Toolwiz Time Freeze

[Kissol]

Full compatible with Win 7, 32 and 64 bits (and XP/Vsta) there is the excellent Toolwiz Time Freeze.

It's FREE and lightweight. It deserves a try.

[deya]

This looks interesting. I've installed Toolwiz Time Freeze on a spare machine, XP 32 bit - 512 MB RAM, after doing a bit of reading up on it. It seems to work in the much the same way as Wondershare Time Freeze, it's very similar.

I disabled Wondershare and installed Toolwiz, it required a re-boot. It doesn't start at boot though, you have to start the TimeFreeze manually, unlike Wondershare which starts at the welcome screen before the desktop loads, if you want it to. Not many settings but it has password protection and an update checker. It runs one process, TimeFreeze.exe, and it runs light. The cache size shows 4081 MB.

Downloaded and installed a couple of browsers and an audio player then rebooted the machine and everything was back as it was, no trace of the installed software. I then deleted a few files, images etc, with CCleaner and rebooted again. The files were back in their folders same as before when the system re started. Then I installed some software, turned the TimeFreeze off to transfer the data and rebooted. Worked fine. The delay time while the file transfers take place is about the same as Wondershare.

Reading about it, it appears that Toolwiz intend to keep TimeFreeze as freeware for none commercial use. If so then it could be worth a try for anyone who needs it, testing clean software etc.

I don't know how effective it would be against malware so best to still use it with a good AV, for anyone wanting to try it, and who's not sure. Just use it when you want to try or test something. I've had it running for a few hours, on and off, and no problems so far. No lock ups or anything, apart from when transferring data, which is normal.

Don't know if anyone else is trying it, but it seems to work ok for me.

Kissol, are you by any chance associated with Toolwiz?

[Kissol]

@ deya, like you I'm using 'Wondershare Time Freeze' that I got for free in a 'Giveaway of the Day' some time ago.

Since in this topic I saw that isn't easy to find a similar app. for free (to 64 bits mainly), Toolwiz app. seems to me adequate for some members purposes. No association indeed.

[MidnightCowboy]

Toolwiz at one time displayed a fake Softpedia logo on their site although this has now been removed. I would treat any vendor that uses such tactics with extreme caution. I would also read their EULA with great care because concerns have been raised about the content of this too.

[deya]

We're thinking along exactly the same lines then, Kissol. I just thought to ask if you were connected to Toolwiz so we could ask a few questions because, like MC, I have noticed one or two things that it would be nice to have clarified.

The EULA issue that MC pointed out is this, and the only place I came across it was at Wilders so I hope they don't mind if I quote it directly from there. It's posted by someone called taleblou and reads as follows;

"Hi:

There is clause in their agreement which maybe scary?

6. Collection of Viewing Information. You acknowledge that you are aware of and consent to the collection of your viewing information by TOOLWIZ and/or the provider of the content being accessed via the Software during your use of the Software. Viewing information includes, without limitation, the time spent viewing specific pages, the order in which pages are viewed, the time of day pages are accessed, IP address and user ID. This viewing information may be linked to personally identifiable information, such as name or address."

Now when you look at the changelog for the latest version of Toolwiz TimeFreeze a change to the EULA is listed under 'Changelog' - 'improvements' - here. The part quoted, above, has now been removed ..... so.

I'll try dig around later today and see if I can come up with anything else, or if anyone else can shed more light on Toolwiz TimeFreeze perhaps they could post it here? And for anyone who's interested it might be worth reading the Wilders thread, which is here.

My initial thoughts when first seeing this were the same as Kissol's in that it may be useful for some on here to use for testing stuff so that's why I downloaded and installed it on a spare to see if it worked ok - which it seems to do.

But MC has expressed one or two concerns there, and rightly so, so it would be good to get
more feedback from anyone here who comes across anything. .... or maybe some direct contact from Toolwiz themselves.

[MidnightCowboy]

Originally Posted by deya

But MC has expressed one or two concerns there, and rightly so, so it would be good to get
more feedback from anyone here who comes across anything. .... or maybe some direct contact from Toolwiz themselves.

Indeed. I have no problem with folks who correct or improve things according to user feedback, in fact I admire it greatly, but to use another website's logo when you knowingly have no connection with it is inexcusable. That said, maybe some direct input from the vendor can also shed a different light on this too.

[deya]

Ok - I emailed Toolwiz support and asked if they would be so kind as to give any information regarding the issues raised here and any help in general. If I get a reply I'll post it here.

[Anupam]

I have copied some posts, and moved the rest from the other topic to here, as I think that Toolwiz Time Freeze being a new software, requires a separate thread, and also the discussion had mainly turned to this product.

I liked Wondershare Time Freeze and I still have its free version, and was quite disappointed when they turned it to a commercial version.

So, I was quite interested in Toolwiz Time Freeze, when I saw it being suggested here. But, after reading about the issues surrounding this, I am now not so keen on using it.

Thanks deya, as always for providing good insights into the software. I will try to find out more about the software, and also see what their team responds. Will keep watch here for further news .

[deya]

I received a reply from my email to Toolwiz. It's from their product manager, James, who said he was happy to answer the questions about the EULA and the Softpedia logo on their site. His response was as follows;

1) "We have updated the EULA and you can check the change log here":

The 'here' part was a link to the Toolwiz site showing the 'changelog' - 'improvements' page which I provided a link to in post #5 of this thread.

2) "Reg Softpedia logo, It is our mistake. We hired one guy from freelancer who made website for us, he made a company Award part for us and copied the photos from other websites. We did not know this issue since some users sent email to us and we have changed this part also."

Those are direct quotes from the email I received from James.

I have replied to James and thanked him for responding to my questions and told him I would pass them on to this forum. I have also provided him with a link to this thread so he can follow it if he wishes to, and also asked him if he would like to contribute to it, answer any questions etc, for anyone here who might be interested in the free Toolwiz TimeFreeze.

Whether he will or not, I don't know. So for now you'll have to make what you will of the answers to the questions I put to him, and to which he kindly responded.

For me, personally, I'll keep the program installed on my spare machine and keep trying it. I've still had no problems when running it. I have disabled it from running and reverted back to WS TimeFreeze, everything worked fine and there were no conflicts so I feel comfortable switching between the two.

I'm not able to try it on a 64 bit because we don't have a freed up one here that I can use, so sorry about that, because I think that was the reason for Kissol bringing it to our attention in the first place.

Other than that, anything else I find I'll post here.

[MidnightCowboy]

Thanks very much deya - appreciated.

Seems honest enough but not very responsible to miss something like this on your own site before publishing it.