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ever since the channel hijack I have been inundated with Facebook ads for the

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fix me stick they claim it will remove

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viruses clean my computer and even get

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my Windows running like new all in about

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20 minutes those are some pretty bold claims but their company got offers from

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all four of the investors on the Canadian version of Shark Tank back in

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2014. they're sold on the shopping channel and they're still around nearly

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10 years later they must be doing something right how is it that I've

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never heard of them then inundating Facebook ads they're sold on the

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shopping channel right this thing ain't aimed at me or you they're targeting our

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parents our aunts and our friends who

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keep asking for help tracking down the elusive any key but that doesn't

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necessarily mean that it's bad maybe it's a great option for those of us who

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are techy enough to fix our family's computers but would rather that they

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just buy this and leave us alone so we and play video games to find out we

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bought one actually we bought three and I think you're going to be surprised to

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learn exactly what they do and what they

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don't do for example none of them were capable of making this Segway to our

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sponsor build Redux with build Redux you can dominate your favorite games with

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the perfect PC for you using simple to navigate customization options all at a

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price that's competitive with building it yourself check them out at the link

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down below hey there it is in a nutshell the fix me

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stick is a bootable virus removal device that's designed to find and remove any

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malware that's managed to slip past your PC's defenses which is not as rare as

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you might think half a million New pieces of malware are discovered daily

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and the makers of the FixMeStick claim that it finds malware on more than 80

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percent of the computer scanned even though virtually all of them were

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already running some other form of antivirus their main value is the

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user-friendly interface that they've wrapped around a bootable Linux image

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that needs almost no input from the user you just boot from the stick accept the

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license and the FixMeStick will automatically connect to the internet

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ask you to register which you can Skip by the way check for updates load up not

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one not two but three antivirus engines Avira sofos and McAfee and then get

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right to scanning with all three of them at the same time while that's running I

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guess I should tell you about our test system we took one part Windows 10 test

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bench and added a few dozen drops of threats you'd expect any decent

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antivirus engine to flag you know various forms of the icar anti-malware

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tests along with some very real though relatively harmless malware not a huge

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challenge but definitely enough to prove that each of those three antivirus

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engines is actually doing something as advertised about 20 minutes later the

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scans were done and the FixMeStick was asking for input the default action is

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to remove all malware found but you can also pick what happens with each flagged

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file in our not terribly scientific testing the FixMeStick caught more than

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90 of our threat files with the majority spotted by all three engines but with

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that said Each one engine did miss things that were caught by at least one

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of the others which I guess answers the question of why does it need to run all

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three we also tested the FixMeStick against a medi-cat USB stick to see if a

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the FixMeStick would scan removable media at all and B to see if it would

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flag useful tools as malware as expected

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we did get false positives on some of our system utilities but this did show

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us that yes removable media is automatically scanned alongside your

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operating system Drive in fact by default FixMeStick scans all files on

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all partitions whether they're on removable drives or not you can change

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that behavior and some other basic options on the settings screen where you

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can also remove items from quarantine and even subject yourself to some

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targeted marketing if you're into that sort of thing this smooth experience

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doesn't come for free though one year's use of FixMeStick on up to three PCS is

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going to set you back 80 US Dollars whereas two years on five PCS is thirty

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dollars more for a total of a hundred and ten dollars that is not an

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insignificant amount however you're not necessarily stuck paying that much it

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can often be found cheaper in your local Big Box store and they have a 30-day

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trial that will set you back just twenty dollars if you pretty much just want to

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use it once however I have a Siri biggest problem with their marketing of

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that trial price they pretend to give you a special deal when you click

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through an ad then at the same time they just plainly state that the 20 trial is

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available on various Pages all over their website I also don't think that

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the FixMeStick in general quite lives up to their marketing claims most of their

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ads seem to make a big deal about speeding up slow systems and eliminating

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crashes and freezing while FixMeStick can do those things if the problems are

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being caused by malware it can't do anything to clean up a full drive repair

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broken Windows files or sort out misconfigured settings this is isn't a

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technician on a stick it's just an antivirus tool as many of you I know are

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probably dying to contribute right now you can make one

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of these on your own for free there are plenty of bootable anti-malware tools

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out there that you can just slap onto your USB stick and run insert disclaimer

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about us not having validated their efficacy so your mileage may vary but the main issue with all of them for Joe

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or for Jill average is that they're just not as polished as this and they're not

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as fast you will likely need to manually update your virus definitions before you

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run a scan and the scan itself takes longer too then when it's done you're

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gonna have to run more tools to catch whatever's been missed for me or for you

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that's no big deal but for many people time is money and tinkering with

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computers isn't something that they do for pleasure which is why I guess

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FixMeStick has found a market it's not cheap but it does cost less than a visit

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to the local computer shop for virus removal and having something that you

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can just hand to Aunt Susie that's gonna just work on a simple infection could be

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worth it for her she might even be so grateful she gets you a new pcmr hoodie

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from lttstore.com where FixMeStick really offers bang for the buck though

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is the back me up Edition twenty dollars more gets you a 64 gig USB stick that

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also automatically backs up files from the users folder of your system drive

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after scanning them giving you at least a little bit of protection if you later

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get hit with something that the fix me stick cannot resolve something like a

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ransomware attack this may actually be the simplest method that we've seen for

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making a backup for an average user's PC by default it backs up pretty much

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everything that a casual user might be storing though we did notice some

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glaring emissions like photoshop's PSD format so if you're beyond a casual user

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or if you need more than 64 gigs of storage you might want to tweak the

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settings to include other extensions or to Target additional folders by that

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point you might as well pick up a larger external drive and then just use the

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only slightly more complicated tools that are built right into Windows or Mac

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OS we also looked at their start me stick and to many of you this is going

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to look like a pretty old idea a simple bootable operating system that just

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works on any old hardware for the folks buying fixmesticks though this might as

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well be magic now grandpa can get on Facebook and check his email with things

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feeling nice and Zippy with a lightweight operating system and a

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modern browser he can even use it on any PC so he can take it with him when he

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travels but there are some problems for one thing it's a read-only system which

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means you can't screw up the OS by downloading something nasty but on the

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other hand it means that any new bookmarks or files are going to Simply

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vanish on reboot and it doesn't give the user any indication that that's going to

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happen as you're using it it looks like it's done what you've told it to do your

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downloads and your bookmarks hang out in temporary storage while the OS is

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running but unless you add a separate external drive for storage and sign into

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a Google account for your bookmarks all of it will disappear even worse is the

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fact that this means it cannot update itself for updates you have to boot into

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Windows run the updater for your start me stick then boot back into your live

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OS convenient the second big issue is that it's 80 and it expires if your

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subscription expires why anybody watching this no this one

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really is easy could Google something like persistent live USB and follow a

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guide or or just download Rufus and drag

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the slider to the right to create a similar bootable USB stick and that one

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would even let Grandpa save files in his home drive all for the cost of a USB

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stick and anywhere from 10 minutes to a

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couple hours of time and it would never cost you anything for updates or I mean

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if you just wanted to skip all of that you could just put a simple Linux

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install on the system's hard drive in the first place improving Grandpa's

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performance without the need for unreliable USB boot media

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so then fix me 6 product line is something of a mixed bag a bootable

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antivirus that's simple enough for almost anyone to use is actually useful

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and when paired with automatic backups it might even be something that I would

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recommend to the less tech savvy user

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but then at the same time the pricing is

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pretty spicy their marketing ranges from optimistic to downright unacceptable and

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whatever they might say these tools aren't and never will be a replacement

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for a competent technician they're also not a replacement for our sponsor Micro

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enjoyed this video you might be interested in the video we did a couple years back testing how antivirus

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programs impact your system performance you can find that at the link down below