WinPatrol® PLUS for 99 cents Best October News

The end of October 2012 appears to be an exciting time for announcements and new products.

On Tuesday, October 23rd, Apple announced their new iPad Mini along with an amazing new iMac and MacBook Pro at the California Theatre in San Jose. I couldn’t help notice even without the “i” when women search on “mini pad” they no longer get a product with “winged liners”.

If you pre-ordered the new Microsoft Surface with Windows RT, you’ll have it delivered on October 26th. As the new Microsoft tablet was officially launched in China many other Windows RT tablets surfaced from Dell, Lenovo, ASUS and Samsung.

Once you survive all the news from Apple and Microsoft get ready for October 29th when Google takes the stage with an announcement they’ve referred to as “The playground is open”.  The newest Android machines will be great but still may not fully deflate the excitement generated by Microsoft

I thought I’d join the crowd with my own special event on October 25th.  By popular demand, BillP Studios is having what I expect to be one last experiment with our classic WinPatrol PLUS available for only 99 cents. The price more typical of apps designed for tablets will be available for only two days for your Windows based PC.

Unlike our regular $29.95 PLUS or Family Pack license the 99¢ license is good for a single machine. You may order multiple licenses but a single activation code will be created per order. The name/code combination can be used on each machine. The 99¢ cent license is still transferable if you get a new computer.  At the end of your payment be sure to watch for the “Continue” button to create your PLUS code or wait to be directed back to our code creation page.

I often hear from people who can’t even afford our regular $30 license yet in this day of state supported malware everyone should have a program like WinPatrol PLUS. Many even risk going to illegal pirate keygen sites so I hope this offer will save them from potential dangers.  If this experiment is successful I will be sharing the results with other software companies and maybe generate other special sales of your favorite software.

So please join us on Thursday/Friday and spread the news to friends who need WinPatrol. Like previous experimental sales everyone benefits when profits go back into WinPatrol research and helps keep Scotty alive as long as possible. The other major benefit is, the more WinPatrol users we have the more effective our shared cloud data will be.

Example displayed when clicking on Apple QuickTime’s QTTask.exe

WinPatrol Cloud data is generated by decisions made by WinPatrol users to keep or remove a file detected on their system. The data in our PLUS database is both automatically generated and provided by a users experience.  As we add more WinPatrol users this data will become even more valuable.

Order by Friday 11:50 PM EST

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The Dangers of Downloading Free Software

Occasionally I hear from folks who report problems that sound really bizarre. It often sounds as if they’re talking about an entirely different program. It turns out sometimes they are!

I always make the newest WinPatrol available on WinPatrol.com but it’s not unusual for people to find WinPatrol on one of the free software websites or find it when doing a search. Searching on Bing, Google or Yahoo can be very dangerous, especially if you click on one of the links they allow to advertise.

The major problem with free download sites is they try hard to trick you into downloading other software. Most of the time, the other software pays the site based on how often it’s downloaded and usually includes toolbars, advertising or uses scare tactics to make you to pay for a premium version.

Let me show you examples that appear on the first search page when looking for WinPatrol. Click images below for real size view.


Both of the big buttons that say “Download” have no connection to WinPatrol.  The blue one will download a modified version of a Zip program which includes so much crap they apologize ahead of time

The green download button downloads an install manager that will attach to all future downloads. You’ll notice how they acknowledge users will want to remove the ”not required… additional software”. My guess is they must get a lot of complaints about this additional software.



Even some of best known and respected download sites have changed their policies in return for ad revenue. Now that CBS is in control I’m sure my friends at CNet are told if they want to keep their job they’ll generate profit.

CNet has been very supportive of WinPatrol even though I can’t afford to compete with advertisers who use more aggressive upgrade methods or include additional advertising toolbars.
The top download button on the WinPatrol review page will download a program called Aro 2012. I’m not familiar with this program but couldn’t help noticing the first user review wasn’t very positive but is a common theme.
The other “Start Download” button on the WinPatrol review page pointed to an ad sponsored Registry Cleaner program yesterday but I noticed today it also points to CNet favorite, Aro 2012.

I tried my best to find a download site, any download site which didn’t participate in methods obviously meant to trick users.  I eventually gave up. I don’t know if the economy is that bad, people are just that greedy or if everyone thinks the Internet is a gold rush and they think these methods are acceptable.
Here’s my page on the once reputable FileHippo.com

If you read the page you’ll see that FileHippo has been a friend to WinPatrol even providing links to older versions.  Unfortunately, they still insist on including a large Download button that downloads a questionable audio converter program.

Doing a simple search of “Babylon Toolbar” and you’ll see one of the reasons I’ve never agreed to include a toolbar with my program. The entire first page on Google consists of advice on how to remove the toolbar which apparently isn’t something possible with the Add/remove applet.

I probably haven’t done myself any favors with this post since WinPatrol depends on good reviews. Like it or not, these sites are still popular.  I’ve had a number of acquaintances tell me this is just normal Internet business practice and I should be making money too. I may not have a lot of Internet gold but I still have loyal WinPatrol fans. Even if they don’t use WinPatrol they know I’ll continue to help when I can and will tell it like it is.

Update: October 22nd, 2012
I was surprised to hear my friends at Malwarebytes shared my frustration and beat me by posting about their own experience.
For additional examples and dangers see.
http://blog.malwarebytes.org/intelligence/2012/10/pick-a-download-any-download

Update 2: October 24th, 2012
Thanks to Gizmo’s Freeware and Vic Laurie for pointing me to yet another great article that documents more examples of this unacceptable practice.
http://www.ghacks.net/2012/06/17/how-deceiving-ads-trick-you-on-download-sites/

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