October 23, 2012

FixMeStick Review and Giveaway



I have fell victim to a virus in the past that really messed up my laptop. I'm sure a lot of you know what a nightmare a virus or malware can be. That's why I wanted to bring you this giveaway and possibly lessen some of my readers nightmares. Check out A Medic's World's review on the FixMeStick and then enter to win your own.
Good Luck Everyone!


Fix Me Stick USB Drive

This review/giveaway is being brought to you by Tom Shewbridge over at A Medic's World.

When I was asked to do a review on this, I was not sure how it would all turn out. Viruses and Malware on the computer have been plaguing and bogging down systems for decades, and it is hard to decide the best way to protect your computer against these threats. FixMeStick gives people a stable choice in the Virus/Malware Removal market with a hardware alternative.

So what is FixMeStick?

The FixMeStick is a PC virus detection and removal product. It's a simple-to-use, self-updating, self-contained USB hardware device. You just plug a FixMeStick into your PC's USB port, reboot, and let it run. When it's done cleaning off the malware, you simply pull it out and reboot your PC, and your PC returns to your regular Windows operating system.
Let me start off by saying, this will not solve all issues, but from what I have tested, it serves a purpose to help those who maybe are not as tech savvy as others, and adds to your arsenal of protection for your PC Computer. Since this is self-contained on the USB Stick, and it boots from the USB Stick, it doesn't give Windows a chance to run, where the virus might hide or replicate itself. It runs off of itself by running a version of Linux Operating Software, so that it can use the 3 different scanning engines that it uses to search out the "bad guys". So to you and me, we don't have to worry about installing Linux on our computer, or making our computer being able to dual boot, it just does
it for us.


Fix Me Stick in Laptop


The above picture is showing the FixMeStick in my Laptop Computer. My computer was already on when I went to start it, so my Computer folder in Windows opened, and I double clicked the icon in the folder to get started. Now this is when you have to let it do it's thing. It will reboot the computer and start running its program from the USB drive without Windows starting up. The first thing its going to do is download the latest definitions and again, you don't have to do anything, it just does this all by itself as will see in the picture below.


Update Screenshot


Now in order for it to update, it obviously has to be able to connect to the internet through the USB drive when it boots up, if for some reason your internet connection is not working, you may have some issues with this phase, but they have a knowledgeable and excellent support team that will be able to walk you through anything that might pop up.

When it first starts a friendly note states to come back later to check on it, and that is a good idea, it took almost 25 minutes on my laptop for the definitions to update. Now this can probably vary based on internet speed, and the type of connection you have, but in this case mine was using WiFi, so keep this in mind. While this did not bother me so much that I was losing the computer for this period of time, unlike other virus programs that might run in the background while using your computer, this is completely hardware based, so you will lose the use of your computer during the scan. One other recommendation I can make is if you are using this on your laptop, make sure it is plugged in, all computer batteries are not alike, and mileage does vary, so it is possible by the time it updates, and scanning are almost complete you could run out of power, so plug them in!

company logo


Once it gets to the actual scanning phase this is when you will find out if something is wrong, a warning box will pop up during scanning letting you know if there is an infection or not, and when my scan was done it found 5 malicious items, one being a Trojan Virus. The program tells you which files are infected and will then give you the choice to quarantine those items. Now this is where this differs from some Software versions, FixMeStick does clean files when it can otherwise it can just quarantine them, or you can leave them on there, fortunately for me, none of the files were system files or files that the computer essentially needs to start up or run Windows. If you were to quarantine one these system files and your system does not start up correctly, this is when their customer service steps up to the plate, if you were to start up the FixMeStick again, you can undo an action, and have it put that file back in place, but its best to contact support where they will be able to help you, and while I was reviewing their customer service page, send you a clean file to replace the infected one with.


FixMeStick is not a replacement for your anti-virus programs, it is to help you with the ones that get through, that they can't find. Why again is this helpful, while in Windows, viruses/malware can hide, and since this does not boot through windows, it bypasses all that, to find the sources, and help you rid your computer of them. The $59.99 includes one year of automatic updates when you use the drive, and free customer support which is part of the real value here. This gets you protection for up to 3 computers in any calender month, which should serve the needs for most homes that have computers. So if you have 4 computers, you can do 3 computers, wait 30 days, and then clean the 4th computer along with 2 others again. If you rotate it right, you will always protect your computers. After the initial year, you would need to renew at $59.99 for the same 3-license agreement and customer support, but you would not need to buy another drive. If you have a lot of computers, or run a small business, you can buy the FixMeStick Pro for $299.99 and that gets you unlimited uses on an unlimited amount of computers for 1 year.


Working with your computers malware and anti-virus software, FixMeStick is a valuable source to help you when the virus/malware has you beat. You can visit them at FixMeStick.com where you will find more information and how to buy it, you can also buy it from Amazon by clicking here, where Amazon users give it 5 out of 5 Stars from 38 reviews! Which is exactly what I give it 5 out of 5 stars!

Disclosure: I received no compensation for this publication. My opinions are my own (Tom Shewbridge) and may differ from those of your own. I was provided a FixMeStick to conduct this review.


I am happy to announce that FixMeStick will be providing one lucky winner with their own USB Stick valued at $59.99, the giveaway will be open the the US and Canada.  Lil' Debi As Mama is not responsible for prize delivery. You can enter using the Rafflecopter widget below.


a Rafflecopter giveaway





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3 comments:

Journeys of The Zoo said...

I don't kow much about these things but I think that $60 a year sounds affordable!

Besos, Sarah
Zookeeper at Journeys of The Zoo
journeysofthezoo at hotmail dot com

Alana Vester said...

I learned that you can use it on 3 computers unless you have the FixMeStick PRO where you can use it on unlimited computers.

jackiekatie1105 said...

That you do not have to install anything :)

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