their scan: NONE. You have to do the manual steps or
buy their product(s). This is lureware. Reminds very much of that Uniblue
or SpeedUpMyPC crap the con boobs into buying.

On Mar 12, 3:46 am, John Doe wrote:


Might be off topic, but Firefox is cool

Definitely cooler with the right addon extensions -- or nearly right
ones. Tough getting some addons to port between versions even with
compatibility version/hack removers. NoScript automatically blocks a
lot java/video scripting, AdAware and Edexter (standalone) stop the
embedded advertising links, although EDexter gets hairy if not careful
about whose external site fileformat listings are plugged in -- some
Edexter filter flavors will effectively cripple FF. The very best is
also the very worst, COOLIRIS - little tab that appears over active
links, then to hover over by mouse which brings up a mini-window
inside the active FF tab. Probably why I'm running an older version
of CoolIris and FF2.1X - kludged together but working. Obsolesce is a
PITA -- like YouTube coming up: "Your FF version is old, we don't
(want to) support it ... (to the tune of) There must be 50 ways to
leave your lover" -- then I click play a video anyway, which it does.

On 3/12/2010 3:33 AM, VanguardLH wrote:

They can't sell you anything if you don't buy it. I never bought anything
from them.

Same for spam e-mails and phish sites, too.

::sigh::

On 3/12/2010 3:46 AM, John Doe wrote:

Might be off topic, but Firefox is cool

I normally use it for everything. I break out IE only on rare occasions.