I meant IP address not ISP. LOL. Sorry.

A quick question - I'm pretty new at this kind of stuff so don't thumbs down my question - it's a legitimate concern!

If this company wants you to give them your password and address to a valid email - won't they get your unique ISP address attached with your name and password?? Even if you use a fake email, you're still using it from your real ISP address - that doesn't change, right? Or does it? And then too - if they have your email address with a valid password - at the very least, won't they be able to access your account without you knowing it?

Just a couple questions that popped in my head right away. I don't like that registration method either. I figure - if you're gonna be paranoid about erasing things and not being found out and caught up - might as well go all the way and be skeptical about a shredder and destroyer program that asks you for an ID first before you can shred and destroy. It's kinda like taking your car to the pound and having your license and VIN number attached to that specific car and pound before they'll destroy it. That's the way I see it. And even if you show THEM a fake license - they have a real VIN and can trace the car to the last true owner anyway - which is you.

I use above DoD.
There is a method that also clears magnetism on the drive.
It can also scramble file properties.

I found this program does what it sets out to do. Slow performance but so far it has been quite stable under Windows XP SP3.

One warning, be sure to understand what each option does. I didn't realize that wiping the "slack" space of existing files (such as incomplete downloads used by a download manager) would actually delete said files.

This does what Ccleaner does and goes further. It cleans file tips of already existing programs that are not deleted that would not be cleaned if you just deleted or if you used a shred program to fill the hard drive. The one at heidi.ie mentioned in one of the posts doesn't seem to have plugins as extensively as this program either. I am putting my bet on this one, although for regular use the one's people list for free are not a bad bet either.

Really sorry! 48 hours later and still no email!!!

Slowest cleaning program ever. Ran for over 12 hours and it didn't even get through 50% of a 160 GB HD and it ate up so many resources that my scheduled AVG scan failed. I am running Vista Ultimate 64-bit. It may work better on a 32-bit system, but I wouldn't recommend it for a 64-bit one.

Finally got my keycode but after the period of activation. I had installed & left it sitting there (though almost uninstalled it in frustration ) Its now activated and working. The registration process for this product was disappointing for many who wished to try it out.
However, it is good to note that Alexandra Preda / EAST Technologies have taken a genuine interest in the comments & problems here on GAOTD (most companies appear to ignore us completely) so my thanks to them for that.
After testing I have found that it is certainly much more comprehensive a cleaner than ccleaner, and many others. Additionally, I was impressed with how it can delete shadow copies on vista ( I have not seen this on any other cleaner either free or commercial )
As i do not personally trust the military grade eraser level as safe, I simply changed the security level to Guttman (35 passes) There is even an option to create your own security level. If the MOD publicly advertise their secure deletion method as 13 passes, you can be sure that they can recover data at a much higher rate.
It is certainly superior to many others in its category, though the interface is not simple to understand or traverse. This makes it a little difficult to use and correctly configure for the novice user.

couldn`t load it as code kept going in wrong

First of all, thank you for your interest in downloading and using our product. For those who did not receive their license key instantly (maybe due to email delivery problems or messages ending as spam), please send an email message to support@east-tec.com and we will re-send your key.

Please note we have a high-volume of requests and it may take a while to answer your message. However, if you have installed East-Tec Eraser 2008 during the giveaway day, you can enter the key within 15 days (because once installed, the product works as a trial version until you enter the key).

To the company who makes it and gave it to us- THANK YOU! & TY to GOTD!
This program works better than any others! I have used it at my son's house, & there is NO trace of it left in a pc if it's deleted by this! Even a recovery program can't find it!
A WONDER of a program!
Thanks also for the generous offers you gave us for upgrades on it, & for taking the trouble to write special things just for GOTD users! Your company has someone or a few someones who ROCK! :) KUDOS!

I filled in the form in good time but never received my promised password email...

They never emailed the license key as described in the install notes...

USELESS!

I retire a drive when it fails, and aside from ones I use parts from, out to the range and a couple dozen 9mm rounds through the platters breaks up the data pretty good.

As some have asked (but not answered) - What does it mean when it says upgrades till Sept 1 2008? It seems to have activated fine, the GAOTD page came up with "2 years," but now when I click on About it says upgrades till Sept 1 2008. Can someone explain?

To #98

That's not at all true. Famliarize yourself in shredding, passes etc..


----
A secure (but slower) 13 pass wipe method, exceeding the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) standards. The first 3 passes are with random patterns, the next 7 passes are the standard passes from the DoD standard and the last 3 passes are with random patterns. The last pass is checked. It can be used to wipe data on compressed drives.
----

I use East-Tec Eraser 2007 and love it, nothing is recoverable after the military standard shredding. I will be reading more reviews- but I'm downloading & testing this (hopefully haha) for sure!

LOVE this program - have it on my laptop and it's been great!

As others have experienced (383, imamba e.g.), when I registered the software I checked the "about" tag which informed me that my license was valid all the way until Monday, 9/1/2008. I would be angry that I uninstalled the 2007 version first, but it was no longer functioning anyway.
I decided to re-install Easr-tec 2008. Bad idea. Now I get the same "missing borlndmm.dll" message I was getting from the 2007 version.
I must say I never used Eraser 2007 as far as I can remember, so I reckon I won't mind not having either version.

Does this program offer options to shred...
1) File slack?
2) The boot (C:) drive?

I haven't run across a file slack shredder since various McAfee products stopped including one in around 2002 or so. I don't go hunting for them, but...

Is this what the Bush Administration used/uses? hehe. It looks like it really works well. I think I'll try it. I enjoyed reading many of your comments.

I made a mistake in my earlier post (number 12). Earlier I said that I couldn't find any features that set this program apart from utilities I already have installed on my system (example "Glary Utilities").

After using the Giveawayoftheday version of the program on and off throughout the day. I found that I really like the Risk Monitor and Privacy Guard applications within the program. Today's offer would serve my purposes, but I would hate to lose this program have to wait another year or two for it to be reintroduced. I uninstalled the program and replaced it with the purchased version - complete with two years of updates. Hope that I've not made a mistake.

Kind of pathetic. It's now over 12 hours and still no e-mail. This is no way to run a railroad.

Memo to Comment No 59 Ken, you sound so disappointed. Surely,even out of curiousity, you read some of the comments made by other posters who have instaled the product. If you had done so, you'd have realized that this is not a 15-Day trial but a 1 year free license. You have obviously made an error in your attempt to instal, so if you read this, try again mate.

77# 'I like the program but the nag in the task bar is annoying, it says You have 3 days until your subscription expires''

what is this? i also see it, but i didn't see any answer of the q in here,

do u use it only 1 Sept?
i sent a mail to tech -support center but yet to ans, might be end of the 'limited time'?

what''s up?
we r grateful to u GAOTD and East Tech, but pls give us a ans
:)

I never received my password for this Please advise

Tried to register it 3 times , absolutely hopeless & time wasting junk'
will not accept reg code , reg code window is to small too try & sort out a 50 digit reg code.

Installed without problem. Received registration code in less than 15 seconds. I have the same problem as some of us here. It expires in 3 days.

exactly the same as CCleaner, except this one has "U.S. Department of Defense standards" HAHAHAHAH Yeah right.
SAGE

Just FYI, while these programs will stop average prying eyes, you really HAVE to smash the hard drive to bits if you really want to leave it unreadable. I spoke with a forensics investigator who teaches a class in computer forensics. They buy used drives off of E-bay to use in class and practice finding files. It's not that hard to get the info off when you have the right tools.

He said they can even recover data from hard drives that have been in the water if they've been handled property. (If you have important data on a drive and, say it's been in a flood, don't dry it out. Put it in a sealed bag in the same water it was in. IOW, keep it in the flood water. This is because if it hits the air it will start to rust and corrode.) Take the bag to experts who can recover such data.

#79 Reinstall. I installed the program on three computers and received a key almost instantly using the same e-mail address and name. First computer was early this morning before 5 a.m. The other two were about 2 hours apart this evening.

Thank you GAOTD! I can finally get back to emailing my business partners!

I installed EAST-TEC Eraser with not problem. I got the activation key in 10 seconds. Then I used the programme and it asked for a reboot in order to clean all traces in my PC. Then after I rebooted it asked another reboot for the same thing. I rebooted again. Anyway, I then used to wipe the free space on the disk and it took an hour. During the wiping it showed all the progressive percentage of the free space being wiped. After using it I didn't experience any problem but neither any further improvement in my PC's performance. It looks like a good simple programme but I think that it doesn't really do more than CCleaner or similar programmes do. So I just uninstalled it. I guess I will stick with CCleaner:)
Cheers

its does a really deep clean. just click and go smoke make a sandwitch watch a football game and it will be done and your cpu wont remember a thing.

This program is NOT just for securely erasing personal data or for those are paranoid about porn ..

Its also about cleaning up and maintaining the integrity of your Hard Drive.

Have you ever used Windows Update and looked at the amount of crap that is left? Have you ever updated any software and had a look at the old files and registry entries that are left lying around to fill your HDD and slow down your registry ..

Try running Microsoft One Care and have a look at the tracking cookies and crap it leaves .. there are temp files in all sorts of directories including the System

Have you ever looked at the cookies that are left after you visit MSN or CNN or Yahoo or even BBC? Have you seen the tracking cookies that Amazon leaves? Have you ever visited U-tube .. or even your ISP home page?

All of these sites (and many other reputable sites) leave cookies on your computer that are possible security threats .. and even holes that can be exploited by a hacker. They can also place temp files in places that the average user wouldn't think of looking.

Have you any idea what sort of information about you and your computer that is sent to EVERY webserver you ever visit?

A program like East Tech is about reducing the crap, crud and the risks. Do you know what might be in a Flash file or a Video Download that even the best Malware or Virus scanner doesn't pick up? Some of these harmless and non-porn dowloads can lie on your computer for months (or even years) until one day some sequence of events arouses the sleeping worm.

As someone here pointed out .. many other cleaners just erase the .dat files and leave the file itself somewhere in your 350G of hardrive .. maybe even overwritten by something you have downloaded more recently. BUT, its still there, still readable and, even if the file itself is innocent, its still a potential security breach.

Some of the Malware is getting very sophisticated .. you download 3 or 4 clean, innocent files which each modify (update) the previous until you have a full blown security threat which is nothing about any personal information you may have stored.

In my humble opinion, any program which can contribute to the integrity of my operating system and the software I use presents a security advantage .. no matter what I use the computer for .. and whether I store personal information or not ..

Just consider .. when your computer seems idle because you are out having a cup of coffee, it could actually be quietly doing something to someone else's computer because you didn't erase one registry entry, one innocent looking file or even a cookie. Have a look at all your log files if you have a permanent internet connection ..

I have the same problem as Gary #52 also notice that even with the number key it registers Upgrade suscription expires on the 1 September 2008.

Hi all!!!

Just one question for you:

what's the difference between this SW, FREE for one year, and DISK CLEANER + INDEX.DAT ANALYZER, both free for ever?


And what about this??


http://www.heidi.ie/node/6


Ok 2Mb more to download and stored on the HD but it looks like it does exactly the same things East-Tec Eraser 2008 does for FREE for just one year !!

Cheers

#53, mike, as #77, Jay G., mentioned, although not nearly strongly enough, TOR is exceptionally dangerous to use. It's listed as a dangerous site by my site monitor (TrendProtect), and with good reason. Read the Wikipedia article on it (not that I'm a fan of Wikipedia, it's often full of crap). You may become anonymous, but your information can be easily intercepted.

The heads on disk drives don't wobble around and leave bits lying around. You're basing that on an obsolete article which someone recently linked. There can be some track alignment issues, but that's not something which short-term multiple writes could be guaranteed to compensate for. Multiple writes are to eliminate any magnetic residue, although it's doubtful that that occurs on modern drives. For a great many years, data densities have been so high that considerable engineering is required to compensate for the drifting of magnetic domains. It's unlikely that sufficient residue could survive to retrieve useful information after a good-quality first wipe. However, there's no harm in following government-recommended erasure procedures.

Having Windows delete and re-create the swap file doesn't accomplish much, as even Vista doesn't appear to overwrite the deleted data (that can take some time).

Portable apps run on the host computer, and their deleted files and registry entries (assuming they correctly delete them all) can still be recovered from the host computer, if they haven't been overwritten. Very portable apps might place all their temporary files on the portable device, but for USB flash drives, performance will be terrible. Portable apps basically run in a sandbox, but Internet activity can be recorded by the host computer's security software. Further, keystrokes can be captured via hardware or software. Screenshots can be taken. Portable apps give you portability, not security.

I'm not going to address System Restore, I've mentioned some things about it before. Many things about it are different on Vista (not always for the better).

#36, Robert, I always look for all settings and options. The startup option is grayed-out on my system (can't be turned off), but it's no big deal. Apart from manually editing the registry, I have numerous programs which control startup programs. I'll probably stick with AutoRuns, as it's the most complete and can save and compare startup changes. One should undo any blocking prior to uninstalling, reinstalling, or upgrading the affected software, otherwise, the old blocking information can still be in the registry and potentially cause some problems (as well as causing some confusion when you look at the list of allowed and blocked programs).

When running set up I keep getting message activation module failed to connect to GAOTD please try later or check firewall settings??? never had a problem like this before....any ideas anyone

Also have experienced delay in getting registration code. Per #29 above, sent an email message to support@east-tec.com and included the email address used when registering. Experience with 2007 version good but don't recall code delivery delay for the 2007 giveaway. Maybe give-away should be extended another day.

@ #47 Data isn't lost when it's overwritten, well on Vista anyway.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/shadow-copy.aspx
It's in all of the versions of Vista but you only get the Microsoft 'Previous Versions' tab on Business & Ultimate.

No email, no registration, no code, no not in spam folder, no sign, nada, not even a smoke signal...lol

Help!

I haven't been sent my 'instruction' e-mail with the link to the free 'registration' key. Is East-Tec out there, anywhere?

I've just sent the same request via your e-mail support page.

Thanks.

#26 & #42 Anyone with half a brain doesn't backup their system with sensitive or embarrassing information on it. The purpose of this tool is to erase those! Offhand, I would say that anyone who pirates movies would find this quite handy.

I installed, registered, and entered the key. However, the software shows the "upgrade" subscription expires on 9/1/2008. That's not even the 15 day free trial. The nag screen also shows 3 days remaining. What's going on???

#79 Did you check your spam folder? Made sure to have pressed the right button on confirmation page? Here the mail arrived within seconds and registration was done seconds after. Excellent program (no, CCleaner is not equal in it's functions). Just be careful with it's settings. I was stupid enough to loose my Google Sidebar gadgets which I easily could have prevented since in- and exclusions are easy enough to understand. A sure keeper this one.

I bought it... Superb... far more then Glary Utils and CC cleaner.

The service from this company is first class. Ms Preda on the help line quickly feeds info.. from customers to their tech crew and back again. I am not connected to the company.

My advice: GET it and don't tell us that CC cleaner et al does the same job. IT DOES NOT. Free is the word.... Look what it does and stop whinging it is not worth having!

If you wipe the 'unused' sections of hard drives to DOD specs it does take a long time. Several hours for a 160 GB hard drive, so I do that overnight.

Well done to GAOTD and East Tech. for this offer.

does this include an IP changer/scrambler/hider???

Waiting over 5+ hours, still no code or key.

I've put in key (after receiving from email) ...says it's 15 day trial. Do you think that's the case? I was under the impression at least a year....???