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Best Free
Technical Support Sites
In compiling this list I only
looked at free third-party support sites. If you are
looking specifically for vendor support sites, then click here.
Most of the sites in this
category have volunteer staffing and that means the quality of
answers to your questions can very widely - it all depends on the
individual you get. So don't take the following site rankings
too literally as your experience may well differ
from mine.
In total I reviewed 28 sites,
of which 3 were rated outstanding, 2 highly recommended and 5
recommended. To see how I ranked sites, click
here.
This list was first
published in my free "Support Alert" newsletter. If you would like to stay
up-to-date with the latest sites, click
here to subscribe for free
Outstanding Sites
Tech Support
Guy Free help for users of Microsoft Windows 95, 98, NT, ME, 2000,
XP
and Linux. This is a volunteer run site with a very active forum area
covering a good range of subject areas. You can also search past
forum messages, which can be a little slow but may still be
the quickest way to get the answer to your problems.
The site layout has been
recently revamped and this has greatly improved usability. On the
down-side advertising is now more prominent, though not yet
intrusive.
When we tested the
service, we got the answer to one of our questions immediately
by searching the past forum database. Our two remaining questions
were posed on the live forums in the appropriate
categories and got answers to both, very promptly indeed.
Impressive.
5 Star
Support This free site offers a variety of tech support
services. First there is an excellent on-line FAQ which provides quick
answers to many common problems. Second, they offer some excellent technical
guides which cover a wide range of topics from installing a network card to
cleaning your mouse. Finally there is an web form where you can pose a specific
problem and receive the answer by email.
We got the answer to one of our questions from the
FAQ. The other two trickier questions we posed by filling in the web form. We
immediately received an email saying that our questions had been sent to all the
volunteers and we may receive more an answer from more than one volunteer.
That's exactly what happened, we got two responses
to each question from different individuals. Quickly too, all responses came
within 12 hours. The solutions posed were both sound and logical but didn't
solve the problems. We then replied to the emails and asked for other solutions.
After a couple of emails the volunteers came up with perfectly acceptable
solutions though not necessarily the most technically insightful.
This service is free though donations for
successful solutions are suggested. Overall an impressive service
particularly for more straightforward problems.
Highly Recommended Sites
Protonic This
is an online community that provides free computer technical support
for Windows, Mac, Unix and Palm by email. The site is exceptionally
well laid out and easily navigated. All you need do is ,
register for free then pose
your question. The answer will be emailed to you very promptly.
Since last reviewed the
site has gone from strength to strength. The already excellent
layout has been improved further and response time to our questions
was very speedy indeed.
Clean, straightforward and effective.
I liked it!
AskMeHelpDesk is a Web site that pairs experts and novices to
answer and ask questions. There are hundreds of topics, including
many computer-related ones. The computer sections are
quite active and I got answers to our test questions within a few
hours. Take the strain off your help desk and get your users
to check out this excellent free resource.
Recommended Sites
D-A-L
Computer Help This a forum based Windows help
service. It's quite active with responses to questions often posted
within a few hours. The "Spyware, Adware, Viruses and HijackThis
Logs" section is particularly active and the answers posted both
helpful and sound. The "Hand Held" and "Web Design" sections are
currently a bit thin but that does not distract from the overall
excellence of this free site for general Windows support. Registration is required to post a
question but this is a simple and speedy procedure. Well worth
trying. Help.com is a free
tech support service from CNet. There are plenty of online
resources to help you, drawn from a variety of sources. Some of these
are on the help.com site, some are elsewhere. Included in the latter is a
question and answer service that links to gives you an easy
interface for the Usenet support newsgroups, although to use this
service you must register.
Suggest A Fix
This is a free forum where users can post problems in the hope that
another forum member can help. The available forums cover operating
systems, general computing, the Internet and security with many
subdivisions under each category.
The forums are not the busiest we've seen but
almost all questions attract good quality answers. Our 3 test questions were
answered very promptly indeed the solutions provided and were of high quality.
Like many other forums, a few dedicated individuals
seem to provide the bulk of the answers so you might find the quality of the
answers varying day to day according to who's available. This reservation
notwithstanding, we couldn't fault the service we received. About Guide on PC Support Here you'll find an excellent portal site for all
PC support issues. The information presented is thorough and
comprehensive. They have a forum area where, after
registration, you can post messages to other
users free of charge. It's not a particularly active forum,
with only a dozen or so messages a day, so you may have to wait a
while for a response. We did however, get answers to our
problems and the correct answers at that.
Virtual Dr This site forms just part of the huge Internet.com group of
sites. They offer a pretty good set of online resources plus a well-used forum area where you can pose questions to fellow users.
Registration is required but is free.
PC
Crave A nice clean site offering free
online and email tech support for all kinds of computer problems.
Windows, Mac, Internet, Hardware etc. Just fill in the simple form
on the site - no special registration needed.
Support Freaks
This is one cute site. It's
not just the funky cartoons or the zippy language, it's the way the
site is structured; it just does it. Support Freaks used to be
a paid support site but has now morphed into a free forum based
site. The forums are quite active. Well worth trying. How I Rank
Sites
Sites in this category provide
a valuable service for free. Often they are staffed by volunteers
who generously give their time to help others. We heartily
support these services and the good Samaritans behind them.
Given this, it's unfair to be
too critical. Yes, some of the sites look amateurish. Yes, some have
clumsy navigation and a few broken links. But none of this really
matters. All that is important is that you get the right answers to
your questions and get them reasonably quickly.
I put three questions to
each of the sites reviewed. An easy software question, a tough
hardware question and a very curly networking problem. Sites
were rated on the quality of their answers and the speed in
providing them.
Despite the rankings, all the
listed sites provided an excellent service. Some were clearly
superior to a number of the fee-charging support services.
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