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Dan's Blog Driver Download Scams
Driver Download Scams
Written by Dan Schaefer
I’d like to be told that I’m wrong when I say that there are a lot of opportunists out there that would charge you good money for something you can get for free. Well, let me rephrase that: I’d like to be told that I’m wrong when I say that there are a lot of obstructionists out there that block your path to getting something for free. Many of them are very good at what they do, so they can convince you that you absolutely must pay for something, because it is not free.
Okay, what am I talking about?
I’ve had a really frustrating day today, and the final straw occurred when I tried to update the driver software that I need in order to get my new monitor to display at the full 1920x1080 resolution. I have an ATI Radeon X300/X550 display card and a new Asus V222H monitor. The two should work together, but for some reason, I couldn’t get the full resolution from my video card. After scanning various forums on the web, I concluded that I needed the latest video driver. I asked the Microsoft Vista control panel to find the driver itself, but it said that I had the latest installed. I wasn’t convinced, because I hadn’t updated the driver since about 2006. So I went to Google and searched for ATI Radeon Drivers. When I saw the site at atidriver.org, I was convinced that I had found the correct location.
And why wouldn’t I be convinced of such a thing? The ATI logo appeared in the header, along with the words “ATI Drivers Download Center”. The ATI logo even appeared in the browser’s title bar. They had a “PCMAG Editor’s Choice” logo and some convincing testimonials right there on the front page. It sounded official enough for me. I thought I was indeed dealing directly with the folks at ATI, and I was impressed. They even had software called the “Driver Robot” that would scan my system and recommend the proper driver. What a convenience! So I downloaded the Driver Robot software, confident that my solution was close at hand.
And the driver robot worked very well. It’s a nice piece of code that scanned more than my ATI card; it scanned all my hardware and made recommendations about updating all my drivers.
Ah … this is where I started to get suspicious. Why would ATI care about other hardware in my system? Wouldn’t they just be interested in my video driver? It began to look like the Driver Robot was just running the Windows driver scanner from within their own custom-made skin.
Nevertheless, I continued, and sure enough, there it was – the Driver Robot determined that indeed I did not have the latest video driver in my PC! It also found 16 other drivers that were out of date, including drivers for my mouse, my keyboard and my ATA Disk Drive. (I’m using only SATA drives, so I’m not sure why I’d need an ATA driver anyway.)
The Driver Robot offered to download and install my video driver automatically. But there was a catch: They wanted ten dollars.
At this point I became so upset that I said some choice words to my wife, for which I later had to apologize. (She just happened to innocently ask for help with her blog – a blog that’s getting 10 times more traffic than mine. From a personal and business perspective, it was unwise to snap at her.)
I suddenly realized that I was NOT dealing directly with the folks at ATI, for if I were, they would have given me the driver for free.
I then started looking closer at this bogus site and realized that in my haste, I foolishly overlooked some critical things. First of all, there was a glaring typo on the front page. In an effort to explain how the Driver Robot works, it said (in an H2 tag), “How Does It Works”. Further inspection revealed that this was not an incidental typo, but the page was chock-full of spelling and grammatical errors. (Note to self: Hacker-detection rule #1: Hackers are notoriously bad at grammar and spelling.) Looking deeper, a simple “Who-Is” search on the website’s URL revealed a company based out of a suite in Denver Colorado, and the domain was purchased about a week ago. Going even further, I learned that the site is hosted by protecteddomainservices.com, whose own site is suspiciously empty of valuable information, looking more like a front for a mob operation than a legitimate store front. They didn’t even have their own browser title bar icon!
Kicking back and searching again on Google, I found other companies doing the same thing; charging for downloads that are free.
When I finally landed on ATI’s real site, I found the driver there waiting for me. Within minutes, I had the proper driver installed on my PC, and the monitor now works beautifully.
In conclusion, I find it disturbing that there is an entire industry built around obstructing people’s legitimate pursuit of free solutions and convincing them that they need to pay money. It’s like charging for access to oxygen. Be suspicious of sites offering such services for a fee, especially if the site has only been on the web for a week.
For the record, I dislodged the Driver Robot from my system, and I’ll leave my PC running a complete system scan this evening.
How Does It Works? Methinks it don’t works good.
Best,
Dan
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written by BJ, December 11, 2010
I have the same problem trying to get my Hitachi gd 8000 dvd rom to recognize/play dvds and various other disks.I have spent a total of 4 days camped in front of this computer searching for the drivers, firmware, decoders, codecs and feary dust that at least 5 of these driver scans (scams) have told me I need.At least they all agree on the total number of outdated drivers I need.
I have searched for the "official"Hitachi site and found all they have to offer is DRIVER WHIZ , another program that offers to scan and install what I need.... for a price.I refuse to pay a cent for something that should be free.It boggles my mind to think of how many ppl have went and bought new dvd drives thinking the one they have has taken the proverbial dump.
I am also pissed that ALL the dvd drives on different computers did the same thing within days of each other,as well as friends.Looking through forums(which have to total in the hundreds) I see that this problem is like a disease, making me believe Microsoft has a part in it.
All i want is to have the dvd rom I payed good money for to work.I have had less hassle rebuilding a house.
I have searched for the "official"Hitachi site and found all they have to offer is DRIVER WHIZ , another program that offers to scan and install what I need.... for a price.I refuse to pay a cent for something that should be free.It boggles my mind to think of how many ppl have went and bought new dvd drives thinking the one they have has taken the proverbial dump.
I am also pissed that ALL the dvd drives on different computers did the same thing within days of each other,as well as friends.Looking through forums(which have to total in the hundreds) I see that this problem is like a disease, making me believe Microsoft has a part in it.
All i want is to have the dvd rom I payed good money for to work.I have had less hassle rebuilding a house.
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I'd like to point out that the word 'Hacker' is used in the tech community to refer to great programmers (RMS, for eg.).
You were referring to 'crackers' in the strictest sense of the term. But the name 'hackers' are commonly used in a negative light - so can't find much fault here.