SpeedBit Professional Suite
Reviewed August, 2010
| What's
It Do? The SpeedBit Professional Suite includes Download Accelerator Premium (DAP), SpeedBit Video Accelerator Premium, and Speed Optimizer. DAP is SpeedBit's download acceleration application and it promises to support downloads in limited download environments. It integrates with Firefox with an available plug-in and provides a 64-bit Internet Explorer as well. SpeedBit Video Accelerator offers to make Web videos from YouTube and other video sites play smoothly without buffering lags. SpeedOptimizer advertises that it will speed up one's PC and network by analyzing and optimizing hardware and operation system and it includes a Registry cleaner, file sweeper, startup manager, and other tools. Does it do what it promises? Reviewer 1 - Mark Snyder: The Video Accelerator does smooth out the playing of streaming videos by removing the lags caused by buffering. The Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) does shorten the time it takes to download videos from online sources. The Speed Optimizer is not only worthless but a dangerous and poorly written program. Reviewer 2 - Name Withheld By Request: Somewhat. DAP performed well in most normal circumstances, often making downloads considerably faster than they would be using just the normal download mechanism. The SpeedBit Optimizer includes a number of tools for making the computer work more efficiently, such as a Registry cleaner, a files cleaner, settings for optimizing the system, the user interface, and the Internet connection, and a tool to optimize the computer's startup menu. Most were fairly useful, but the startup optimization feature was rather disappointing. The SpeedBit Video Accelerator usually did not improve the videos I was watching and at times made their performance worse rather than better. Reviewer 3 - Name Withheld By Request: Yes, but with reservations. During installation, the SpeedBit programs repeatedly attempted to put the Ask.com toolbar and other revenue-generating links onto my browser screen. While this may be acceptable for freeware, it is not for a program where the user has paid for his license. After I finished going through all of the tweaks in SpeedBit Optimizer, I lost the ability to have the second press of the same keyboard key be recognized by my system. Fortunately, this was correctable by restoring my system to a restore point that SpeedBit had generated. My most positive experience was with Video Accelerator, that noticeably speeded and smoothed my YouTube videos. Download Accelerator Plus also increased my download speed although the improvement was not as tangible. Reviewer 4 - Dana Cardwell: Yes and No. Yes, in that it will perform the functions that it claims to perform. No, in that most users will not experience the performance boots that it claims. Reviewer 5 - Peter Royle: Not entirely. The Download Accelerator Plus works very well; in fact, far beyond my expectations. The Video Accelerator is only partly successful. The SpeedOptimizer does not meet the standards of the others in the suite. Reviewer 6 - Dana Bostick: Yes and no. Speed Optimizer program, a typical Registry cleaner to clear out unneeded and unwanted files, etc. It did what it promised and worked fairly much as expected. It could be set up as a one-click tool set to run on a schedule or its tools used individually. Download Accelerator Pro is an application that is used to accelerate downloads by connecting to multiple servers or multiple copies of the same file on the same server. The claim is that it can accelerate downloads by up to 400%. This program appears to work well and did speed up the downloads of several files that I tested it on. SpeedBit Video Accelerator is a program that is designed to speed up streaming videos from listed video sites and eliminate buffering (pauses) during the playback. Unfortunately, this program was a disappointment. Either it did not trigger on the listed sites and accelerate the download, thereby eliminating buffering, or it did nothing at all even though it indicated that it was "accelerating" the download. I tested various sized videos and the program did not seem to function as intended nor eliminate buffering and pauses during playback. Was it easy to install? Reviewer 1 - Mark Snyder: No. All three programs, while using a wizard to guide through the installation process, posed serious problems. The most grievous fault of all three is the attempt to get one to install unwanted and unnecessary tool bars, change one's home page, and install alternate search engines. Worse, even when it is believed that all of the appropriate boxes have been checked to deny the installation of these piggy-backed third-party programs, a second page opens asking to install the Microsoft Bing search engine. Even worse, although I unchecked all boxes, the Ask Toolbar was still installed. The final act of sabotage, however, is that while nowhere offered and nowhere seen on my computer, upon uninstallation of the programs, I discovered that there were multiple entries being removed for the Flock Browser which had also (and surreptitiously) been installed on my computer. In addition to these acts of consumer abuse, the Speed Optimizer program, while listed as being 2.07MB in size was in fact 13.84MB by the time I uninstalled it. Finally, each program attempts to install itself in the startup program so as to always run in background and installs themselves as a service that must be stopped and set to manual in the Windows Services applet to prevent starting automatically when one's computer is booted. The EULA for each program is unusually long and verbose, unusually paranoid regarding the developer's liability (none), the warranty (none), and offers only a single use license. I am also more than a little concerned about this statement that appears in the EULA: Please note that various technological measures (such as client-server procedures) may be used by SpeedBit to protect SpeedBit's intellectual property rights, prevent the unauthorized use of the Paid Product or Paid Service, and for security purposes. Now how can this be achieved unless the product has the ability to "call home"? Support consists of a few video tutorials, a help file, and an email address for additional technical support but with no turn around time. Reviewer 2 - Name Withheld By Request: It was not as easy to install as I had expected. Although the three programs are sold as a package, each had to be downloaded and installed separately. None of the downloads was excessively large, but installation was nonetheless somewhat problematic. Both Download Accelerator Plus and SpeedBit Video Accelerator tried to insert themselves into the startup menu without asking me whether I wanted them there. Since I try to restrict the startup menu to only those programs I expect to need soon after the computer starts, I was not pleased. Usually I can block such unwanted insertions with WinPatrol, but for a while these programs persisted. I was even more annoyed when I found that Download Accelerator Plus had installed an extra, unnecessary toolbar in Firefox and a Firefox add-on for something called SpeedBit Video Downloader. I am fairly sure I unchecked the box during installation that would have permitted this installation. I removed the toolbar and add-on, and I was able to prevent other SpeedBit programs from installing similar extras. Reviewer 3 - Name Withheld By Request: The Professional Suite contains three distinct and separate programs that have to be individually installed. I found the licensing agreement objectionable because it contains clauses that: - allow the agreement to be changed at any time by them without prior notice; - hold harmless and calls for indemnification of the company and individuals; - make the license non-transferable; and, - allow unspecified technological measures to be used to prevent unauthorized use and for security purposes. Licensure is limited to a single computer. Annoyingly, but in keeping with the practices of too many publishers, this suite repeatedly attempts to install the Ask.com toolbar and address bar search feature, and to set Ask.com as the home page. It does display a prominent opt-out window which is far preferable to a stealth installation of the same. Having these options checked by default and forcing the user to uncheck them in order to avoid having them installed is a non-courteous behavior which sets up the user to accidentally install unwelcome features by mistake. I declined the installation options to install the Ask.com "features" described above, but did permit the addition of the SpeedBit and Video Accelerator toolbars to my browser. To my dismay, they each added a full line of links to the top of the browser, including the Ask.com search button and links to Amazon.com.  This grab of my browser's screen space by a paid-for program was entirely unacceptable and both toolbars were promptly uninstalled. Reviewer 4 - Dana Cardwell: Yes and No. Yes, the downloaded files installed without conflict. No, it was not easy to install since the "suite" is actually three separate programs that had to be separately downloaded , installed, and registered. The downloaded programs were 11.6 MB, 2.06 MB, and 5.22 MB in size resulting in 18.9 MB of downloaded exe files. Entering the license key for each was a simple copy and paste function. Reviewer 5 - Peter Royle: Yes, if one simply accepts all the defaults and let it install itself as it wishes. But I chose Custom Installation, so that I could put the program where I want it on my hard drive. For the rest of the installation, I accepted the defaults, but I was uncomfortable in doing so. After some hesitation, I let the Download Accelerator Plus and the Video Accelerator launch on start-up, but I did not allow the Speed Optimizer do so. During installation, there are several programs and browser helper objects added on to IE -- all without warning; I only knew of them through WinPatrol. Although I accepted them all, I object strongly to any installation that puts items and services in the computer start-up without telling me what they are and why they must be running all the time. Most of them are unknown to the WinPatrol database -- so I had to go ahead and install things on my computer about which I have no information. If I were not testing the program, I would have abandoned it and gone on to other things. The Free version has an item checked to make SpeedBit Search the default homepage. Having to deselect such default choices is also a practice that I find objectionable. After installation and registration of the video accelerator program, I was supposed to be brought to the Video Accelerator post-installation page but was unable to load that page and my system hung up. I had to shut down the computer, and when it restarted, the program did not attempt to reconnect to the mysterious post-installation page. When I started Firefox later, I discovered that an extra toolbar has been installed. Although most of it is useless to me, there is one item which I did like (please see Good Points below). Reviewer 6 - Dana Bostick: Yes, it was reasonably easy to install. DAP comes in two versions: DAP Premium and DAP Free. The free version does not support "trace cleaner " , File shredder , ZIP preview and "private " downloads features that the premium program does support. The premium version is the one that was tested here. The "installer file" that gets downloaded is 11.7 MB in size and the programs ultimately installs into a directory C:\Program Files\DAP that is 15.2 MB in size containing 10 folders and 115 files. As might be expected of a downloading type program such as DAP, there are many disclaimers and caveats about copyrighted materials being downloaded as well as an age restriction of no one under age 13. DAP and its sister programs are restricted to installation for a single user on a single computer. On first launch, DAP requests a serial number or key and validates it online and activates the program. If no key is provided it will operate in the "Free" mode with a reduced feature set. Good points. Reviewer 1 - Mark Snyder: Because of problems incurred to my desktop PC as well as damage to its operation and other installed programs, it is impossible for me to suggest any good points about any of these programs, as it was impossible for me to pinpoint whether any one of the programs was solely responsible or it was a combination of the three programs. I will say this: I had used the Free version of the Video Accelerator for almost a year before installing the paid version, and I found the Free version to be excellent. Unfortunately, this venue is not for reviewing freeware so all I will say is that the Free version is light on resources and has caused me no problems whatsoever. I have recommended it to everyone I know. Reviewer 2 - Name Withheld By Request: Download Accelerator Plus has been quite useful for downloading large files. With Download Accelerator Plus Premium, which comes as part of the SpeedBit Professional Suite the NNT software review panel tested, one can set the "acceleration mode" to "extreme acceleration speed," and DAP will use ten connections for the fastest possible download speed. When I downloaded Microsoft's 316 MB file for updating to SP3 on Windows XP, Microsoft anticipated that with a moderately fast cable connection the download would take me 57 minutes. DAP downloaded it in under 9 minutes. A 123 MB file took 15 minutes to download normally, but only 3 minutes with DAP. With smaller files, of course, the differences were less pronounced. I was also impressed with the clear, concise FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for Download Accelerator Plus and for SpeedBit Optimizer. The FAQ on these programs' Web sites did a very good job of highlighting features and discussing issues for the respective programs. Reviewer 3 - Name Withheld By Request: The Web site's FAQ contains a reasonable description of what and why each component of SpeedOptimizer performs. Much of the same information is also available by clicking on the "help" button on the screen. This is a user-friendly feature that takes one directly to the help section related to the task desired. A system restore point is created automatically before any action is taken. While the first screen of the file cleaner is a bit of a black box, in that it only gives the class of files to be deleted, the second screen gives a report of the individual files and the option to unselect some or all of them. The Suite is easy to use and one can go through each of the optimization modules and the program can select most of the appropriate tweaks with limited user input. Technical support responded to my inquiry in less than 12 hours. Video Accelerator performed well on my system. YouTube Videos downloaded more smoothly and quickly. Download Accelerator Plus is based on similar technology, breaking downloads into small pieces and downloading from mirror sites. This improves download speed, although the improvement is not as noticeable as when the stutter and pauses are reduced from videos. Reviewer 4 - Dana Cardwell: SpeedBit Video Accelerator is very easy to use and there is very little to learn to use it. It is totally automatic. This is fortunate since it has no help files other than links to the Web site and the FAQ section with pre-defined questions. The user's options are very few and are accessed through a context menu from the task bar icon. I was glad to see options that removed it from startup and ways to stop the graphic window "showing" that the video is being accelerated. It adds itself to one's startup group and waits in the background to activate when a video is selected from one of the 165 supported Web sites. My tests did show a slight increase in video download; however I have a very high speed connection and did not experience stopping or sluggishness with or without SpeedBit Video Accelerator. I suspect that users with slower connections would see a viewing improvement. Download Accelerator Plus is a moderately complex program to learn to use, but comes with on line help. clearly explaining how to use the program. I tested the download speed of numerous files of varying sizes. Having a high speed connection I experienced almost no difference in download speed for 5-10 MB files and found that files fewer than 5 MB in size actually downloaded faster without using Download Accelerator Plus. Files larger than 20 MB did download faster with Download Accelerator Plus, but the difference was very slight. I downloaded a 55 MB file three times with and without Download Accelerator Plus and the average download speed with Download Accelerator Plus was 8 seconds faster than without Download Accelerator Plus. I did like the schedule and resume features of Download Accelerator Plus and in all tests these features functioned as described. Like SpeedBit Video Accelerator, I suspect that users with slower connections would experience a more noticeable difference using Download Accelerator Plus. SpeedBit Optimizer is a Registry cleaner and Windows settings interface that work to make system changes to improve performance. The online help is limited to pre-defined FAQ, but is designed to be used as is. There is a one-click button to perform all the default functions. I already had a clean and optimized system so I saw little improvement from the optimizations. For example, it changed my Maximum Transmission Units (MTU) from 1492 to 1500. Reviewer 5 - Peter Royle: Download Accelerator Plus does an excellent job in speeding up file downloads from the Internet. To test this, I used two computers, one that is newer and much faster; the other that is an older, slower one. I have the Download Accelerator installed on the slower one. Using Firefox, I downloaded a number of files onto both computers. Firefox indicates an estimated download time at the beginning of the download, then shows a progress bar. When the download only took a few seconds, I did not notice an appreciable difference between Download Accelerator Plus and the normal download time. However, when the downloads were larger, the difference in speed became appreciable. Generally, Download Accelerator Plus was four times or more faster on the slower computer than the downloads on the faster computer. This was particularly noticeable when I downloaded the newest version of Open Office, which is 133 MB in size. On the slower computer with Download Accelerator Plus, the download was finished, and I was able to do the complete installation of the program and all its modules, before the "faster" computer had half-finished the download. These results were consistent for all the time that I used the program. Download Accelerator Plus also adds a Menu Choice (Download with DAP) in the Explorer right-click menu that was quite useful, particularly when I downloaded pod casts from my preferred radio network. I could listen to the program and download a copy of it to my computer at the same time. The Video Accelerator toolbar that appeared in Firefox after the program had been installed annoyed me, as I had actually missed the option (which is there, in fact) asking me whether I wanted it or not. As I tested out the features of the Video Accelerator, I found the "Download video" button to be quite useful. In fact, each time that I found a video that I wanted to keep, I clicked on this button, and the usual Firefox Download window would pop-up. With one more click, the Download Accelerator Plus program would activate and the video would be saved on my hard drive long before the video itself finished playing. Reviewer 6 - Dana Bostick: The Download Accelerator and Speed Optimizer applications appeared to work as intended. DAP uses a "Mirror Search Service" to help locate multiple locations of a file in order to speed up the download. This is a selectable option and may be unchecked if not desired. DAP is a clean and uncluttered interface that looks much like a typical file Explorer page. It has three tabs on the top labeled Downloads, Internet & FTP Browser. The main Downloads screen is a two pane set up. The left sidebar contains a status listing and a listing of various categories. The larger, main window shows the actual downloads and has columns for: Status, File name, Progress, Size, Time left, Resume, Tags, Speed and time elapsed. The "Internet" is essentially a built-in browser that operates much like any browser you might use. DAP also contains an FTP client that allows you to set up connections to FTP sites and download files from them. I was able to successfully connect via FTP to my own server where I host my business websites and download a number of files and pictures I have stored there. It was all pretty straightforward if you are used to using an FTP client and very convenient. I simply set the proper user name and password and pointed it at the correct directory on the server. The Speed Optimizer Registry and file cleaner had a simple and easy to understand interface. The interface was easy to understand and nothing is done until you approve it by selection of the checkbox for that item. Weak points. Reviewer 1 - Mark Snyder: While there were specific weak points and problems in each of these programs-as there are in almost any program-I am not going to waste time in delineating each of them here. What I will state is that upon installing and using these three programs, I immediately found that my AOL software stopped working. It would not open but would only give an error message stating that it needed to install missing files. When I clicked to install the files, however, my IE 8 browser would attempt to open, only to the extent of a picture frame image of it-and then my computer would freeze, necessitating turning it off and restarting only to have the same thing reoccur. Four programs that I had had installed on my computer for years were still on my computer but would not open. Microsoft Word would open but it was unusable as all of the toolbars were grayed out and non-functioning. My main browser, Opera, would repeatedly crash and would no longer allow me to send links by email through my AOL software. My home networking stopped working. My Quick Launch icons all disappeared but did eventually re-appear after several reboots. Boot time went from 28 seconds to 2 minutes and 11 seconds. In short, it took me over three hours just to get my computer minimally working again and AOL up and running after uninstalling the programs. System restore did not help. I had to reinstall most of the software, rebuild my Registry, reset my Winsock, and reconfigure my network card as well as TCP/IP parameters. In fact, my system is still not 100% and to this day IE8 opens extremely slowly and sometimes takes two attempts to open, and I still find AOL shutting down randomly and for no apparent reason. I suspect, but cannot confirm entirely, that the problem was caused in large part by the Speed Optimizer program that I immediately suspected as being dangerous for a variety of reasons, one of which is that it listed as items to be removed in both folders and the Registry, items that I knew to be required. I was also alarmed that it did not always state what exactly it would be changing when "optimizing" some functions of the computer. Nonetheless, the Video Download Accelerator (DAP) also insinuated itself deeply in the system, installing shell hooks and placing itself in the right click context menu. Furthermore, trying to uninstall these programs was a further nightmare. I use the highly respected Revo Uninstaller and each time it would attempt to uninstall, using as a first step the program's built-in uninstaller, the uninstall process would stop, IE would struggle to open to the developer's Website, and each time my computer would freeze, as would the Revo Uninstaller program. I had to manually uninstall each of these programs which in and of itself is not for the novice and very time consuming. I contacted support but never heard from them. Reviewer 2 - Name Withheld By Request: The most disappointing of the three programs was SpeedBit Video Accelerator. It claimed to reduce buffering delays, picture freezes, and similar irritations on videos from YouTube and from 165 other sites. Most of the time, I saw little difference between the performance of videos with SpeedBit Video Accelerator on or off. Indeed, on a number of occasions the video was choppier with the program on. On the whole, I was pleased with Download Accelerator Plus, but I was somewhat disappointed that one of the features described in the FAQ did not work on the one site where I needed it. I often download large files from a site that does not permit the use of third-party download managers or accelerators. To my delight, I read in the FAQ that it is often possible to bypass these restrictions by switching DAP's User Agent. I followed the instructions, but the download was not accelerated. I also found DAP's messages about the safety of its downloaded files rather misleading. DAP claimed to have checked a file I downloaded with four anti-virus programs: Kaspersky, McAfee, Trend Micro, and AVG. It reported that the file was "Trusted: This file has been tested by leading antivirus programs and no threat has been detected. You can open this file." However, I noticed that the definitions in all four cases were almost a month old. I wrote to ask about this and was told that DAP doesn't test downloaded files in real time. It bases its decisions on "historic scan results": the file I downloaded is the same as the file that was scanned 30 days ago and found to be safe. Tech support emphasized, however, that SpeedBit Multi Antivirus Analysis should not be used as a substitute for having an antivirus program working on one's system. I wonder how many people are aware of the substantial limitations of DAP's security pronouncements. I was also disappointed with some aspects of SpeedBit Optimizer. It includes a cleaner to get rid of unnecessary temporary files. However, this cleaner is slower than the free program CCleaner and does not give as much information or control. Among the files SpeedBit reported finding were 77 Temporary Windows Files (67 files and 10 folders) and 262 Temporary Internet Files, but it would not let me see a list of the specific files and folders in these categories that it planned to delete. By contrast, CCleaner lets me see everything that it plans to get rid of, and I can remove any files that I want to keep. SpeedBit Optimizer's Registry cleaner seemed to work satisfactorily, but sometimes the main Optimizer page reported that the Registry had been cleaned when it had not. SpeedBit Optimizer includes a feature designed to help the user know and control which programs are set to start at startup. To my surprise, it listed only 16 entries, many fewer than WinPatrol Plus lists. SpeedBit Optimizer also was apparently unaware that several of the programs it listed had been disabled. Moreover, of the 16, it offered descriptions of only two. For the remaining 14, the description said merely "Description not available. Submit your own." Not only was it unable to provide a description of entries for such well known programs as WinPatrol and McAfee AntiVirus, it didn't even provide one for SpeedBit Video Accelerator. And, although it did provide a description for Process Governor, nowhere in the description did it mention which program this belonged to, making it difficult for the user to know whether to keep the program in the startup menu or remove it. Another problem I encountered with SpeedBit Optimizer was its insistence on setting a system restore point before carrying out any task. Since I had no wish to schedule all tasks (Registry cleaning, file cleaning, optimizing the system, optimizing the user interface, optimizing the Internet connection, etc.) to run at the same time, I was concerned that running SpeedBit Optimizer would bloat my computer with an unreasonable number of very large system restore files and would leave little or no room for system restore points made for other reasons. Tech support responded that they arranged to have system restore points for each operation "to ensure you can retrieve any files that you may not have wanted to erase." They acknowledged, however, the validity of my concern and said that they would "certainly keep it in mind as [they] move forward with future improvements." At no time did they inform me of something I later discovered on my own, namely, that it is possible to uncheck the option to have a system restore point set in SpeedBit Optimizer. Thus, one can have the program set a restore point if and when one wants it to do so. Tech support's failure to mention the possibility of not setting a restore point was one of several ways in which tech support was not as good as it should have been. I sent a message to SpeedBit Optimizer's tech support with some very specific questions. They took six days to respond, and then their response was a meaningless canned response that failed to address any of my questions. I wrote back at once, pointing this out to them. This time, they replied quickly. They claimed to be responding to my questions, but they again failed to address two of the three. They also said they could find no record of my having purchased SpeedBit Optimizer, and they asked me to supply my registered email, activation code, and a copy of my invoice. I provided the information I could, which may have been enough to identify me as a member of the NNT software review panel. At any rate, their next response was prompt and more helpful. Tech support concerning DAP was similarly unpredictable. I had to wait five days for a response to the first question I asked about DAP. However, more recent questions have received prompt and helpful responses. Reviewer 3 - Name Withheld By Request: After running all of the tweaks in SpeedBit Optimizer, I was left with the inability to have a second click of the same keyboard key to be recorded. In other words, I would type the letters "kiss" but the only ones that appeared on my screen were "kis". It would also not accept double spaces, multiple "backspaces", etc. Since this is not a condition I could work with, I used System Restore to return my computer to its original state. The first couple of times I tried to use System Restore, the process failed. I was able to achieve a successful result by doing the same process from Safe Mode. Some of the tweaks of this program occur in a "black box"; i.e. they tell the user in general what the tweak is going to do, but the details are left to one's imagination. For example, "File Explorer Performance" has the following description in the FAQ: "SpeedOptimizer performs a series of optimizations to enhance your Windows user experience. When optimizing explorer performance, SpeedOptimizer will boost Windows' Start menu access time, and will remove the animation of minimizing/maximizing windows, resulting in a speedy and more efficient user experience." There are no details about how this was done or how to undo it should system restore fail to operate. This "black box phenomenon" extends to other tweaks such as "network optimization". I would feel much better about this program if there was an additional screen for technically oriented users which provided the technical details of what was changed on the system. The "scroll bar" in the Startup - Applications section was broken. I managed to find a workaround by highlighting one of the startup programs and using the keyboard arrows to move down the list. This section is weak compared to other programs I have used in that the description of the startup programs is very limited. A non-obvious feature in this section is that right-clicking on a program can bring up some additional information about the program's properties. It would be helpful to have a prompt on the screen or in the help section to direct you to this resource. Reviewer 4 - Dana Cardwell: SpeedBit Video Accelerator only works with 165 Web sites. I found that, when SpeedBit Video Accelerator was on and monitoring my browser activity, many pages would not load completely. I confirmed it was SpeedBit Video Accelerator since the hangs only occurred at the same Web sites when SpeedBit Video Accelerator was on. These hangs would prevent orphan browser pages from loading at all, thus requiring the browser to be closed completely before normal operation could be experienced. Considering the limited number of Web sites that support SpeedBit Video Accelerator, this is a poor trade off for the hardly noticeable video acceleration I experienced. SpeedBit Optimizer startup manager states in the FAQ SpeedOptimizer's startup module not only provides you with a simple and intuitive method of managing your startup applications - it will also tell you, in clear English, exactly what each application is actually doing. No more long lists and futile attempts to guess what each application does... instead of only "DAP.exe", SpeedOptimizer will report "SpeedBit's Download Accelerator Plus agent, monitoring and accelerating your downloads. My startup manager lists DAP.exe as Description not available. Submit your own. In fact, all of SpeedBit's programs listed in the startup manager state Description not available. The Web site FAQ stated that we have a pretty big database of startup applications. I found that the startup manager only had descriptions for five of 24 programs including some very well known Windows programs. SpeedBit Optimizer's Registry cleaner is very weak compared to other Registry cleaners. It found 12 errors compared to 112 and 142 found by other Registry cleaners. Also, one of the 12 it found was a Class ID that, if deleted, would have rendered one of my programs inoperable. The other cleaner did not list this Class ID. It was listed in SpeedBit Optimizer's Registry cleaner in error. Most cleaners have a built in undo function since Registry cleaning is risky. All SpeedBit Optimizer offers is a Windows built in system restore, much more of a hassle than an undo. Reviewer 5 - Peter Royle: The Video Accelerator did not perform as advertised. Usually, when a YouTube video started to play, the first five or 10 seconds would be jerky, or be missed completely. The remainder would be fairly smooth, but not always. In contrast, the computer which did not have Video Accelerator installed did not have any of those problems when playing the same videos. The SpeedOptimizer is fundamentally a Registry Cleaner, with a few additional tools. I tried it out in comparison with three other Registry Cleaner programs. I ran all of these tests in protected mode, then restored the computer to its original state; thus, I could be sure that the computer was in exactly the same condition at the beginning of each test. SpeedOptimizer took less time to do its analysis than the others, and found far fewer "optimizations" than any of the other three. This comparison indicates that SpeedOptimizer is a light-weight Registry optimizer rather than a first class Registry cleaning program. Apart from cleaning out the unwanted bits and pieces of fluff left around by other poorly-behaved programs, a good Registry cleaning program will also offer a Registry "compacting" module that will reorganize the Registry, and take out unnecessary "space" to make it work more efficiently. There is no such feature in SpeedOptimizer. I compared the Network Optimization with that offered by my own Internet Service Provider. Here, too, SpeedOptimizer did not perform as well as that done by my ISP. Finally, SpeedOptimizer needs the .NET Framework version 2.0 (or higher) installed in order to work. This adds a large amount of overhead and demands on computer system resources. None of the other Registry programs that I have used have require the NET Framework. Reviewer 6 - Dana Bostick: The video accelerator application did not function as intended, froze my machine, consumed over 90% of CPU cycles when it was running , and failed to accelerate almost all video downloads that I tried. I tested it using five different Web sites listed on the SpeedBit site as being compatible or optimized for use with the video accelerator. I used three different browsers. The only site that actually seemed to work with it was YouTube. The other sites were: Vimeo, Break.com, DailyMotion.com & YahooVideo.com, not some obscure video hosting sites but major players in the video content market. These applications appear to favor Internet Explorer as the default browser but claim that it will work with any of the major browsers including Firefox, Safari, Maxthon, Opera and others. I attempted to do my testing on a version of Google Chrome, ChromePlus. I switched to IE for the testing and that did not help. I queried Tech Support about the failure I experienced with SpeedBit Video Accelerator and the first reply took three days with a subsequent reply in two hours. The subsequent reply came back in 2 hours. My problem apparently was in using a my non-standard version of Google Chrome. After downloading a newer version (9.4.1.1) and using it from the link to supported video sites that is on the pop-up from the system tray icon, the program still launched Internet Explorer but seemed to work better. The DailyMotion, Yahoo Videos, and Veoh worked equally well. Metacafe had problems although it too was a listed site. Watching some movie trailers produced the typical buffering mini-lags. I was still not getting acceleration on all the videos though. Overall, I was disappointed with this particular application. Other comments. Reviewer 1 - Mark Snyder: I offer one more cautionary note. Rarely does a program act the same way on every computer system. Each system is unique and each user's configuration is different. I can only relate how these programs performed on my specific system. To make an informed decision, I would recommend to each reader to do a little research and consult other trusted reviewers as well. Reviewer 2 - Name Withheld By Request: At the time of this writing, the SpeedBit Professional Suite was on sale for $49.95 per year (ostensibly reduced from $109.80 per year). The components can also be purchased individually, but the price is also per year. Frankly, I find a yearly fee of $49.95 excessive. If one decides not to pay this annual subscription fee, one can continue to use free versions of Download Accelerator Plus and SpeedBit Video Accelerator. The free versions have reduced functionality. One can compare the Premium and free versions of DAP at http://www.speedbit.com/features/?ref=ProductsPage_Own and of SpeedBit Video Accelerator at http://videoaccelerator.com/features/. SpeedBit Optimizer exists only in a Premium version. Reviewer 3 - Name Withheld By Request: The user agreement contains the company's entire privacy policy. Amusingly, in front of a redundant section of the (long) agreement is the following text: "This entire section can be deleted, as far as I'm concerned:" [and they thought nobody read those agreements…. : ] This program relies heavily on restore points in order to undo any changes it makes. Users are cautioned to be sure that the System Restore is enabled. Reviewer 4 - Dana Cardwell: The user who has a slow Internet connection and a really dirty system with unneeded Registry entries and left over files, and who has never tweaked his system will see a performance improvement from using these programs; but I don't think he will get his money's worth. With the exception of Download Accelerator Plus for users with slow Internet connections (the free version will be all that most users need), there are other programs that will perform these tweaks and many are free. Reviewer 5 - Peter Royle: The SpeedBit Professional Suite is actually three separate programs packaged together. Of the three, the Download Accelerator Plus worked well in my testing, whereas the other two programs were not up to the same standard. If one downloads many files and/or has a slow Internet connection, the Download Accelerator Plus would be a worthwhile investment; however, I would not recommend either of the other two programs. Reviewer 6 - Dana Bostick: DAP worked well for me, and Speed Optimizer worked as expected with no surprises. My experience with Video Accelerator was hit and miss; some sites worked well with it, others not so well. Will you continue to use it? Reviewer 1 - Mark Snyder: Under no circumstances. Reviewer 2 - Name Withheld By Request: I will continue to use Download Accelerator Plus for large files until my Premium license expires. I have no interest in continuing to use the other two programs, nor to spend money to renew the Premium features of Download Accelerator Plus. Reviewer 3 - Name Withheld By Request: No, for SpeedBit Optimizer, Yes for Video Accelerator and Download Accelerator Plus. Reviewer 4 - Dana Cardwell: No, I'm uninstalling all of them at the completion of this review. Reviewer 5 - Peter Royle: Yes, but only Download Accelerator Plus. Reviewer 6 - Dana Bostick: I do not currently have a download accelerator installed on this computer so I will continue to work with DAP. The Video Accelerator never did work to my satisfaction so I will not continue to use it. As for Speed Optimizer, I have several Registry cleaners installed already and have no need for another at this point. |
OPERATING SYSTEMS USED IN THIS REVIEW
Windows 7, XP Pro, XP Home and Media Center Edition, XP Home
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