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A sucker made every hour...

Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2010 11:05 pm
by jdog
Watching TV the other day and saw a commercial for this website: http://maxmyspeed.com

It's basically for people that are infected with malware, etc on their Windows systems and/or their computers are slow and bogged down. Part of me thinks that companies like this are the ones that help push malware to begin with and make loads of profit off of it. I noticed on their website that they ONLY support Windows, not Linux or Mac OS X at all.

Of course the irony is that they want you to download some software and run it to "diagnose" what's wrong. Hmmmm, I might test this in a clean Windows XP VM to see what it spits back.

Edit- Something about a CyberDefender Registry Scanner so far.

Re: A sucker made every hour...

Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2010 11:05 pm
by jdog
This is what their program found. Now, this is one a perfectly working VM that has already been cleaned of all viruses/malware. It is functioning without a problem and is QUITE fast.

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If you click on the "Fix All Errors and Speed up Your PC" link it takes you right to a website asking for a credit card and payment (of course) of $44.67.

Little that most people don't know, the registry is nothing but a giant database. If nothing points to tables on a database to pull or write to does anything happen? No. This program is nothing more than a registry scanner. I don't believe in those programs as they tend to do more harm than good on a Windows system. They also won't make a PC faster if you need more memory or your hard drive is having I/O errors.

What a joke. And most Windows users fall for it all the time.

Edit- Upon trying to close the browser you get the giant warning below. They won't even let you close your web browser without trying to take over your PC. Amazing.

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Re: A sucker made every hour...

Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2010 11:06 pm
by jdog
It gets even worse! The program wouldn't close. When I hit the X button it just minimized to the system tray. I had to forcefully end the process in the Task Manager.

After that I went to uninstall it. The program made a bunch of erroneous entries in the Start Up (seen via MSCONFIG) so when you rebooted all you get are errors and pop-ups.

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Wow, what a great product. If you don't pay for anything they just ensure that your computer is dorked up.

Re: A sucker made every hour...

Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2010 1:38 am
by Sir Jig-A-Lot
That's totally FUBAR!

Re: A sucker made every hour...

Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2010 2:51 am
by jdog
I'm trying to find the local TV station (ABC, Fox, NBC or CBS) that was playing it. If I see it again I'm going to contact them. I cannot believe they have the nerve to advertise what is essentially malware/adware.

Re: A sucker made every hour...

Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2010 2:57 am
by Sir Jig-A-Lot
As if the suits who run the big networks would care what they advertise. As long as it looks legit & fills up the coffers.

Re: A sucker made every hour...

Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2010 3:03 am
by jdog
Sir Jig-A-Lot wrote:As if the suits who run the big networks would care what they advertise. As long as it looks legit & fills up the coffers.
True, but say CBS was running the ad and refused to pull it? I could go to NBC and report it and they'd make a story from it.

Re: A sucker made every hour...

Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2010 3:10 am
by Sir Jig-A-Lot
Haha. you should!

Re: A sucker made every hour...

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 2:16 am
by 5829
Unless NBC (or whatever station you go to) is also running the ad.

Re: A sucker made every hour...

Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2010 8:48 pm
by AYHJA
We should put this on digg and mixx...