PC utilities forum: Regzooka Fine print and business practice alert

"Does that mean they're all scams?"

Yes! Perhaps my use of Scams is a bit harsh. The problem is, how do these utilities know which registry entries are needed and which are not? The registry has hundreds of thousands of keys and values and a 'scan' does not tell us what the scan is. A scan of the registry? Or a scan of the applications that plant keys and values in to the registry?

If the utilities simply scan the registry, then what are they scanning for? Nil entries? 0 (zero) values? If so, damage can be done because many of these nil entries and 0 values might be required. How does the utility know?

If it scans applications, then the scan is going to take days and weeks and even then may fail. Registry entries are nearly always inserted during Setup, (eg the setup or install file that we 'run' to install the application). Those setup files are often discarded, or are on the CD that the software came on. So the scan will not catch everything. But even there, even if the scan searches through installed .exe files for registry action, then that needs de-compiling of the .exe files, and that is serious hard-core programming and scanning. It is like looking through an applications code for errors and this is something I had to do years ago when I did programming myself in simple BASIC language. Such files were typically only 2 or 3 Kb in size and troubleshooting would often take me weeks, even though I was the one who created the code anyway.

So I don't even begin to believe that such scanners are scanning applications for their relevant registry entries, then to dismiss those as proper so they make a note of the registry entries not assigned to any software.

Whatever method they use, (I discount some sort of internal database as that would probably take a computer processor with the capacity of Marvin to accommodate, (who had a brain the size of a planet) - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), they are going to get it wrong, and here's the rub; it only takes one change in the registry, one wrong deletion or value change to kill the OS stone dead.

So, may be not scams, as they may be well meaning. But utterly useless and all too often very dangerous.

The registry is itself just a database and as with all databases they are static. They don't do anything except hold data. So any unused or unwanted data is simply ignored. That might increase the size of the registry over time, but compared to other files on the hard drive the registry file is tiny and today's processors can whip through them in less than a blink of they eye.

Without being rude, I would say that I was a little surprised by your statement that, "In following up on some people's opinion that registry cleaners as a group are scams, I decided to try Glary Utilities and Iolo's System Mechanic".

I have to wonder why anyone who read all the problems and opinions would then download, install and try 2 other recognised 'never recommended' registry scanner/optimisers. So now you have 3, you are using all 3 one after the other, and they all report different results.

The regulars in these forums never recommend any utilities like these, so my own advice would be to uninstall all 3 and trust that no damage has been done.

You may get other, differing, advice of course.

Mark

Firstly, many thanks for not taking offense.

You are right that so many computer users 'lack knowledge' about registry cleaners and optimizers. You mentioned the vast majority and sadly I agree with you. There is another discussion in these forums about RegZooka
here
and it's basically the same story. Interestingly there was a response there from someone saying he was the "President of Zookaware" the company who developed and distributes RegZooka themselves to apologise and to offer help. I'm guessing he found the thread after Googling for complaints against his software. He never replied to a post addressed to him.

I understand what you did and why and I am grateful that you haven't caused any lasting damage to your system.

The problems are;

1] Users do not know how to manage and housekeep their systems themselves. Not entirely surprising as many users nowadays simply want to turn a computer on and use it. They are not interested in learning more and why should they?

2] But then they see these classy advertising from these companies that promise to keep their systems fast and lean and solve 'all problems' and they are taken in.

3] Such utilities often offer a "Trial run" to scan their systems, find hundreds of so-called problems, then demand the user purchase the full software package to correct the problems. They then feel they must because of all the problems reported.

The plain truth is that we can, ourselves, do all of the maintenance and repair that these utilities say they can do, free of charge. It takes learning and confidence, but nothing these utilities do cannot be done by us.

Glad to see you have now joined the ranks of the 'aware'!

Mark

great post, and very helpful; and I'm not even part of this thread. :))
thanks so much. I've downloaded registry cleaners a few times, but never knew which ones to delete.
Good thing I didn't mess things up..

Very informative. thanks!

We, at Zookaware apologize for any confusion but we do not have any small print within our site. When we offer you CyberBackup as a package saving that, you can see it in the cart before the purchase. You can also see it where you enter in your credit card information where it reminds you that it will be a $9.95 monthly charge after the 1st 30 days. We also send you numerous emails regarding the purchase. One of those emails contains a password for it along with any other serial numbers you made need to register your products. If there is any confusion on this we would be glad to offer additional help at anytime. We do stand behind our guarantee and this is why every penny is returned if a customer is not satisfied.

We understand there are tons of PC cleaner companies out there that take advantage of users by providing false positives, installing spyware on user's system and then are left in the dark with no support whatsoever. Those companies are now being investigated by the government and will soon be reprimanded for such business practices. Zookaware prides itself on how we test our product to ensure there are no false positives or anything that will destroy your registry. We stand by our product. We offer a 60 day money back guarantee on all our software. If there is ever a question that arises, you can call our technical support line. Our call center is open 24/6 to better serve our customer across the nation and world. We never want to charge someone for something they do not want or do not use. We are not looking to keep anyone's money if they did not use our product. If you have any other questions or require support on any of our products, please contact us at 800-290-9809 or email us at contact@zookaware.net. Thank you and have a great day.

-Zookaware Support

My apologies, as I mis-spoke-typed when I said in the above message "I didn't even know I had purchased it." That is not correct, what I meant to say was "I thought I was buying regzooka licenses for 3 machines, and cyberlink was a free trial add on".

I called support again today, and was forwarded to Matt. Matt said he read the notation on my account, and said he was authorized to refund 6 months in addition to the initial 2 months, for a total of 8. This is short of the year-plus that I have been paying monthly, however, since I bear some responsibility for not reading as carefully as I should have, I agreed to accept this offer. Matt told me that I should expect the refund within 3-5 days. When that refund actually comes through, I will follow up on my promise. Thank you for your response.

Thank you for letting us know, and Thumbs Up to Zookaware for getting it sorted.

Mark

After purchasing regzooka I did not notice any dramatic changes on my pc, maybe a little quicker maybe not. No problems with the software but after getting a couple of card statements I noticed continued payments for cyberbackup, something I did not want and was unaware of purchasing and hadn't downloaded.

Turns out the free cyberbackup, which is added to your order by defaut, is only free until they start taking your money month by month.

I emailed regzooka on 15th March 2012 to cancel cyberbackup and regzooka subscriptions and asked for a refund of cyberbackup payments. I got an automated response and I am still waiting for a proper response.

If anyone from Zookaware can help my order number was 140859

Kind of looks like Regzooka are quick to respond to public complaints but happy to ignore direct complaints.

and thanks for letting us know.

An amazing coincidence, you post here and within a few days you get a response to your email, and a refund!

Mark