MaximumPC 2005 11

watchdodogg MAXIMUM PC TAKES A BITE OUT OF BAD GEAR

Got a bone to pick with a vendor? Been spiked by a fly-

by-night operation? Sic The Dog on them by writing

[email protected]. The Dog promises to answer as

many letters as possible, but only has four paws to work with.

Our consumer advocate investigates...

PeMachines PCanon

PStopSign.com PTargus

Sarge, Watchdog of the month

18

WHOLE LOTTA LAW

4 Does your eMachine M5300-series notebook

crash from overheating? Law firm Sheller, Ludwig

& Badey thinks there’s a good possibility it does.

The firm, which took IBM to the woodshed over

the 75GXP “Deathstar,” has filed a suit against

eMachines over its M5305, M5309, M5310, M5312,

and M5313 notebooks. The firm claims that

overheating has caused numerous consumers

to experience abrupt shut-downs. “As a result of

this propensity to overheat, the 5300-series lap-

tops are essentially unusable in the manner and

to the extent to which they are advertised,” the

suit alleges. eMachines officials were unavailable

for comment but the law firm would like consum-

ers who have experienced the problem to visit

http://www.sheller.com/Practice.asp?PracticeID=

for additional information about the suit.

4 eMachines isn’t the only company of interest

to lawyers. Consumers have complained of their

Canon PowerShot digital cameras taking a dump

with a mysterious “E18” error on the screen. While

some say the error occurs only after abuse or

being dropped, others say it happens for no reason

at all, and usually after the warranty is up. The

price to the fix the camera typically exceeds $100.

Law firm Girard Gibbs, which gave Apple a serious

Indian burn over the iPod battery issue, says it has

started an investigation after receiving several

complaints about the problem and wants consum-

ers who feel they’ve received an unwarranted and

deadly E18 to visit http://www.girardgibbs.com/canon.

html for more information.

Canon officials told the Dog that the E18 is a

general error message relating to the lens assem-

bly. It can be caused, for example, by sand or grit

jamming the gears in the camera. The E18 is used

in almost every Canon PowerShot with a telescop-

ing lens. Canon says it’s quite possible there’s a

perception of a problem, simply because it sells

such a vast number of cameras, making a rela-

tively small percentage of complaints seem large.

The company contends there is no widespread

failure of the lens mechanism and

it stands fully behind its product.

WE GUARANTEE IT!

My brother and I were watching TV late

one night when we came across this

hilarious ad for something called Stop

Sign. The corny, poorly scripted ad

promised to get your PC “completely

virus and spam free” for 16 cents a day.

Stop Sign’s website, www

.stopsign.com, goes so far as to

state: “We guarantee to get you infec-

tion free!” First off, how could anyone

make such a claim unless all the

world’s computer viruses came from

them? Really, it sounds like a scam

to me. I feel sorry for the Joe Schmo

out there who doesn’t know anything

about computers.

— Andrew Stang

The Dog spoke to Terri Adkins of

eAcceleration, the publisher of

StopSign software, about Andrew’s

(and the Dog’s) skepticism regard-

ing the lofty claims. Adkins told the Dog that the

company indeed promises to fix every virus on a

person’s computer. If a fix can’t be achieved, the

company will refund the person’s cash. Adkins said

the one thing that makes it different than other

antivirus companies is its support. StopSign.com

features live people who take consumer calls when

a virus problem can’t be solved with the application.

The company, Adkins said, will go so far as to write

a custom script to remove the offending program if

the consumer sends a log of the processes running

on the machine (similar to Merijn.org’s HijackThis).

The cost, according to Adkins, is about $35 for a

one-time custom script or $59 for a year of service.

That works out to about $7 a month; $10 a month

gets you the addition of dialup access, said Adkins.

How does the company’s reputation stack

up? Not so great. The

Better Business Bureau

rates the company paws

down because of its

“failure to respond to

consumer complaints.”

It seems that eAcceleration certainly has the

inside track on adware prevention—at one point,

the company was selling an adware product.

eAcceleration’s Download Receiver is listed by

several anti-spyware programs and web sites as

an adware program. And when the Dog tried to run

StopSign on a machine with AVG Free virus scan-

ner, Grisoft’s antivirus program identified it as a

Trojan! What’s going on here? The Dog went back

to Adkins, who admitted that eAcceleration did

make a product that downloaded ads to a com-

puter. But, Adkins explained, that was in the dot.

com days before such things were even labeled

adware. She said the company has since dumped

Download Receiver and concentrates mainly on

selling antivirus, anti-spy/adware programs. So

why would a legit antivirus program such as AVG

treat the company’s web scanner as a Trojan?

Adkins said that’s the result of being previ-

ously blacklisted by anti-spyware/adware pro-

grams. Once you’re on those lists, Adkins said,

it’s difficult to get removed. She said some antivi-

rus programs are kicked into alert by StopSign’s

MA XIMUMPC NOVEMBER 2005

A no-virus guarantee and an association with adware

raises questions about eAcceleration’s StopSign product.

4