I ran across this news on a site I visit frequently. It says "Avanquest is starting an interesting campaign of giving away their paid software for free. This campaign is taking place today and is going to last for 10 days from 9th-18th June. Each day Avanquest is going to provide us with free license keys for different applications which means 10 free different programs in 10 days." To read more click here to go to the site.
Avanquest is giving away free software
(32 posts) (11 voices)-
Anonymous
UnregisteredWas advertised yesterday: http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/5514
French, German and English have different give aways.
Posted 15 years ago # -
Sorry to correct you Jaddis, but not every day is there a free software. Take today for example, not a single software that is given away for free.
Posted 15 years ago # -
watcher13
MemberThanks, Jaddis. Just to clarify, Avanquest has done this before. I monitored their Xmas giveaway here. They had a deal every day of the first 24 days of December as part of an Advent giveaway as part of the traditional Catholic calendar. They weren't the only one who did this. I suppose this is a European thing. Most Americans, being Protestants, no longer know what Advent is, and, technically, Advent lasts more than 24 days. Sorry for the digression, I mention it because we saw with that giveaway that Avanquest uses a poor choice of words. Every day they offer a "deal". Some are free, some are discounts, and some during Advent were, unfortunately, just demos.
Good post, it's sounds like something worth looking at.
Additions to my post. The site that Jaddis quotes, unfortunately, misunderstood and said free software. Avanquest says "Free downloads and special offers". Some notes:
The previous days giveaways are kept available, so you don't have to rush. In fact, they kept up the Advent calendar long after Xmas, so there's not always a need to rush.
The U.S. site isn't participating.
Avanquest has done some odd things concerning time. During Advent, all the sites changed offers on GMT-1, or London time. 6pm EST for me. One day, however, when some of the sites were giving a discount on all software, the clocks were wrong and they had to restart there clocks. That may be happening today. The UK site has a 25% discount on all software, but the clock says you only have 10 minutes left. That could be a glitch, since it's nowhere near midnight in Europe.Posted 15 years ago # -
watcher13
MemberSome more info:
I'll probably do a daily update on this. Hope that turns out to be more helpful than annoying.
As I mentioned, Avanquest may know something about software, but clocks seem to elude them. Sure enough, the UK site reset itself to 24 hours in the giveaway. This is also likely wrong. You likely have until GMT-1.Important note: you may not want to rush and buy. Sometimes you can get a better deal from them on one of the other sites, and the Avanquest sites don't all charge the same prices. Case in point": the French special is a 50% discount, today. The clock says you have until the top of this hour, but you likely have until GMT-1, or -2 if they go local this time around.
The giveaways may not be available every day. When the clock reset, the UK site removed it's mention of logomaker, and I can't find yesterday's offer at all on the French site. However, that might be related to the clock graphic they're using. The older offers might pop back up when the new offers show up later. For example, Germany still shows yesterday's offer is available. I believe this happened during Advent, too.Today, Germany has a 25% discount on PDF Experte 6 Pro (Most of the programs have multi-lingual support.). Now 30 Euros. Yesterday's offer is Fix-It Utilities 7 (or at least that's the version on the graphic) for free. Understand, though, this may be available for free elsewhere as 7 is an OLD version. 9 is the new version. Sometimes these "giveaways" are of software that's easily available for free. In the other Advent promotion I monitored last Xmas, from the German Spin magazine, one day they "gave away" an always free Ashampoo product.
Italy and Spain don't seem to be participating.
And just because I happened to notice: As a regular offer, the UK site has a 2-for on games. Games that regularly run 10 pounds are selling for 2 for 15. Don't have any idea if any of them are any good. This deal excludes kids games.
And, of course, they offer weekly discounts. France currently has 15 titles on discount, UK 2, Germany 8. In case your stopping by for today's deal.
Posted 15 years ago # -
watcher13
MemberSome updates: the UK site does have yesterday's offer, Logo Maker, still available. Can't find anything out about it. The link to the summer offer site is just not on the home page, probably, as I said, because they've replaced the normal graphic with the clock graphic. So, to avoid confusion, here are the links you need:
http://web.avanquest.com/special_offers/10jours_2009/UK/index.cfm
http://web.avanquest.com/special_offers/10jours_2009/FR/index.cfm
http://web.avanquest.com/special_offers/10jours_2009/DE/index.cfmAs I expected, France has reset it's clock. Yesterday's French offer is Boostez votre PC by Avanquest.(Boost Your PC) tweaking, repair (?) sofware. In fact, this is probably just the French version of Fix-It Utilities, since Avanquest is the author of both and this is likely version 7, which, as I've said, is probably available for free elsewhere.
Forgot to mention, you've got to register with Avanquest. So you have to provide at least a disposable e-mail address. Also, the German site says you're subscribing to their newletter. Although, I didn't get anything from them during Advent. Likely, your spam filter will catch this.
Posted 15 years ago # -
watcher13
MemberAs I suspected, it's now GMT-1, the clocks are reset, and the old offers have reappeared.
Offers for the 11th:
UK - Avanquest Web Easy Express 7 free. This is almost certainly a cut down of their Pro 7 version. Their Express 6 from 2006 was already released as freeware.France - Just a demo. AutoSave Essential backup software from Avanquest. Fully enabled for 3 months. This is already available from them as a demo, but the normal trial period is not specified. This is a direct download which may not require a code to activate the 3 months, so it makes me suspicious that they may not be actually be offering anything you can't already get, anyway.
Germany - 3D Haus Design Studio Comfort for free. Design your dream house in 3D. This appears to be an older version from Punch! Software which specializes in 3D home design CAD software. It looks like they've redesigned the line, now calling it Home Design. Couldn't find the release date of this older version, but the one I found in the softwarehouse.de online catalogue doesn't have Vista support. This was cutdown by them from their Pro version. softwarehouse has that at 130 Euros and this version at 30 Euros.
Was searching for something in the forums and discovered that Avanquest does this promotion every June.
Posted 15 years ago # -
AlexSJ
MemberHello Watcher13:
In Germany Adventskalendar are a very popular thing and they range from simple store bought ones with a tiny piece of milk chocolate to elaborate self-made ones. They encompass every day of December until the 24th and kind of serve to make the waiting for X-Mas more bearable. Avanquest was doing the same with their Adventskalendar thing, so at least for this German it wasn't a poor choice of words.
Anyway, while I downloaded a bunch of programs, I didn't really put any of them to use with the exception of Expert PDF Maker.
Pura vida, AlexSJPosted 15 years ago # -
watcher13
MemberThank, Alex. It's good to hear from you. To clarify, I wasn't saying it was a poor choice of words to do an Advent calendar. Actually, it strikes me as smart marketing. I was just pointing out that to do something seasonal like that and insinuate that everything is a giveaway, vice a promotion, can cause bad feeling, which it did. Especially when you're giving away a demo, which they did one or two times during the promotion. Maybe some of those demo's were more enabled than usual, but I know they all weren't.
Also, appreciate the clarification of the German cultural custom. I'm a little more of a globalphile, to coin a word, than the average American, but that one showed my cultural ignorance. I was thinking it was a Catholic European tradition. Didn't realize it was started by German Lutherans. Haven't seen that done among American Lutherans. Also, I remember Advent being 4 weeks. Having not been Catholic in more that 30 years, my memory's a little sketchy. I had forgotten that it's 4 Sundays before Christmas and not 4 full weeks, and, obviously depending on the calendar, doesn't always begin in late November. So a tradition encompassing the 24 days of December before Xmas makes sense.
Pura Vida to you, too, whatever that means. Gotta look that up, one of these days. :) Do you miss the snow in Costa Rica?
Posted 15 years ago # -
watcher13
MemberOffers for the 12th.
UK: The software pictured is ParteoLogic's Privacy Controls 7. This is basically a super file cleaner/deleter for the very privacy concerned. Besides Windows files, can be set to erase recent file lists from some 3rd party softwares and even performance logs. Also a data shredder. The giveway says "free online scan" so I thought they might only be offering Pareto's free online scan control, not the full software. But that's apparently the way Pareto puts it. The size seems the same as the size of the download from Pareto and their screenshots say that the "free online scan" installs the Controls software. Can't tell whether 7 is the latest version. Pareto doesn't specify versions on their homepage. Size is the same, though. Makes me wonder if this is just a demo. Has Vista support. No registration with Avanquest required for this one.
As to the software. Privacy Contorls retails for $40. ParetoLogic is a Canadian company that produces multiple software. The good news: they've won some legit awards. The bad news: I found a number of sites on the web supposedly reviewing security software and picking Privacy Controls as #1. But Privacy Controls is often the only software mentioned. These appear to be phony sites set up to hawk the software. And ParetoLogic does the old trick of claiming reviews on sites that are only listing the developer's description. Best thing I can say is a 5 star rating from Tucows.
One good thing I can say is ParetoLogic has a nice resource page with a database of dlls, exes, and file extensions. Going to bookmark it:
http://www.paretologic.com/resources/France: Registry First Aid 7 free analysis. Again unclear whether you're getting anything free or a demo scan. Although, again, this is the language the developer, Rose City Software, uses. Again, could be a demo, because, no registration is required. 7 is a new version. Older versions have won some legitimate awards. Normally $19.
Germany: Another free scan. Another potential demo. PC Speed Maximizer. A Registry tweaker/repair tool. Version unspecified. Latest is 7.2. Normally $40.
Posted 15 years ago # -
Pareto Privacy Control is a demo, it requires registration to actually delete items found after the scan (or you can read all the details of what was found and then try to manually delete them). It found 1536 items prior to any cleaning - most internet files. Using Privacy Mantra (freeware - http://www.codeode.com/privacymantra/index.html ), I cleared Temp files, history, recent, caches, etc.
Scanning again with Pareto Privacy Control it only found 74.
So I'll stick with Privacy Mantra, Index.dat Suite and a couple other programmes for deletion, although I may consider this in the future as it is very straight forward.
Thanks watcher13 for keeping this thread alive...
Posted 15 years ago # -
watcher13
MemberI appreciate it, Rezidue. And thank you for the info. and the comparison on Privacy Controls. Actually, I shouldn't hog any credit. That belongs to all the folks who've contributed to this and the other thread on this. Especially jaddis and jlouis who started them.
Avanquest didn't throw in too many of these unfortunate gimmicks during Advent. Hopefully, there won't be too many of them now. That's why I'm checking in once a day. To see if there's any diamonds hidden under the rocks.
Note: I've given the wrong changeover time. It's GMT-2. I didn't take my local daylight savings time into account.June 13:
UK and France are giving away Morpheus Photo Morpher Basic. They normally retail the current version, 3.1, for 20 pounds and 30 Euros respectively. (Get with the Euro, you limeys! :) Couldn't resist playfully tweaking the nose of our British friends.) This is probably that version, but can't tell for sure. This software is for creating the special effect of having one photo "morph" into another. GOTD gave this away in 2007 and it got 2/3rds votes for, and Jan. of this year, when it got 2/3rds against. The difference? Morpheus added two adwares to this year's version. Of course, these caught a lot of folks by surprise and generated a lot of bad feelings. So check your install options CAREFULLY!Germany has a 20 Euro discount on Power Translator 12 Home. You can get it for 30 Euros. This is a two language version, called Personal in the US, where it retails for $60. As you can guess, the two are German and English. Added attraction is text to speech and vice versa. Has apparently recieved a 5 star editors award from the German magazine, PC INFO.
Posted 15 years ago # -
watcher13
MemberLost of stuff going on today, so I'm finally getting around to it. Of course, Whiterabbit's already posted on this here:
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/5514
I originally continued this thread because I wasn't sure if English speakers would know to look there, since it's in the French forum. So maybe I'm just duplicating effort. ?I don't why, as an old shortwave hobbyist, that I threw the British a bone and called the time GMT. The correct time is UTC - Universal Time, Coordinated. So now I'm acting like the citizen of the world. Of course, I could refer to it as we do in the American Military - Zulu time. :)
The UK is offering a 10 pound discount on Hallmark Card Studio Deluxe 2009. You can get it for 19 pounds. US retail is $50. The UK site ITReviews is recommending this and the older versions have also been well recieved. As an aside, it may seem like just another product for Hallmark, but this is an important part of the corporate strategy -I'd been recently looking into Hallmark as a career choice - to try and hedge their bet in the 21st century technological climate. Much like Kodak is trying to build it's digital division. Photos may go the way of the dinosaur. Well, at least this has a better reputation than Hallmark has for the way they treat their Mom and Pop independent retailers in the US.
France is offering a what may be a full version or may be an expanded demo on the arkanoid "Chicken Attack". The translation says 10 free levels. Big Fish says it's normally 70 levels and the demo is normally 1 hour play from Big Fish. Maybe it's 80 levels or just 10. The file say DemoFran.exe. The file size is the same, anyway.
Germany is offering LogoMaker 2. The UK has a version of this as the first day offer, but it doesn't say or show it as version 2. I can't find out anything else about this software. If I guessing right, it's a newer version than the UK giveaway. Translation says 1000 new objects and over 300 new templates. Also includes effects and animated effects.
Posted 15 years ago # -
LetMeSayThis
Member@watcher13
The UK version of LogoMaker is version 2.0.
Posted 15 years ago # -
watcher13
MemberThanks! I appreciate you clearing that up.
Offers for the 15th:
UK: 50% discount on Web Easy Pro 7 from Avanquest. Now 20 pounds. Note: the Express version was offered for free on the 11th. The more info. link on Pro has a pretty detailed writeup. System requirements not too high. Both programs basically template based. Saw a review on the 5 version from 4 years ago that said good for beginners, but not packed with features to allow you to create without the templates. This may be improved a little in 7. 85,000 images in the library.France: 50-73% off on the following: Architect 3D Platinum 2008, Power Translator 11 Pro, Radio Tracker 4 Platinum, Expert PDF 5, French version of Repair and Protect, French version of Partition Your Disk (both maybe multi-lingual), Web Radio Recorder, ACD See Pro.
Germany is only offering the Registry First Aid free scan mentioned above. In other words, a demo.
Note: GMMan has checked out the German giveaway of 3D Haus Expert mentioned above on the 11th. He's been nice enough to post instructions on how to convert the language to English, if you need it.
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/5545?replies=2#post-58459
Although, I'm pretty certain he's incorrect on the version. This is an older version of the Personal, not the Pro version. I quoted the price wrong above. I saw it for 40 Euros.
http://www.softwarehouse.de/oli/extref/software/3D_Haus_Design_Studio.htmlPosted 15 years ago # -
watcher13
MemberOffers for the 16th:
One deal, one set of discounts, and probably one demo only:France: Free WebAnime Express from Avanquest for producing Flash based websites. 18 "Flash Models". Pretty sure this is only in French. Don't find any of this software family on the UK, US, or German sites, but there are 6 of this family on the French site. This appears to be a cutdown on the cheapest version, the Home version. That has 33 templates and retails for 50 Euros.
Germany has a discount deal that is a little murky. Says 33%, but also says "up to 33%" and it's unclear on what software. It could be all downloadable software or just the pictured software, which all have info pages that are linked to their box graphics. I can tell you this much:
33% dicounts - Fix-It Utilities 9 Essentials for 20 Euros (Essentials version lacks the PC Diagnostic Tool and the anti-malware protection modules) - Registry First Aid 7 Platinum, 20 Euros - LogoMaker 3, 20 Euros (difference between this and version 2 given away free above are likely more templates and graphic objects, and also mentions vector based editor which may be new) - Mein Heim (My Home, but probably only in German) 3D CAD based home creation/planning software. This is base version, but has more function than Express version, 20 Euros. Note: this is fairly RAM intensive. Requires 512 XP, 1G Vista - AutoSave Essentials, 20 Euros - Natural Voice Reader 5, 40 Euros. Could be abandonware, no Vista support - ArcSoft PhotoStudio Darkroom 1.5 (photo editing/processing for raw, jpeg, tiff. supports 4 popular cameras manufacturers raw data formats), 40 Euros, could be an abandoned cutdown. ArcSoft currently only offering Pro 6 on it's website and has no Vista support. 512 minimum, 768 recommended RAM - Gehirnjogging (Brain Jogging, probably German only) Vol. 5, memory training software, 16.65 Euros.UK: PC Speed Maximizer from Avanquest. Can't tell for sure, but this appears to be a demo. Given away by the German site on the 12th. Normally, full versions from Avanquest require registration, and demos from them are a straight download, and this is a straight download. The normally $40 program is a junk file deleter, registry repair, settings optimizer, startup manager, etc. The ad only says that you can do a health, optimization check, but nothing about repair. Probably just a demo free scan.
Posted 15 years ago # -
Buzz
MemberWas hoping for v5 free, but maybe this was left in there from
years ago. Can't see the date of the upload.
http://i44.tinypic.com/2ewyziq.jpgPosted 15 years ago # -
watcher13
MemberInteresting, Buzz. It might be old. Everything in that directory doesn't match the current giveaway. I didn't mention it, but a little research shows this isn't the first year of the promotion. Hoping that Avanquest will give away any one particular software is a crap shoot, at best. I hope you get your wish, but who knows?
Magical Mystery Tour for the 17th. As yesterday, one freebie, one discount, one phony giveaway.
Germany: Driver Genius 8 Professional for free. Normally, signing up for their newsletter is required. Don't know if you can get around it with phony email. Probably not, as you likely need a registration code. Maybe you can easily opt back out if you don't want to hear from them, or your spam filter may catch it, anyway.
France: A discount on Coffret Audials 1, media pack. This is presented as a 60 Euro discount, a 3 for 1, but this is deceptive. Coffret had already combined 3 softwares into the "1" suite, and Avanquest had dropped the price 40 Euros. Still, it is a 20 Euro discount, now 30 Euors. This combines Audials Radio Tracker 5(for internet radio grabbing, even down to setting it to seach for and record a specific song), Tunebite 3 (audio grabbing, though it's vague on output formats. MP3 and 4 the only ones for sure. Many input formats.), and MP3 Videoraptor (this is a videograbber, but the language seems to say it's primarily for ripping out the music into an audio file. Language is vague. Also, a number of input video formats supported.) A touted major feature is copy protection bypassing, including DRM.
UK has a non-giveaway. A free registration to their online photo storage service. A 1 gig account. For unlimited, it costs 20 pounds. Only problem is: this is the standard service. It's free to register for all the time, not just during the giveaway.
Posted 15 years ago # -
thenameipicked
Member(On the Germany giveaway)
I always use mailinator email addresses for fake ones...in case you do need the code. Sending an email to the address (anything you want @mailinator) will create the account, and no password is required...try it out!Posted 15 years ago # -
watcher13
MemberMaybe there getting ready to give it away? I didn't understand you at first, Buzz. I thought you were just hoping for the software, not clueing us in that it might be part of the deal. Unfortunately, I'm no help. I'm just your neighborhood reporter, not your neighborhood mind reader. The only clues I've seen on this issue are the ones you've kindly provided.
Posted 15 years ago # -
watcher13
MemberHey, I get to take a night off! That's because there's nothing. Well, practically nothing. I thought I noticed on the German site last night, that just when I was starting to figure out what was being offered it changed. Well, Deja Vu! I am 150% certain that last night's giveway on the UK site was the non-giveaway of a free 1 gig account on the Avanquest photo service. Well, now last night's giveaway is different (more in a moment). And today all 3 sites are offering the Avanquest photo service non-giveway. To refresh your memories, it's not a giveaway because a 1 gig account is normally free, anyway. I think they realized that they wanted to "give it away" on all 3 sites today, and the UK folks put it up a day early. Related to their inability to put up a consistent clock on the 10th.
As to why they had several non-giveaways in this promotion, I speculated that when they did the same thing during Advent it was because they simply didn't have enough deals to cover the whole promo period and I suspect that's what happened here. What they wanted to do was a little more ambitious than they could pull off. So we got some filler.
Now last night's UK giveaway is Registry First Aid 5. Well, maybe not. The link goes to a 404 error page in French, even though the URL is from the UK site. Go figure. Maybe they'll fix it. ?
To Buzz, I'd just chalk it up to the same problems I'm talking about. That graphic you linked from the FTP also had something called "blitzbox" which I didn't see, either. C'est la vie.
That's all folks! Today is the last day. All the old stuff should still be available, today, and probably for awhile. I'm not sure how long they left the Advent links up after Xmas, but they were there well after New Year's. Anyway, hope you folks got something good out of it.
I know the Italian site didn't participate, but I can't resist: Ciao, bambini!
Posted 15 years ago # -
Working link for Registry first aid (UK)
Download Registry First Aid SE for FREE !Posted 15 years ago #
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