Recommended Software or Unscrupulous Scam?

Have you ever come across an ad for a software program that looks especially interesting? For example: an ad might claim that the program has won awards and is the absolute best at doing a particular maintenance task on your computer.

The truth is that some ads can be very compelling, but often mislead users into downloading unscrupulous software.

So how do you know if the claims true? Is the software legitimate? Is the software malware? How can experienced users decide -- and what about inexperience users?

Well, I am going to tell you how I go about finding the answers. It is not difficult and you will be able to make an educated decision if you follow these steps.

Step 1: Ask A Reliable Source

The first method in knowing whether a program is legitimate is to ask someone that knows! When you total up the years of experience represented by the team of contributors and editors that bring you Infopackets, you will have over 100 man-years of commercial and personal computing experience ready and able to advise you. So go ahead -- just ask!

Step 2: When In Doubt: Do Your Own Research

A wise man, however, will not necessarily take counsel from just one source. Rather, he will seek additional sources before a decision is made. So where can you go for those additional sources? The web, of course!

The best way to go about searching for the legitimacy of a product is by querying search engines. The best one (in my humble opinion) is Google Search, mainly because of the shear volume of results.

For our particular research, there are a number of queries that will do the trick:

1. Search for the product name by itself. Are other web sites complaining about the product? How many web sites are associated with the product? Are these web sites legitimate or are they all simply affiliate web sites promoting the same ad copy?

2. Search for the product name followed by the word "spyware" or "scam". This is a great way to see if anyone is complaining about a particular product. For example, try typing in "spyfalcon scam" and see what comes up!

http://www.google.com/search?q=spyfalcon+scam

3. Search for the product name, followed by the word "review" and a trusted domain name, such as such as infopackets.com, cnet.com, download.com, pcworld.com lockergnome.com, langa.com, etc. Hopefully you will be able to find a page from a trusted source that will give you the low-down on everything you need to know about a particular program. For example:

http://www.google.com/search?q=acronis+true+image+review+infopackets.com

The array of information on the web is beyond measure. Poking around without the right know-how can be frustrating and often leads to dead ends. Using this guide, your research can be as simple as 1-2-3!

Have fun!