Hey #4
It created a folder in my start menu

I just realized the company that makes this also contributed "Remote Observer" which was offered here awhile back (that was a great little program that I am still using). As for this program, it works as advertised and today is free, so I would say grab it--why not? Even if you haven't yet set up a home network, go ahead and put it on your main pc and have it available in your toolkit. I'm not sure why anybody would have a negative comment about it--at $19 it's pretty inexpensive for a utility (plus it's free anyway, today). And sure, depending on your op system and inclination you can go to the trouble of monitoring things without extra tools, but why? I vote yes on this one.

I meant "whenever that is the case."

#4, Jim. I think the rest of us would be very grateful if you would do for all GAOTD software what you've done with this one: check whether the program phones home somewhere on startup. We all certainly need such a heads-up.

Other download sites would flash feedback from users that such and such software is malicious whether that is the case.

Thanks indeed.

He guys,
This site is running in Scottsdale, Arizona
IP Address: 208.109.86.65 www.giveawayoftheday.com

Now everybody knows, whatch it now !! But this might be in Colombia too. Just take care.

The phone home part of this app was enough to make me uninstall it.

Most of this stuff is already in Windows. You really should protect your shares with the actual share and file security in Windows, and not by some add-on program like this.

Windows also offers viewing in use files/shares/session in [Administrative Tools] -> [Computer Management] -> [System Tools] -> [Shared Folders].

Personally, I use a free program called ShareWatch (http://stevemiller.net/sharewatch) only because I like the UI better and I can get to it from my tray.

I'm grateful for GOTD since I can "try before I buy" when certain apps. that I may have seen and wanted to try out are offered. I'm also VERY grateful for the knowledgeable reviewers who do this with just about if not every GOTD app. offered since I am not computer savvy at all.(This one calls to an IP in Russia??..eek! Now that is great to know!) I'm passing on this one because I don't share files and have that shut off, but I am grateful for the offer. Thanks GOTD since these days, little if anything is free anymore. Much appreciated!

#37 I would usually agree with you completely we do have a bunch of cry babys here that do not have much empathy ability. In this case I would disagree.
This program seems very very shady and the comments I have seen so far for the most part make me just want to stay away from this program.
This sight is so good from a information and resource sight from many of the commenters. The resource of learning favorite alternatives(as long as it is on topic)if there is one, has come in handy. If you value your computer security as much as I do, the negative comments today wouldn't bother you a bit.
A quick IP lookup of the address given by #4 list "internetserviceteam.com" a quick google search of that host name should make you very very scared.

yay another useless program. if you set your files to be shared and they get "unauthorized access" that just means your network is insecure and that you're stupid..

I will pass on this offer based on comments and common sense. I look forward to tomorrows offer and game. Thank you GAOTD team.

I use True Crypt so have no need of this security utility but thanks for letting us have a chance to evaluate. Unlike other negative folks out there I am sure there are many that have no idea how to use settings already built into operating systems. I enjoy having the knowledge needed to pull off this kind of work around but most would not and have the time or inclination to do this. This fits their need perfectly.
So the rest of you geniuses stop whining. Don't you ever get tired of always being so damned negative. I just don't get the desire to complain about free stuff. Why bother when you could be adding constructive criticism.
It seems that there are always people that do nothing but bitch and moan about every program listed or feel that somehow their smart ass remarks are appreciated. If all your going to do is complain about free programs then perhaps you should just stop looking.
The fact that anyone gives anything away in today's economy is a wonder in itself.
Thanks GOTD. This doesn't fit my needs but I'm sure someone else could use this type of program. After all it is "free".

Does anyone really need this application.??it may be free but why download coz its free?? not nuch use to most people really

I also agree to the previous comment Not worth $19 but as you can give a try for this so small size software.

After run the activation program I installed the run the setup.exe and it installed successfully without any trouble.

I don’t have any shared files or folder so I’m planing to uninstall it. Not useful for me.It will be useful to them who share their computers, files and Folder in a network.

Cheers !!

Vimita

To #23 - yeah, I'd be wary of them sites as well.

To All - I use TeamViewer (teamviewer.com) on both my XP desktop and Vista home premium laptop - excellent remote assistance/monitoring software. Free, for non-commercial users, and ya can share files and record all sessions as well.

Since this giveaway will bring forth some discussion on sharing, thought I'd mention that Windows Live has a sharing facility in beta called Foldershare.

Neat little program. No doubt it will come in handy when I have visitors on my LAN. Shame so many people seem to be giving it a negative review just because they have no use for it.

I mean it might be a dodgey app, sending all your passwords to Amsterdam or some such, but if you have a decent firewall at least you can block it.

It certainly seems to work as advertised, anyway (I did a short test).

@lec #27:
Watch the caption of your mainscreen. It either shows "Active Share Monitor - UNREGISTERED" or it shows "Active Share Monitor - GiveAwayOfTheDay".

Again the Thumbs down has it but comments being truthful are marked - rather than + (What is going on lately?)
I guess it's easier to click on the Yes/No than explain your supporting GOTD ;-)
It makes me wonder why comments are'nt marked as useful or not on the games site?

Strangely the first three comments are correct, Not worth the price, Not really needed by most people and especially the other comment on checking on a Russian site (Might as well be Nigeria!)
It could well be checking home for updates but who is to say it'll stay like that?

I have not tested the app yet, but I tell you what I'm going to use it for. Somebody in our LAN sends the virus to all folders shared for writing over the network. I suppose his/her machine is just infected, and owner don't know about this. Don't ask me why no antivirus is there. All of us HAVE to share folders for writing, so virus copies itself to me again and again, my AV reports and deletes it again and again. I don't think that is acceptable situation.
So with this software I hope to discover the source of infection and then eliminate it.

#4: That IP is actually in Amsterdam! Not good. Hope your
not right about this.

I m used to install GAOTD softwares, but this time i can´t see any register information at "help"/"about", it seems not being registered, anyone got any register information when installing it? Ty in advance.

I don't know what all the whining is about but for those of us who have multiple computers in our homes or for SOHO users this is a great little app! On first blush I think it is great since I have a bunch of shared folders on multiple systems. I can see when I or someone else accessed the files. Do you really totally trust your firewall? Did you know that WEP can be broken in about 5 minutes? (Quite easily actually)
Thanks for the software GOTD!!

@wildbill 38 #21:
The main use will be in local (home) networks, but you can use this with internet. Most commenly you would have to setup a VPN-connection to do so. It's to much off topic to explain here.
As far as I can see this app is a shell around "compmgmt.msc" which explains the small size because it addresses pre-existing code.
But the extra functionallity is the ability to do some logging which alows you to leave your pc and to block computers via a black list.
Like Fubar #19 already wrote, it is unclear what “Time Remaining” does or can be used for (I too have no shares to test on).

@#10, buck: Let's talk about this tomorrow...

For heaven's sake ... look at their website! The only logos on their site are for your credit card information. There is only an eMail contact mask with no real eMail address, no phone number and naturally no physical address. I can not imagine anyone in their right mind doing business with them in this manner or trusting their "free" download to be ... trustworthy. If their other software offering is Remote Observer, what the heck are they doing???

great program, very accurate, and I was in need of just this app;)
Thanks GAOTD!

To number 12 comment...
This program is not for Internet.
I have 2 computers and I share
my files and folders with both computers.
I can look at my documents on the other computer
from my main computer without having to be on it.
(the other computer)And same for the other to look at the main
computers files and folders.
This software they are giving away monitors who and when
someone is looking at the folders. So if you share
your files over internet there are programs
that monitor that also.

LOL, did you see what the other software they sell? This is to battle remote observer......this software will just take up space on your computer, very limited usage.

I can't test this effectively at the moment, but I did check it out. It requests Internet access for an update check, but it runs if you block access. Memory usage is reasonably low. I didn't have any shares (other than the "special" ones), and CPU stayed at essentially zero. There was a continuous, very low level of local I/O, I assume to check the shares. Computers may be blacklisted by name or IP address. It has a column for blacklist "Time Remaining", but I didn't notice a way to set it.

Most versions of Vista allow you to share folders for access by selected users or groups, each (user) with their own username, password, and permissions.

FYI, this is about to expire, but I thought I'd pass it along to anyone who's interested. Raxco PerfectDisk 2008 (disk defragmenter) is available through June 30th for 25% off, using coupon code DEFRAGME25. PerfectDisk is the only disk defragmenter which I use and recommend. It's always the first to obtain Vista certification, has the best code quality, fully defragments everything (it took Diskeeper five years to match), supports Volume Shadow-Copy Service (so you won't lose System Restore Points, etc.), can (optionally) delete various temporary and duplicate files, has a utilized space explorer, so you can easily see what's taking up the most space, etc.

Because you need a share if you want to use this app to monitor, you have to be able to setup a share. This app will not help you to do that, it only monitors.
Read: http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp/filesharing.htm
and http://www.translatum.gr/forum/index.php?topic=21200.0

What does this do that unchecking disable remote doesn't do?

The comments about Windows XP being able to control shares ONLY applies to XP Professional.XP Home provides no restrictions on which computer accesses share.

In addition to #13 I forgot:
click the Windows start-button
click run
enter: compmgmt.msc
compare this to the GAotD.

Shared items are on most computers even if you do not know they are there. Things like limewire and bearshare definately put shared items up for us to retreave. If it is a good program I do not know but it is worth at least examining if you do nothave a way to protedt yourself from shaing files.

This is a nice little program though I didn't test it fully.
All you need to do this is already in your Windows-installation, but if you don't like to click through the various Windows menues,this app. bundles it all together with a clear interface. I like the logging option.
If your not familiar making shares but you would like to try, this app. makes it a bit easier. It is a bit more than you have without.
About shares: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_share
So you want your sister to be able to copy your holidaypictures from your harddisk, you can setup a share. Your siter connects to your IP-nr. and uses the password you have created for this matter and then she will see your folder with pictures in her explorer window as if it were her's.
Ofcourse you have to use a password or everyone could do the same as your sister.
This app will monitor if your sister (or anybody else) was there already. When your not all the time with your computer the logging will tell.

I would like to learn:
Who would use this program and for what? I cannot exactly tell from the description and I am not (yet) a file sharer. Would you use this if you share (for instance, multimedia or music) files on the internet, or is it meant for local network use?
Thank you for helping.

I also agree that this software doesn not seem necessary. I share files and folders all the time. I allow music and movie streaming from my server in my house. So my wife can view anything on her laptop, I can from mine, and same with the kids.

All this is done, and we have no worries about someone accessing these files/folders because all you have to do is setup your router with either a wep key or similar. Thats what the security is there for. Why would someone share on a non-encrypted connection.

So for anyone that does not have security then this is for you. But I am wondering what this well actually do for you?? Tell you that someone access your network and read your credit card info that you saved to a txt file and didn't protect??

But hey, at least you can blacklist that ip address from doing it again. Hopefully the blacklist option goes by MAC address and not just the router id or ip address. Because you can change the router id and people with dynamic addresses change all the time.

Just my insight. Sorry for the long post

what do you mean $19 its free you don't have to pay for it

Activated, dowloaded and installed on windows xp without any problems, seems like a it's a nice program to have. The more the security and protection the better, it cannot hurt plus it's free. Thanks again GAOTD, I really do appreciate your giveaways.
Dave

Like the app name said, it's an 'active' monitor. You can already manage shared folders (in XP) using the Shared Folders Extension in the MS Management Console - right click My Computer and select Manage. But that's not 'active' monitoring. You'd have to write scripts to monitor system logs, setup the block list using security settings, etc, etc.

So, this software makes it easier but not that valuable. Maybe that's why it's only $19. If you share a lot of folders in a big office environment, this might be useful. It's also useful if you suspect there's a leak in your shared folder security - check where a user comes from when it happens. You might have a backdoor.

Useful if you suspect some colleagues playing some shared videos and slowing down your PC, instead of copying the videos like you asked them to do so. Then you can blacklist them easily instead of editing the security settings. Quite a common scenario in an office network.

For home users? Hmmm... don't see much reason to pay for this. The firewall and folder sharing settings should have been ok. Well, maybe useful for that notebook that you also take to the office or surf at hotspots. If it can help resolve sharing issues especially when you don't use simple file sharing, then this would be valuable. Well, I'm going to try that aspect now.

hmm...

i prefer using net command on cmdline, than spend 19$ for an application with same feature but just has an interface.

with net command, i can block other pc's to use the files with NET STOP command.


sorry if my english bad.

Don't really have any use for this software, might be good for some people though. It's a no-download for me today.

I also agree to the previous comment Not worth $19 but as you can give a try for this so small size software.

After run the activation program I installed the run the setup.exe and it installed successfully without any trouble.

I don't have any shared files or folder so I'm planing to uninstall it. Not useful for me.It will be useful to them who share their computers, files and Folder in a network.

Be warned that this program phones home to a computer in Russia (IP 78.159.125.130) on startup. It's possible that it's just checking for updates, but programs that do that usually provide a configuration option to turn that feature off and there's no sign of that here.

Also note that the program fails to create a Start Menu entry when installed, so if you elected to not create the Desktop shortcut you'll have no easy way of starting the program unless you manually create an shortcut for it somewhere.

This software is not worth the download.

The typical application for 'strictly personal usage'...

Not worth $19.Though you can download it as it just occupies KBs of space.