Is FinallyFast a Scam?

Written by: Bill Fulks • Edited by: Bill Bunter
Updated Feb 3, 2011 • Related Guides: Windows | Blue Screen | Apple

Those crazy late-night commercials for FinallyFast.com are a riot. It shows Mac users running Windows programs and getting blue screens, and the whole thing is a sham. This article helps break it all down, including some screenshots from the commercial that makes techies laugh.

FinallyFast Commercial

click to enlarge

Have you seen the television commercials advertising FinallyFast.com? It’s for some software you can install on your Windows-based PC that will supposedly work wonders when it comes to speeding up your computer. Unfortunately, most of what it promises is severely limited and you can accomplish many of the same tasks it performs using free software or even the tools already built into Windows. Don’t waste your money on this overhyped garbage, but do at least have a good laugh at the misleading commercial.

click to enlarge

This software is for Windows only, yet the commercial clearly shows two different people using Apple computers. In the photo to the right, you’ll see the guy who bookends the commercial, and you can see he is using an iMac G5 computer with the hole in the stand and the connectors running up the rear left side of the machine. I’ve also attached a photo of the iMac G5 for reference. You can clearly see that the marketing wizards behind this commercial have removed any indentifying labels from the computers.

Watch the Finally Fast commercial on YouTube.com.

Blue Screens on a Mac?

click to enlarge

In this photo, which is perhaps my favorite portion of the commercial, it shows a woman clearly using an Apple iBook G4 PC. You can tell from the look of the computer just who made it because Apple’s are so distinctive. However, if you look at her screen it is clearly a Windows XP screen with a green Start button. This lady even gets the dreaded Windows BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) on her PC, which is not something that happens on an Apple.

click to enlarge

In all fairness, I must say that it is possible to run Windows on a Mac, but it takes a little bit of technical know-how to make it work. Somebody capable of doing so would sure as heck not need a utility like FinallyFast. Instead, this commercial obviously demonstrates the true nature of this software by running a completely misleading advertisement. In tech circles, people forward each other the YouTube video of this commercial as a joke.

The FinallyFast Truth

I would not go so far as to call this software a scam, because it does actually do something, but what it does versus what it costs makes it a complete rip-off. When you go to the website, it will let you download a program that scans your system for free, but it won’t fix anything. To do that, you’ll need to pay 60 bucks to get the whole package, plus there is a monthly subscription fee on top of that. Go look on the FinallyFast.com website and see if there is a single word about a subscription service. There is not. I also found several horror stories online from customers who had multiple unauthorized credit card charges and had a lot of problems cancelling the service.

The bottom line here is that if you want to speed up your computer in ways depicted in this commercial, it’ll take more than some dinky software to make that happen. If your computer is having issues, you'll get better results from free programs such as SpyBot and CCleaner than you will from FinallyFast.

No-cost Alternatives to FinallyFast

Read our article Free Alternatives to FinallyFast for details about programs which will do a much better job than FinallyFast - without costing you a single penny!

Other Rogue Applications

For information about other applications that you should avoid, read Beware of Rogue Programs: Fake Malware Scanners and Registry Cleaners by Donna Buenaventura, MVP.

William Hurt Aug 3, 2011 11:22 PM

William Hurt

If you have been ripped off by FinallyFast, Ascentive, or whoever they are going by this week, all you need to do is call and threaten to process a chargeback with your bank and they will cower down and give you your money back. If they don't, all you need to do is call your bank and say that you didn't authorize the charge and your bank will get your money back for you! The company has to prove you authorized the order on your card which they can't do since they aren't a store that you actually went into and signed a receipt! GET YOUR MONEY BACK ASAP!!!!

William Hurt Aug 3, 2011 11:16 PM

FinallyFast - ASCENTIVE.COM IS A RIPOFF

They are about making money (as any business) but by using tricks and scams that closed down most eCommerce companies in the 90′s. This company is less than honorable and hopefully one day the government will wake up and not only shut them down but sue the CEO for everything he has. The entire company is a scam. Their software doesn’t do anything that it promises – look at their ActiveSpeed program – run the speed test and it tells you your Internet is not optimized. I find it funny that I ran the test with my computer not connected to the Internet and with it connected to the Internet and it gave me the same score both times. Not to mention I have a network monitoring app on my PC and no network traffic came from the software so how exactly did it test my Internet speed??? I find it funny that with their SpywareStriker program when I ran it against McAfee, Norton, and AVG they all found 10 times as many viruses on my PC, not to mention my Nod32 software picked it up as a virus. They sell a product called BeAware that doesn’t support anything current (Skype, MySpace, Facebook, any current webmail, no current chat clients). And let’s also look at all of their pricing is listed as “Regular Price = $39.99 / Sale Price = $29.99 / Save $10.00″ which has been how it’s been listed as long as they have been in business. And let’s look at the fact that they were sued by the Attorney General of Washington State, they have complaints all over the Internet from ticked off customers going back as far as the company has been in business. If you are smart, you will steer clear of these con-artists or be sorry when your money and your PC is non-recoverable. Not to mention that they are complete cowards. I posted negative comments on the blog on their website several times and mysteriously they were all deleted. Must not like the truth about the garbage they sell.

Ben Baker Apr 1, 2010 2:06 AM

Thanks!

I was always curious about this software. The company Ascentive.com is heavy on advertising and for obvious reasons....$60 per user quickly adds up!

Is FinallyFast a Scam?

FinallyFast Commercial

Blue Screens on a Mac?

The FinallyFast Truth

No-cost Alternatives to FinallyFast

Other Rogue Applications

Comments