I'm unable to reach Winpatrol.com this entire day. Downforeveryoneorjustme is also unable to get a response.
Seems to be working now - but it very slow.
It opens for me but takes an unusually long time.
Similarly, I picked one of my "startup" programs and checked it's "Plus" information, then I tended to my dog. When I got back the WinPatrol Program Information page was open.
Thanks for the replies. I was able to visit the site just now. It is a little slow.
There were some posts in the WinPatrol Facebook group about not hearing back from the support at winpatrol email address. I tried to go to the website and it was slow loading so checked and it is listed as down for everyone: http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/winpatrol.com although after about 5 minutes, it did finally open, with each page click taking about the same amount of time or timing out.
I've sent Bret an email and will post and update when/if he responds.
Quote from: Corrine on January 27, 2018, 01:38:02 AM
There were some posts in the WinPatrol Facebook group about not hearing back from the support at winpatrol email address. I tried to go to the website and it was slow loading so checked and it is listed as down for everyone: http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/winpatrol.com although after about 5 minutes, it did finally open, with each page click taking about the same amount of time or timing out.
I've sent Bret an email and will post and update when/if he responds.
Any word yet? I have sent 2 emails in the last couple months with no response. I figure he would, for certain, respond to you. For years, I have had my money's worth with WinPatrol back in the Bill P days. Thanks, Bill, for the customer interaction and steady updates. I am moving on until/unless there is a response and program updates.
Usually, Bret does respond fairly quickly. I just sent a follow-up email so we'll see.
Expired Certificate
Yeah, it expired yesterday so could just be an oversight or an omen of things to come.
Wait and see.
Hmmm, still no change. Does not look good.
I found this article
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-marlene-lowry-died-good-sam-flood-20170919-story.html
which mentions a son Bret of Largo.
That's where
the mailing address is
Ruiware, LLC
801 W. Bay Dr.
Suite #490
Largo, FL 33770
So if that was his mother, probably the last thing on his mind is WinPatrol.
Good detective work, plodr. Since Bret formerly worked for Sunbelt and Alex Eckelberry lives just a couple miles away, I have no doubt that was his mother. What a terrible tragedy. :(
As it turns out, I heard from Bret just a few minutes ago and the unfortunate thing is that Hurricane Irma hit them very hard and they are down to a skeleton crew. Bret assured me that the servers will remain running.
A lot of sadness coming out of Florida these last few months. :'(
...and Texas.
My husband has been trying to locate someone in Texas for an 86 year old gentleman.
My husband called the apartment complex manager of the place the missing couple used to live and got no answer. He figured that complex is gone.
He did find a different mailing address (same phone number but never an answer on that phone number). He suggested they send a postcard or note to find out if this is where the couple had to re-locate.
He might try the American Red Cross Safe & Well site, available through the Texas Hurricane Center (https://gov.texas.gov/hurricane) webpage (link on right side).
plodr, wow that was good under cover work...and a real injustice to her and the family
if this is the true Bret Lowry family our hearts and prayers to you all
Quote from: Corrine on February 16, 2018, 02:11:28 AM
As it turns out, I heard from Bret just a few minutes ago and the unfortunate thing is that Hurricane Irma hit them very hard and they are down to a skeleton crew. Bret assured me that the servers will remain running.
C was that his relations??
According to the article, it was his mother. :(
Thanks Bill.
I'm not so sure that they'd know to do this:
QuoteRegister Yourself as "Safe and Well"
Click on the "List Myself as Safe and Well" button to register yourself on the site.
These people are in their mid 80's and might have never had a computer and/or smart phone.
Their phone number hasn't changed and goes unanswered.
If that old, and assuming they are still alive and well, I can only assume they relocated to some assisted living facility.
If your husband is that concerned, he should call the local sheriff's office. I am sure they can point him in the right direction to at least learn of their fate. I would not expect the sheriff's office will divulge any private/personal information, but your husband should be able to find out if they survived the storm.
It is not my husband who "knows" these people. It is for an 86 year old friend of ours.
My husband found an alternate address 7 miles away from their old address. (We have no idea if they moved to a new place or moved in with family members.) We told the concerned couple to send a card or note to the address my husband was able to unearth because obviously we don't have a working phone number for the couple in Texas.
I visited winpatrol.com to see if there were any new program updates and, once again, there are no updates but there is an expired certificate. Exactly the same as last year. On top of this, I have approximately 5 unanswered emails.
This guy is not taking care of business like he should. What a waste of, once was, a great product.
It is sad. When Bill retired, I hoped that Bret would continue but it doesn't appear that is to be. :(
I think what bothers me most is the total silence.
If development and support has come to an end, why not post a quick comment about that on the website?
From my understanding, while Bret carried the vast majority of the workload, it was not totally a 1-man show. It seems to me, if Bret is no longer able, for what ever reason, someone could post a "Going out of business" sign on the site. :(
I sincerely hope this is all by choice and not due to some health or other tragic issue. But even 1-man (or 1-woman) operations should have an emergency contingency plan - especially when customers and paying clients are involved.
I am still running WP+ on my main systems because it is of value to me to be notified when some new startup tries to implant itself on my systems. But I do worry, with this apparent extended period of no updates, that Scotty is just giving me a false sense of security. :(
I still run WP for that same reason. Does anyone have any updates? I'm starting to wonder if WP is safe to continue running without anyone taking care of the back end.
I think I will stop buying lifetime licenses for anything. It seems whenever I do, the product dies a couple years later. The only viable one left I have is MBAM.
Former lifetime member of :
Cheeselovers International
Pearl Crescent page saver
(and likely others that I have long forgotten!)
QuoteI think I will stop buying lifetime licenses for anything. It seems whenever I do, the product dies a couple years later. The only viable one left I have is MBAM.
Former lifetime member of :
Cheeselovers International
Pearl Crescent page saver
(and likely others that I have long forgotten!)
LOL Yeah, I have a few too. I had one for the eXtreme PSU calculator but they made that free for everyone. Then my Splash ID password manager that used to sync up with my Palm PDA. But they pulled the lifetime license when they dropped Palm support for Android phones. I also had a lifetime license for WinZip way back when it was DOS based. But they pulled that when WinZip for Windows came out. I was happy to see Malwarebytes continued to honor theirs when they went from Malwarebytes Antimalware (MBAM 2.x) to Malwarebytes (3.x).
I don't remember how, but I got a free lifetime license many years ago for SUPERAntiSpyware that is still valid.
If you navigate to winpatrol.com, you'll get the "The certificate expired on Wednesday, February 13, 2019 9:07 PM." message. As far as I know, the last version updates for the three products appear to have been in 2017. Bret hasn't been active in Twitter or Facebook although he apparently attended some sort of engineering event in October, 2018.
Quote from: pastywhitegurl on April 24, 2019, 02:37:55 PM
I'm starting to wonder if WP is safe to continue running without anyone taking care of the back end.
I can't think of a reason that it isn't OK to keep using WinPatrol.
Thanks for that. I do like that it notifies me when some program stops or is being installed.
I still have an extremely old version on our 4 Windows 7 computers. I changed something on my husband's desktop computer and it alerted me that a change had been made to some startup item so it is "monitoring".
Just revisiting here and following up on all the WinPatrol content/threads.
Only the other day I took Winpatrol off the last machine it was installed on. I had a multi-pack license and over the last two years+ I've removed WP.
IMHO it is a sad story for Winpatrol and to be quite honest was expected and on my radar from fairly early on when Bill P sold the product.
Here are my reasons/views for it's demise.
1) When Ruiware took over they had an excellent product but with a huge user base with lifetime licenses = not much new revenue
2) Ruiware had some new product ideas that were planned to develop not new income but also a new novel security product(s) read WinPrivacy in the first instance
3) I was an early user invested in WinPrivacy and sent in many Emails/Reports directly with Bret regarding technical issues, problems, suggestions, etc
4) It got to the point where WinPrivacy was a performance hog, intensive system scanner, and not really the product for me
5) When Winpatrol was updated for the first time by Ruiware I had issues. On some systems there were no issues on others plenty
6) It go to the point where if Winpatrol was working OK I would leave it on that system. If problems I would just remove it
7) Somewhere along the line WinPrivacy ceased to be and became another more Corporate based service offering (can't recall the name)
As mentioned I've not been following WinPatrol / Ruiware recently until today and as mentioned elsewhere on Landzdown matters are not good and I suspect the WinPatrol / Ruiware /Software products are history.
Very sad IMHO but I'm thinking that Bret had good/great intentions, needed revenue to make a going business concern and to work quickly needed some additional help/developers.
Sadly the cards and skills and time required were stacked against him.
Sadly, MrNick, it most certainly appears that your points are spot on and it is indeed very sad.
To me, it is not the lack of support, or even if the entire company is or has folded that bothers me (as sad as that may be for those depending on Ruiware to feed and shelter their families).
What bothers and frustrates me is the lack of information. I don't see why they cannot take a page out of the SpywareHammer playbook and announce they are closing up shop. There really is no shame in that.