Slashdot Mirror
Best Buy $39.95 "Optimization" At Best a Waste of Money
DCFC writes "The Consumerist deconstructs the appalling 'optimization service' that Best Buy has been pushing on consumers in recent weeks. The retailer charges 40 bucks to give you a slower PC, and make bizarre claims that it makes it go 200% faster. 'We ran the 3DMark 2003 graphics benchmark on each laptop, comparing optimized and non-optimized settings. For two of our samples, the Gateway and Toshiba, performance changes were negligible. On the Asus laptop, however, optimized tests actually scored about 32% worse than the non-optimized setup. We have been unable to isolate the source of this performance change. On none of the three tested laptops did the optimized settings give a performance boost in our test.'"
Friends don't let friends take their computers to Best Buy!
Can you remember when system tuning was part of the sysadmin's job? A big part of it? Then you'll remember how often we got it wrong, before we rediscovered the science of minimum change + measurement of results. I guess good system tuners are so rare now that people pounce on anyone who claims the skill, and pushes an old trick of the trade out wrapped as high tech. Fail.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Really, all these services designed to do what, exactly? You've just added two more processes to my current roster of whatever is installed and allowed to boot on startup.
I've been saying that since BB acquired the Geek Squad, it has become a sham, a scam, and I'm quite sure a violation of many privacy laws.
Sadly, they have my laptop (or actually, it has them) and I'm waiting for it to get totally replaced. Enough hardware failed enough times that it should warrant them just giving me a new machine.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
...of course this is probably a junk "service," but it's unlikely that the reference PCs were bloated with the sort of crap that they MIGHT be removing in the service.
Sure, they probably update drivers and "set aside" obvious bloatware, but other than that, they can't do anything -- and your reference PCs are probably least likely to get benefit from that, ahem, service.
Actually, you should be upset. They are removing the shortcuts from the desktop, not removing the crapware. The thing I don't like is why they didn't compare bit for bit the differences between the optimized and unoptimized versions. The "optimized" version running 32% slower suggests someone doing something very very wrong.
=================
Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
Ha!... they charge 40 bucks to clean up the startup, great... This might actual put Best Buy in the running for the most corrupt company in existence. Best Buy is going to have a hard time passing up Jiffy Lube for most corrupt company in 2010. Perhaps they should also tack on another 100 dollar charge to help carry it out to your car, they could totally market it as a "zero shock pc transport service"... that's sure to screw with the general public... throw in some more big words and act like they are doing us a service. Jiffy Lube look out!! your not the only ones that are screwing people mercilessly. "No,... just the cheapest oil change you got... No.. sir... sir... no.. I already have wiper blades... sir... SIR, no... sir listen.. I don't want the manufacturer's suggested monthly screwing, just the oil change."
True "optimization" on most newer machines is simply removing the bloatware that infests almost every machine out there. Technically abilities aside, software vendors will freak if they find out BestBuy is ripping out all the software they paid to have pre-loaded. I "fixed" three new laptops for family and friends over the holidays and in each case it was faster just to nuke it from orbit and install Windows 7 fresh (and not from the restore partition, which invariably puts all the crap back on there).
Best Buy selling snake oil? No , it must be a mistake. A misunderstanding.
I mean they got a Geek Squad in farfergnugen cop cars. These are professionals.
I guess they gotta have A+ certification and everything. You must be missing out on the subtle but brilliant improvement.
It may start slow but in that last second everything goes 200% faster. Just like those Geek buggies.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
1) Download: http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/
2) Install
3) Run program.
Hell, I'll even give you free PC optimization months down the road after your PC looses it's new PC smell!
1) Download: http://www.ccleaner.com/
2) Install
3) Run program.
You're welcome.
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
Wow. I don't know how I can possibly reconcile this anomalous data point with all of the other things I've heard about them.
I can confirm that the optimization consists of:
1) Running some registry tweaks/fixes
2) Get the latest Windows updates (unless we were backlogged with a lot of work, in which case we'd skip it)
3) Uninstall unnecessary programs (usually only at the customer's request)
All of this was automated through an in-house "Customizer" program. So the optimization consisted of turning the computer on, hooking it up to the network, and running the program.
How much do you have to pay for stock OEM windows? Because whenever I optimize a computer, it mostly involves removing the shoddy always-on software installed by the manufacturer / Best Buy.
Anybody who buys anything from Best Buy deserves what they get. If you really need it right then and there go to Wal-Mart or so, they have the same stuff at least 50% cheaper and you can actually return your shit if it doesn't work as advertised. They also don't have Tweek trying to sell you gold connector USB cables because 'they go faster'.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
This is not about "you". This is about the consumer which gets scammed into a worse than neutral purchase and someone else gets to clean it up. That someone is frequently an IT type person doing work for their employers, families, and friends. So continue to business with an organization known for it's perpetual fraud and know that you're only creating a more problems for youself and your peers, as it's your choice, but after considering to choice to do so maybe you'll understand it's not harmless, nor a net gain for yourself.
brandelf -t FreeBSD
Ahhh but did they say it was to be optimized for speed? Could it be that they are optimizing your machine for replacement? Optimized for reporting marketing data to best buy? Optimized for suck? Optimized to make other peoples PCs look better?
I have to wonder, if surveyed, what percentage of users would report that their PC was faster :)
Salesmen are kinda scumbags everywhere. NPR has been doing some great programs on it recently. This morning there was talk of car buying and all the tricks. They talk about "monthly payments" and other abstract notions, because it makes it much easier for them to hide fees into a fully broken up payment than if they were actually talking "out the door" price. Also they even make "math errors" to the point that the person telling the story claimed to have bought cars 4 times and EVERY TIME caught a "math error" that would have had him paying more.
"Error" indeed.
I like to keep the salesman's tricks in mind while talking to them. It takes away a lot of their power if your going over the tricks and intended effects in your head "Oh he is looking for a yes here so he can foster agreement" "oh, hes repeating his question again looking to see if I am faltering" "oh, there we go, mentioning value again, must mean its way overpriced"
then again, I question even this. As it seems some salesmen are extremely vulnerable to their own pitches. I have a friend who briefly sold Kirby vaccuumes. From what I hear their best customers end up being their own salesmen sometimes, and judging from him.... he seemed so sold you almost thought he would end up buying one if he stayed with it. (you may see one demo on how much dirt it picks up, he sees several demos a week...)
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
First thing I do with a retail computer is delete all the crud. Trials, stuff that runs at startup unnecessarily, etc. Sometimes you can just reinstall the OS from the restore disk and start from there. Then there is the icon cleanup, which can take forever.
"Bob's Software Company\Tax Pro\Tax Pro.lnk" becomes "Tax Pro"
"Adobe\Adobe Acrobate Reader.lnk" becomes "Junk\Acrobat Reader.lnk"
The article says that Best Buy did cleanup the desktop. Hopefully, this will create an awareness of just how much manufacturers are screwing over their customers. They include all this junk, then the end-user pays someone to clean it off. There's many times I thought about actually writing a program that does this.
If Best Buy offered a service to do this without screwing up the laptops or lying to customers, then it might actually be a good thing.
My first question would be if "optimized" pc's are better, why is everyone buying the non-optimized ones?
Shouldn't it be harder to get the "better" ones?
I'm always amazed at the shift in their sales ploy after you look like you're going to buy something. It goes from "This is the best on the market" to "this thing is a piece of crap. You better get an extended warranty." Uhm, didn't you just tell me how great this thing was?
When she asked if she could install anti-virus software herself instead of paying Geek Squad to do it, she was told installing software yourself, "negates the vendor's warranty."
Heh. I *love* that part!
Now, whenever someone tells me that Linux can't work on the desktop because "off-the-shelf" Windows software doesn't work on it, I can tell them that you can't do it on Windows without voiding the warranty!
I just don't believe it. That sounds like something CompUSA would do!
+1 Disagree
it is automatic... What could go wrong?
No, but as an advanced user (I design SAN and NAS stuff) it insults me when they try and talk past me. When I buy a piece of electronics I've usually researched it to death and just want the salesman to get the box and ring it up for me; that's all. I've lost count of how many times these bogus "PC experts" have tried to blow smoke up my butt and impress me. Usually all it takes is telling them, "Fine. I'm on my way to Microcenter / Fry's," and they suddenly are able to sell me what I want.
The worst thing you can do to them is walk out, buy someplace else, and TELL THEM.
I am Homer of Borg, resistance is - Ooo Donuts!
Never attribute to malice what could be ascribed to incompetence.
+1 Disagree
Remove programs:
Norton
McAfee
ANYTHING made by Symantec
Replace with any decent free antivirus. Easily increases performance by a metric fuckton.
or just uninstall Vista.
What are you even talking about? I just got my oil changed at a Jiffy Lube last month and they didn't try to push anything else on me. It was $20 out the door with a $12 rebate that I just received last week.
I have never been to a Best Buy (their first stores in my home country open later this year) but if we assume they are like PCWorld, they probably sell PCs with stuff preinstalled and auto-running (IE, the updater for Realplayer which runs at boot)
their agreements with the software companies would prevent the tune-up techies from removing the autostarts like most of us geeks would, so all they can do is delete temp files, update programs to the latest release (therefore, often, bigger files being autostarted) and defrag
PC Sellers have major conflicts of interest between what the support guys would do given free reign, and what marketing and legal require, contractually.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
WTF? That test determines 3d gaming performance. While I do not doubt that the best buy "service" is junk, 3dmark would by no means be a valid metric.
An oversimplification. Again, I'm not suggesting the job is worth it FOR ME, but $40 to pre-install all updates, clean up the bloat-ware (at least visually), and perform a few tweaks (status bars enabled, automatic updates enabled, etc.) isn't out of line for a big-box company to charge. The problem isn't that they offer the service and that you get marginal value for it -- the problem that Consumerist has is that you can't seem to avoid paying for it. "Sorry, they're all pre-optimized."
Buying ANYTHING at Best Buy these days is a chore.
"No I don't want your optimization plan."
"No I don't want an extended warranty."
"No I don't want any accessories."
"No I don't want the super awesome $50 Monster Cables with gold tips."
"No I don't want your PlatinumShield super-dupper service plan."
What's bad is when you get a salesman who wants to argue with you. "But you need our service plan!!" Sometimes I just want to throttle these guys. If there was another place I could get computer parts and electronics locally (for times when waiting three or four days for Newegg isn't an option) I would never set foot inside their doors. A few weeks ago I had pushy BB salesmen try to sell me a warranty plan on a $20 card reader, for crying out loud.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Some lawyer will file a class action suit against Best Buy for this practice.
Best Buy will ignore it until the moment it looks like they will really go to court, then Best Buy will settle.
The settlement will be for $48 million. The lawyers will get $45 million, and the other $3 million will be in the form of "certificates" awarded to the plaintiffs good for 1 free "optimization" on a computer purchase at Best Buy within the next 12 months.
That's how it works.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Best Buy a waste of money!
G-Spot hard to find!
Something else you already knew!
I am a Staples easytech idiot and we basically have the same service for $10 cheaper called a pc tune-up. We run a norton toolkit scan, meaning "find out if we can push a virus removal service (129.99)," and nothing more than a basic "windows cleanup." This is usually a 29.99 service although it just so happens to be free right now. All the big box stores are a scam, preying on the lack of basic public knowledge like any local car mechanic.
Sadly I happen to be preaching to the choir. We will continue to have customers pouring in with the most mind-numbingly simple problems that we charge $150 to fix in the end. It's this fact that actually makes it a difficult job for me.
It's no worse than their obscene markup on peripherals, and their insistence on pushing their crappy store warranties.
I once bought a fricking SATA cable there (9 bucks), and they tried to sell me a warranty. I loudly pointed out that the cable they were selling was marked up 400% over an equivalent cable bought online, or at the Radio Shack 5 miles up the road, and that the odds of there being any failure in the cable in the time covered by the warranty. The guy behind me in line actually put his stuff down, and walked out.
I still bought the cable. Good old corporate card.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
They have a similar service for the 360 where for $40-ish they will install all the XBox Live updates for you. When they tried to push it on me the salesman insisted that if I didn't get it, it would take about 5 hours for my XBox to update and be able to play games. Which obviously is complete bullshit unless you could only download at like 1KB/sec or something.
When I got home it took at most 5 minutes for it to download and apply the updates.
Anybody who buys a computer from Best Buy instead of going to Newegg or TigerDirect probably deserves exactly what they get.
Is TigerDirect that good? I would trust Newegg with my newborn (if I had one), but I always got a shady vibe from TigerDirect...
Malice is to employ incompetent people to do crappy work.
So the management is malicious and the employees are crap.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
"The operative word here is 'owned,'" Dunn told Fortune.
I worked at Best Buy as a computer tech years ago before they changed to Geek Squad. Yes, the system optimization was a total joke. I just found a backup of my old "sysop" thumb drive. I imagine they're using something different now, but the descriptions in the program give a general rundown:
- Registry tweaks: Performs special tweaks to Window's Registry that speed up menu delays, limit size of the recycle bin, tweak virtual memory, and others.
- Service tweaks: Turns services to "Manual" that are not needed upon boot-up to ensure faster boot times and decrease service memory usage.
- Limit started applications on Boot-up: Turns off applications that HP, Compaq, Sony, and other manufacturers are notorious for allowing to run at start-up.
- Security Patches: Installs the latest patches from Microsoft to increase the stability and security of a Windows XP system.
- BootVis: A tool from Microsoft that increases boot performance.
Again, I'm sure this is outdated, but you get the idea.
the problem that Consumerist has is that you can't seem to avoid paying for it. "Sorry, they're all pre-optimized."
I don't want undercoating on my car!
It's going to be fun when consumers start walking on them like the customer at the car lot in Fargo. Karma's a bitch.
--
Toro
Everyone who has read this article already knew that it was scammy.
Ecost.com is better than Tiger Direct but TD is not that bad about returning things even if their prices fluctuate madly from day to day. As long as you approach buying something online with a bit of research than you should not get scammed from TD's schizo pricing.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Just edit the Windows registry and set BUGS=OFF
Have gnu, will travel.
We just ordered a PC online for "in store pickup" at Bestbuy.com. It will be interesting to see what they do, seeing as we already have a receipt and it says nothing about any extra services. I want the PC (Core Duo Quad with 8Gigs of ram and a Tb drive) but I almost want them to dick with me as we bought it across state lines and State Attorney Generals (State Attorneys General? States Attorney General?) just LOVE to dick with internet cases.... Still, I do want to walk out with my new box.
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Is TigerDirect that good? I would trust Newegg with my newborn (if I had one), but I always got a shady vibe from TigerDirect...
I've never had a problem in years and years of ordering, probably at least five figures total of "stuff" from them.
Three things to note:
1) They have (or had) "special rules" for certain products like CPUs, memory, maybe others, and the rules vary over time. You don't like the rules, don't buy anyway, then complain you don't like the rules. The "special rules" all seem to vaguely revolve around improper cooling experiments and/or overclocking related misadventures.
2) They sell stuff, as opposed to being a service company. If you buy from a local PC integrator, its expected they'll sell you the correct thing and get it working and overall make it right, because they're a service company that happens to sell hardware. Tiger sells boxes that happen to contain hardware, much like mouser.com yet assembled, so if you buy incompatible hardware (an AMD CPU and an intel MB or some crazy combo) they'll just simply trust you and ship it and give you a moderately hard time if you try to return stuff. Another interesting maneuver is devices that may or may not work with your OS, which would have been pretty easy to check with a ten second google search before ordering. Similarly, they currently, or in the past, sold used/reconditioned PCs, VERY prominently marked as such, but you'll still see fools complaining "they shipped me a used PC" and so forth. They send you exactly what you order, each and every time, even if you're drunk and order something stupid.
3) Shipping dates all over the map. Some stuff they drop ship from around the country and you'll get it tomorrow morning, no kidding. Some weird stuff is shipped apparently on a slow boat from China. Generally the newer it is, the faster you get it. The good news is they have many warehouses, so you could get stuff extremely quickly. The bad news is they have many warehouses, so depending on the pony express, it could take awhile. Everything online is simply marked as "in-stock" of course, which is technically true...
Overall, I enjoy buying from them about as much as it sounds like you enjoy buying from the 'egg.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I imagine their service, like many others, simply revolves around removing all the accumulated crap from your system and probably updating your drivers... Basically all the stuff a typical user won't do.
By sending them a clean system, you won't see any benefit whatsoever.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
The original intention was good. Back in the early days of the geek squad, we removed all the bloatware, created copies of the operating system for a clean install (most computers do not include this), and tweaked a few (a very small number) of registry settings. This service is worthwhile if you have a lot of money and you don't want to tweak anything when you get the PC.
Requiring you to pay for the service because of Bait and Switch? This sounds like a scam that management promotes. We know that the big box companies make a very small profit when selling a PC, so they have to make up the difference by selling expensive peripherials ($30 USB or Ethernet cable, anyone?). Some stores would rather not sell you a PC then sell you one with zero add-ons.
Unable to buy a laptop because it already had the service performed on the unit? That should raise some red flags with the BBB.
Best Buy agrees to buy the laptops for a specific price because it has the bloatware, getting the laptops for a lower cost.
Best Buy sells a service to remove the bloatware, once again, getting more money for (almost) the same product.
Best Buy modifies more PC's than not, almost ensuring a bait-and-switch situation. (just a guess)
Something is fishy.
Had this happen myself looking at a dell netbook. I asked why one was more expensive than the other as it looked like a similiar spec. They said they'd optimised it. I asked what needed to be optimised on a stock xp install (thinking drivers perhaps updated, nothing that a windows update wouldn't fix) and was then shown task-manager and told to look at all the things running. I asked 'which service can you disable in that list that isn't needed and will make the system run faster?' and she didn't know.
I got the 'unoptimised' version, and noticed it had been filled with crapware and dell/bestbuy links that aren't standard. So, yeah, basically, you're paying them to remove the stuff that THEY've already added.
What a ripoff.
Waiting for an amusing sig.
Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
This is just a thinly disguised trick to get around bait & switch laws.
Advertising computers for a low price then only having the exact same computer in stock for $40 more.
Unless they can demonstrate that the "pre-optimization" actually does anything to justify the $40 premium, they are advertising falsely.
I have little doubt a court case would find Best Buy guilty of illegal business practices in this case.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
LOL, I clearly remember the first system I purchased at a big-box store. I had just graduated university and needed a cheap system to do engineering work on. I was on a pretty limited budget so I walked into a big box store, found something that was not pathetic and gave the sales guy a list of upgrades that I wanted. He argued with me for a good 20 minutes that 'nobody needs 512meg of ram'. Finally I walked out and went to the next big box store.
Best Buy is large enough to have tested this product on numerous PCs before letting it off the shelves. I would think that they must have some concern for their reputation. Perhaps this is an example of some fool putting a buddy or family member in charge of a department who is not qualified to go to the toilet without an attendant. This is really, seriously stupid.
Begging your pardon, but a blog reporting consumers' problems is necessarily going to be heavily biased towards complaints.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Another important note from TFA was that the service was inconsistent. Systems returned without all updates completed, varying levels of configuration, *misplaced parts*... There are two sections to TFA which outline exactly how marginal the value is for the service (and how outlandish the claims provided by the sales staff are). So yes, GP is an oversimplification, but there are other problems besides "Sorry, they're all pre-optimized."
+1 Disagree
Take a look at the comments sections sometime. We're not talking even-handed publishing here.
It's also an open secret that they will delete comments that point out when the customer was at fault.
It's directly akin to Free Republic, where dissenting opinions are not welcome.
I had the misfortune of working for what was Firedog and also GeekSquad in high school. Both organizations are SALES based, not service. I walked on the job all googly eyed thinking it would be some wiz-bang-pop techno extravanganza, but in reality it is a constant banter from upper management chanting "sell more services", and IMO generally at the cost of quality of information conveyed to the customer.
Their exist a definitive rift between the tech savvy and the cup-holder-cd-tray-croud, but rarely will a mass marketed consumer company be open and fair in its practices, exspecially when they have the upper advantage of capitalizing on the ignorance of many.
I burned all the blue and red shirts once I resigned both post. May the Maths forgive me for my trespasses with those conglomerates.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
In keeping fairly close to Moores law in todays hardware realm of dual-core processors and memory measured in Gigabytes, why in the hell do we even need "tuning" on the average consumer desktop in the first place? I mean c'mon, seriously. How many YEARS of hardware will run Windows 2000 or XP perfectly with nothing more than an extra stick of RAM? Compare that to this pig we call Vista? Exactly. Houston, I think we found the problem.
It really does get stupid sometimes thinking about all the jobs Microsoft "accidentally" creates out there...Oddly enough, I can't seem to find the Division in Best Buy of Professional Ubuntu "tuners". Gee, I wonder why...
Learn to use a computer or be kind to someone that knows computers :)
It could just be hardware differences. Poor quality control in what memory they put in could easily make seemingly identical machines have drastic performance differences.
Not a typewriter
Don't be insulted. They can't discern your work history by looking at you. I look at it as an opportunity to have some fun. Ask questions like which SATA cable will make your MP3s sound better. The more honest they are, the more likely I am to actually purchase something there.
This space intentionally left blank.
Nine dollars! That's a steal! Last time I looked, they tried to sell me one for $20. Let's not forget their cheap printers with $40 USB cables. Seems quite odd that they have competitive prices on desktops or laptops while they sell cables for ten times the price.
This is the same store that steers people to Monster HDMI cables "because the generic brands aren't rated for 120Hz." And try to sell Mac computers "because they can't get viruses."
I am not saying it is worth $40 for this service, but I did used to perform this service when I used to work there. (I believe this service was cheaper then too.) Paying for this service on a brand new computer will most likely not be worth the cost since the computer is not loaded with all the crap that most pc users accumulate over time. Yes, there is a lot of bloatware preloaded, and we would often remove these from startup. Other then that, that's about all we could do on a new pc. So, not really worth it for a new pc. I dont like the results of this test since doing it on a new pc isn't worth it. When I would do this service on old pcs, most of the time the customer would go home quite happy with their computer. People get so much junk and adware on their computer, it slows it down considerably, and I would do everything I could to remove it. The service also depends on who performs the service. A problem we did face is the software we could use to perform the service. For a while we would use adaware, spybot search and destroy, etc. But then we were told we could not use them since they are only free individual consumers, not for corporations. This made it more complicated, since now we then would have to sell the customer software so we could use it to remove the crap on their pc. The optimization is often used as a way to upsell to a customer other services, ram upgrades, virus software, virus removal, etc. Often we would tell a customer what to do to do it themselves (download adaware, spybot, etc). However, when so many customers dont know how to even do that, then our service was of a lot of help to them. Probably for someone that is reads slashdot, you wont need optimization "service" since you're techy enough. There are so many factors of whether it is worth it or not. So for on a new pc, no. For tech guru, no. For grandma that can barely do the basics, probably yes.
I bought my wife a computer - at Best Buy, no less - just a month ago. Met all the criteria there. Salesman attempted the usual obligatory "smoke up the ass" on my wife, she said "no, it's fine, my husband says this will do, and he's in IT". Salesman then says to me, "Oh, so he'll know then that you'll need an external USB drive for backup, etc." "No, I'll back things up to the network." "I'm not sure that'll work, this machine has a lot of disk space." "It's fine. I have 8TB free on my network server." "You mean 8GB. This computer has a 640GB drive, that will never fit." "No, I actually mean eight. tera. bytes. As in 8,000 GB." ...
Now that I think of it, she bought her netbook there too. "Optimized". We eventually convinced them to "waive" the optimization fee (I was intending on blowing away XP anyway, and putting Windows 7 on it). Interestingly though, they didn't do it that way. They gave us a $40 discount on the laptop, and charged us for the optimization, "so it will show as a sale for the optimization"... Whatever.
I use them only because they have a mini-apple store in the one down where I live. It's the nearest place that handles any kind of Apple products, which is handy if I need a Mini-DVI to VGA adaptor to hook up to a project or a new powersupply for my MacBook Pro (I seem to break 1 a year. Doesn't seem to like the drop from my table onto a ceremic tile floor too much).
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Well, the cables you find online will cost $2 but charge $6.50 to ship it to you in most cases. Anyone walking into a retail store gloating about how much better prices are on some website are usually doing nothing but annoying the poor $6/hr lady at the cash register who was told by management to ask customers if they want a warranty with all purchases.
Mind you, I am not sure why the guy behind you would walk out. It seems like anyone who has ever shopped at Best Buy or CompUSA knows after the first visit they will ask if you want a warranty with a $5 mouse, or whatever. It's much like going to McDonalds and trying to make a scene when they ask if you would like fries with your burger, or to upsize your meal.
Kudos, though. You seem like the type who is just out to annoy people making minimum wage and contribute to their disdain for customers and hate their jobs even more. If you would like to be productive, perhaps write the district manager of these stores and let them know how annoying you find suggestive selling. It probably won't get anywhere, but nor will ruining a cashier's day.
Ah-- TFA is definitely a malicious bait and switch. GP's post though was a simple issue with one of his friend's computers that the Best Buy tech failed to fix. *That* story sounds more like an incompetent tech than the store pushing a new sale.
I know full well about big box stores not wanting to sell a computer all by its lonesome. It would bring the daily profit number for the store down so management would *actively* discourage selling hardware without warranties attached. I had a manager infuriate a customer of mine so much he walked out instead of buying an Apple (higher profit product) laptop with a few non-warranty extras.
Perhaps some day Best Buy will go the way of CompUSA and Circuit City. I wouldn't mourn for it...
+1 Disagree
It was a test of the same machine before optimization and after. There is no hardware difference to be had. They made it 32% slower per the benchmark, and charged $40 for it.
They can sell this all they want, but I believe they should have to run the benchmark with you when you bring it in, and then compare the finished result with you when you return.
It would give them value when they do achieve results, something tangible the customer could rationalize. It would also create a level of expectation for the customer and the company, expose the currently and intentionally ambiguous details, and give rise to refund requests in an otherwise full barrel of fish.
Sorry, I work in distribution channels and Best Buy doesn't negociate based on what software is installed. If you get a part number KFA3544#ABA (made up part number) system at Best Buy, it will come with the exact same software image as the same part number from CompUSA, Newegg, or any other channel.
True, most companies would rather sell accessories as opposed to a computer system. Standard retail markup on just about anything we buy in a Walmart, Target, etc is 33% markup over distribution. The markup on a retail bought PC? Maybe 4-5% due to the endless competition and price wars over PCs. It is just a fact of life. Even most non-technical old people I know do know better than to spend a lot of money on cables, since companies like Monster Cables has drawn enough attention to anything cable-related for many years now. I really look at the big-box stores as "where to buy a cable/PSU/keyboard in an absolute emergency if working on a project due Monday and the system has an issue Saturday evening at 8PM".
I do call BS on the entire article. If these guys were so bright as to unveil a scam at BB, they should have been able to at least figure out what changed on the system. Incompetence all around, including TFA. They can't figure out why a machine is 1/3 slower when they get it back? Time to start writing articles on politics and leave IT alone.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I bought a $450 HP laptop for a family member this Christmas, The hardware was pretty nice for the money, but the system image HP put on the machine was appalling.
First - it's loaded with garbage, support links, trial versions, and a taskbar that has so much junk running, that fills half the width of the display.
Second - no recovery discs, or operating system installation discs what so ever. You need to "make" the discs from a supplied utility and a utility partition.
Hours later I had "de-crapified" the machine and burned her system recovery discs. After enduring that process, I can see how someone might want to pay to have this done.
What is pretty underhanded is that Best Buy appears to have no inventory that would give a buyer the ability to "opt-out" of their offering.
Apple seems to be the only major computer manufacturer that doesn't load up their systems with garbage, and they give you real OS installation discs, not system recovery discs.
-ted
To me, pre-optimizing from a brick and mortar means it is an "open box" and "used item". I believe Sony charges $50 extra for selling a PC or laptop OS only and without crapware. Charging $40 extra for a laptop or desktop that they took out the box, then got their grubby geek squad hands on all over it is deceitful I think. If the price is $429.99 in the weekly ad, and you get there they "only" have $469.99 models because they were optimized--that's bait and switch.
No, you send them to Buy More.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Maybe some manager of the Geek Squad did use the "Do what I say or I replace you with a small shell script" on to many employees, so now he bad to actually find a way to charge customers $40 to have a script run.
I do purchase from Newegg, but I don't blindly trust their pricing scheme. They marked up SSDs massively when distribution channels were backordered. I was able to pick up a G2 160GB Intel drive for $440 when Newegg was taking orders for the same model for over $600.
They often over price accessories. Most recent one I've noticed is that NIA controller (some brain reading device) being like $120 after an 'instant rebate' but the same thing is sitting on the shelf at a local Microcenter store for $83. The same thing goes for their shipping rates often being flat on each product instead of by total weight of the purchase, so you end up paying way more for shipping than you ever would if you tried sending the same amount of stuff yourself.
Other things, such as CPUs and DIMMs, they do very well with and some of the shell shocker deals are pretty good. But, I would recommend looking around a bit before just blindly grabbing something from a retailer due to 'trust'.
That's because people comparison shop on the "big ticket" item of the Computers. I don't think I've ever seen an ad for cables from any retail store. So they have to compete on the computer price, and not just retail, but against Dell etc... But they have to make a profit somehow to pay the higher costs of onsite staff, heating etc vs Dell. So they actually make some money on the cables.
When I worked at Best Buy (a while ago now), they would get *at best* $10 more than they paid for the computer at the register. They LOST money selling them to people when you considered the sales pay and checkout pay and overhead.
And, like in all things, Your Mileage Will Vary. The Best Buy I worked at happened to be mostly ethical within the constraints forced down by corporate. I.e. we never (when I was present anyway) forced a warranty, and even let people opt out of free services that were packaged on black friday that we still would get a kickback on. Some stores would put in the SKU whether they did anything or not, or claim the service HAD to be done to get the bonus. We also were pretty honest about the Service Plan, not calling it a Warranty (cause it wasn't). I'd even tell people if it might be worth it or not (desktop - not worth it, if you're replacing your kid's iPod for the second time this year, might be worth an accidental damage coverage). And we'd generally tell people how long the service may take, and the way it only protected what you paid for it, not a guaranteed replacement. We also always went by the dollar amount, rather than some stores which would try and find a refurb "equivalent"
But as you can see, not every store is like that, nor is every employee honest or knows what they're doing. And the Tech under sales umbrella was pretty stupid IMO. Why should a sales drone be preferred for tech over a new hire with credentials? Why should the Geek Squad be worrying about sales goals? Different aspects IMO, but Best Buy didn't see it that way, so many Geek Squad people were actually second tier Sales Drones.
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
The concept of the optimization is to prepare a new computer in such a way that someone with little to no computer experience can take their new machine home and not have to worry about certain things. For example:
Now, these might all seem trivial to you, but believe me when I say that way too many people came to the Geek Squad to complain about those exact things not being done. The target here should not be Best Buy, but the manufacturers who do a customer-unfriendly job of preparing new PCs for sale.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -Douglas Adams, THHGTTG
I refuse to purchase from TigerDirect because of crap customer service. I ordered a few things and the computer case was caved in; not dented, not dinged, *caved-in*. Since I ordered through Google (the excuse they gave) they couldn't RMA it, they could only refund the purchase amount. I went back and forth with customer service because I feel they should have refunded my S&H as well. Once they made it clear the S&H was not being refunded I said "You can keep the $12, it will be the last of my money you will ever get." The other items I purchased were a great price and were not damaged, but I'd rather deal with companies that get the whole order right or are willing to do the right thing. It would have taken them 15 minutes to deal with UPS and make things right, but instead they lost my business and I steer any of my friends away.
Extra medication for all!
How about this?
"Best Buy ... A Waste of Money"
That about covers it.
If not Best Buy, then where should one try a laptop computer's keyboard and screen and then buy the computer? Walmart*?
I used to use Pricewatch a lot until I noticed that ~85% of the time, Newegg was within ~5% of the lowest price, and about %40 of the time WAS the lowest price. I already knew them, already had an account, and the stuff always showed up in 3 days or less. Often next day with ground shipping. I've had 3 bad things in about 8 years of ordering which is on the order of everywhere else. So I just stopped shopping around. I guess I'll have to check again... Amazon, even with charging TAX in NY was cheaper than Newegg for a PS3 game, though I am biased as I have Amazon Prime so get it a little faster.
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
I bought 10 USB cables for less than $25 shipped with 2 day shipping from Newegg
If i am buying a new computer that computer had better be in sealed factory condition since i have no idea what was done to the computer after it was opened. If I select to have it "optimized" i want to see the tech that is doing the service (so i can "shoot him later").
How do i know that the previous person didn't put a webserver and a nice selection of kiddie porn on it??
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Ever been to a mechanic? Do you know how much they charge for hour? The one I go to charges $80/hour. Of course, they do a good job, and as far as I can tell, they don't charge me for more hours than they actually performed labor on my car. The key point is that they charge $80/hour. Why?
- Employee salaries
- Management salaries
- Owner's cut
- Building overhead
- Warranty margin (so that at an average failure rate, mistakes don't turn into a net loss)
- Profit margin
- "Discount" margin (for people who try to dicker the cost down)
- Coupon margin
- Oil change margin (they make zero profit from oil changes, so they have to make up for it elsewhere)
- Oops I screwed up margin (sometimes when a customer is really unhappy, you discount at least the whole labor charge)
- Insurance
They have a business to run. To do that, they have to charge you for parts and labor. Otherwise what's the point? Also, it's a needed service. People have cars that break, and not everyone knows how to fix their car.
At a repair shop, however, the technicians have to be licensed. They're professionals that went to a trade school and passed standardized tests to make sure they have at least a passing knowledge of what they're doing. Also, many mechanics I've met are enthusiasts who grew up in the field and work on their own cards on their own time.
Now, let's talk about Best Buy. They are a business. They need to make a profit. They also offer a valuable service, selling and repairing computers. As with cars, most of the customers are clueless and desperate to have their computer working again. They also expect to pay high margins for the services, because that's what they observe when they go to mechanics and have appliance repairmen come their houses. They grumble and go on with their lives. Meanwhile, Best Buy continues to make a profit and function as a business that employs people and offeres products and services that people demand.
One difference is that the technicians that Best Buy hires are not trained professionals. They're people hired off the street, and there is no training program or educational requirement. There are training materials, but they're not given time on the job to read them. The employees also make less money than mechanics, yet Best Buy charges more per hour for their services. They're also desperate to get business, so they offer gimmicks like this "tune-up service". There's also no liability, and the consumer protection laws that apply are the general ones, none specific to the field, dealing with specific problems that occur in the area. Thus, they can play on people's ignorance and get away with it. So, it is unethical and unfair, but the fact is, many people would be SoL were it not for Geek Squad.
(BTW, if you want to read about one horror story from a Geek Squad employee, check here: http://consumerist.com/2007/04/insider-secrets-5-ways-best-buy-ruined-geek-squad.html#comments-content)
How is the parent comment "Funny"? It's TRUE.
I guess things can be both true and funny, but this deserves some Informative points.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
This is why you always pay for things like computers with a credit card.
Any tips on how to negotiate an increase in the credit limit with my bank? Though I have plenty in a checking account, there are things I want to buy on a credit card but I'd go over the limit from one item and the sales tax even without any extra Best Buy "services".
He's been fixing peoples' computers for years, and this is the best solution he came up with, so I trust it.
I bet Best Buy "Optimizes" the computers that are returned so they don't have to sell them as open box. Not only do they get to sell them as new they even get to tack on forty dollars.
"Yes, you might also be able to disable some services and squeeze out a couple extra cycles, but how much does it matter these days?" - by nine-times (778537) on Monday January 04, @05:03PM (#30647024) Homepage
Really? Ok: How about 31++% differences to the good then (or more in some cases) in scores on benchmarks, as a single example I will put out testimonials of here for then (& from guys that DO know about system tweaking, albeit MORE on the hardware o/c'ing side, until I showed them the "ins & outs" of how it's done OS & software side)?
E.G.-> Back in mid to late 2006, I used to belong to a heavy "overclockers & tweakers" site, to learn how to 'tweak' my systems' CPU & memory (I knew how to do INTEL stuff, but I had never done AMD before & @ that time I bought an AMD X2 4800+ & needed to know how it was done, so I went there (the person who codes GPU-z owns the site, by the by)):
Folks on BOTH the AquaMark & ScienceMark 2 benchmarks weren't able to move any higher, until I showed them about tuning services, thus (for both the test & less radical services trimming for permanent settings, once they figured out what they needed for daily usage in services, & what they did not):
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?s=9982b11a50f22908d624e447d1148ea5&t=16136&highlight=Sciencemark
THE RESULTS? Ok, take a read from just 1 of many there (Like 31++% boosts in scores):
"Just thinkin ,b>the first time i ran sciencemark2 i got 1200 points, just goes to show how much fiddling with ram timings and taskmanager helps, a whole 377ish points increase" - from TechPowerUp.com user Mandelore, after tuning out services & background processes for the "ScienceMark 2" benchmark contest -> http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?p=140138#post140138
"You're much more likely to break something than to effect significant performance improvements." - by nine-times (778537) on Monday January 04, @05:03PM (#30647024) Homepage
That's a statement from someone who hasn't "done their homework" & read what each service does... because, you can say what you wish & all you like, but... I can show otherwise & have, above.
By the by:
I actually wrote the FIRST "Security & Speedup guide" for Windows (1997-2001 -> http://www.neowin.net/news/main/01/11/29/apk-a-to-z-internet-speedup--security-text for NTCompatible.com (& that's Neowin's "take" on it, an excellent rating no less)...
AND, which is now carried forward to today & does well here & elsewhere online (mostly on security now though, because that IS the "bigger problem" out here nowadays) to the tune of over 250,000++ views online, being made an "Essential Guide" or "Sticky/Pinned" thread, or "most viewed" or "5/5 star rated" etc. et al on 15/20 forums it is on (Search "HOW TO SECURE Windows 2000/XP" online, & you'll see it "owns" the top spot & top 50-100 in fact) -> http://www.tcmagazine.com/forums/index.php?s=b35dfec0da75d7dab52dab8b321d373e&showtopic=2662
AND?
It works... A testimonial of its results also? Here is one:
http://www.xtremepccentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28430
PERTINENT QUOTE/EXCERPT:
"...recently, months ago when you finally got this guide done, had authorization to try this on simple work station for kids. My client, who paid me an
I used to run an in-store tech department, back in the day when we wore black shirts and were "Techs" not "Geeks." I never had a moment's pause about selling my customer a $9.99 set-up service or $29.99 optimization. We gave a good service for the money, and spent quite a bit of time helping the customer learn a bit about their new computer. Which, for them, was a very big deal.
The customer was paying for 10 minutes of my time -- and the 15+ years of experience that let me do a job in 10 minutes that would have taken them four hours of reading directions and waiting on hold.
The biggest mistake is assuming a service isn't worth good money to the general public just because it's easy and fun for you.
I'm sure they just didn't know how to run 3dmark- Everyone knows Best Buy has the real experts! Even better than Apple Geniuses I hear... Ho Hum- And to think, I actually went to school to get a degree in this stuff, What a waste of time.
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
The last time I looked at notebook in best buy, and the sales kid gave me the spew about optimization I asked what they did. He told me they removed all the advertising crap. Which on some level might be useful, if I did not have a standard wipe all the crap of the drive policy and reinstall before using even new notebooks (i.e. upgrade to my favorite Linux distro).
In best buys defense, I did once buy a total piece of shit HP notebook from them that died a week after the HP warrenty expired ( the bios seems to have self-destructed ). I got suckered in to buying their 3 year "insurance" plan on my way out the door for like $150. I had it declared dead by an HP rep in a foreign country, and they sent me a check for $1300 with no BS. Even better I had bought it on sale for $700, and for some reason they paid me the full price. By the way they quit selling that insurance plan about a month after I bought it. It was obviously a little too good.
Living in Chile
You can't make a crap computer better by "optimizing" it. The best "optimization" in the world can only have minimal results on start up time of the system, it doesn't typically affect how fast or slow the system runs once it's turned on (unless it has 256M of RAM and you remove all of the start-up apps). Here's how you "optimize" your computer: -Get a random dual core proc (speed doesn't really matter) -Upgrade your RAM to at least 4G (This is 2010 for God sakes 4G is a bare minimum at this point). -Get a "cheap" SSD (for those that have never had one, you will be amazed at the difference).
reminds of the story about the roofer and the itemized bill...
nail ... .10
shingle... 2.99
knowing where to put the shingle and nail ... 399.00.
3DMark is not a test of average desktop use profile.
I think it would be far more interesting to do a double-blind study, on users utilizing real-world applications, and determine speed difference for actual apps.
Or even, just use a benchmark that tests Office/Desktop apps, instead of just 3D/GPU performance.
Also, interesting would be to 'image' the system before taking it to be optimized...
Then image it again.
Do a complete comparison to determine exactly what was changed during the "optimization"
Registry settings, files, etc.
Determine if any changes were actually made, then go and investigate the merits of each change, with benchmarks taylored to highhlight any effects that change might have
They also have a TV calibration service where they send a technician to your house, place an optical sensor with a suction cup on the screen, connect up some calibration equipment to the TV and run a series of tests and claim to optimally configure your TV.
Most posts I've seen on the topic seem to be woefully uninformed and focus on the setup in the stores that is intended to show the difference between a calibrated and uncalibrated TV, which some reports claim is deceptive.
I've only seen one post that has a comment that mentions Imaging Science Certification and hints at what they're doing and why it's not something you can do yourself.
Does anybody out there have any better information on this service?
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
UNIX: to optimize disk usage: rm -rf /
Windows XP: rd /s /q C:\
yes
DISCLAIMER You must accept the following prior to using the above optimization. Don't try this home. The poster disclaims all warranties, regarding merchantability, fitness for any purpose, noninfringement, etc.
The above optimization must not be used in a production computing environment, or where computers provide essential services.
By considering the above optimization, you agree to indemnify and hold the poster harmless.
All computing environments are different. Utilizing this optimization may void your system warranties or support agreements already in place. The efficacy of this optimization cannot be guaranteed, and in some cases, the optimization may blow up your computer, send red-hot pieces flying in all directions, delete all your files, delete all your neighbor's files, and worse.
By proceeding you agree to be liable for all damages arising out of your use or failure to successfully use this optimization, including but not limited to damages incidental, consequential, interruption of business, or arising out of any tort, involving you or any third party. The terms of this disclaimer shall be held jointly and severable, if any part of this disclaimer should be held unenforceable, then the remainder shall remain in full force, to the extent possible by law.
Isn't getting your computer worked on starting to sound more and more like getting your car worked on? Ignorance sure is a bought and paid for thing.
I worked at Best Buy for 7 years, starting in the tech service desk even before the GeekSquad moved in. We were on a daily basis old to walk customers who just wanted to buy the machines without any extras. For Thanksgiving we would prep most of our inventory on the Black Friday deals with about $80 of extra services that we wouldn't budge from selling if the customer didn't want it. Way it was figured was that somebody sooner or later would pick it up. Our tuneup consisted of deleting all the icons on the desktop, running a script that installed all of the latest updates, and loading a registry file that mostly just tweaked the Windows menu bar delays. It was a take it or leave it situation. Employees who couldn't keep up with it were reassigned to different departments or simply given fewer hours. Management would walk around with some sales spreadsheet they updated and printed every 20 minutes. If you were doing poorly, the Sales Manager would bitch you out. If you were doing well, you were ignored, temporarily. I was routinely told to bend my customers over the counter and take em' for all I could. Let's not even get into my supervisors habit of going through customer's documents. I had this older lady once that had a few gigabytes of photos and videos of her and her husband in bed and in different poses. My boss copied the directory and burned several dvds for a few employees. I helped her when she picked up the machine. It was tough looking at her with a straight face and with several employees snickering behind her. While I never participated in that behavior, I guess I should have spoken up. The discount was too great though and our bonuses were crazy.
Getting a 200% increase in processing speed is reasonable. Most home computers are full of malicious software running in the background, removing that is definitely a speed increase.
...and that is all I have to say about that.
http://jessta.id.au
They forced this 'optimization' on a lot of us that bought laptops during Black Friday. I got a great deal on the laptop I bought, but had to cough up an extra $50 to buy it. If it wasn't for the fact the deal was still worth it, I wouldn't have gone with it and voted with my dollars.
I went back later that day, told the manager that he could either refund me the $50 extortion fee, or they could be charged my normal rate for fixing a computer to remove their optimizations. I had a bill in hand to fill out and hand to him if he said that they wouldn't refund the excess purchase. The upside: I got my money back, the downside: I had to spend an hour doing the system restore that came built into the laptop.
I had hoped he would have offered to pay me for my services to clean it. I would have gone through it step by step to remove what they had done, it might have been several hours, but it would have made my laptop free.
And for those that are wondering, yes it did make a difference. Using the default Sony load on my Vaio, the laptop is MUCH faster than it was with their 'optimized' services.
But why? Assuming you have access to a PC with a DVD drive, a USB port, and a 4GB or larger USB drive, you didn't need a USB DVD drive. Installing Windows from a USB stick is trivial:
I've never understood why most "Install Windows 7 from USB drive" tutorials on the web have so many extra, unnecessary steps. I've done this install on three different netbooks, across multiple installs on one (beta to RC to RTM), and have never had to do anything more than just copying the files to my USB key.
So you want to ride in your car with all the mechanics sliding smoothly.
How about Slide and Ride?
You delivery will be made in a plain jiffy bag.
Thanks. Good post
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
The scam is in the time saved when you bring it back and they just reload all the copied files back unto your pc from a copy they made, and then keep doing that as part of the garantee is it will always run fast or bring it back to us free of charge. They tweak it a bit, making sure no malware exists, then they clone it.
I am sure the time saved is more on their end then yours, as you are an incompetent clod who can't even figure out how to configure your own pc, let alone figure out how to make backups for yourself.
Yeah, I know it's not their fault, and most of them don't like it anymore than I do. But it doesn't make it any less annoying.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
They gave us a $40 discount on the laptop, and charged us for the optimization, "so it will show as a sale for the optimization"
Presumably this is because the sales staff have their performance measured based largely on their ratio of add-on sales to total unit sales. Typically these things apply not only to the floor sales staff, but also bubble up to their supervisors, the shift managers, the store manager and the district manager, which tends to make such contrivances endemic to the organization. This way everybody in the chain gets credit for whatever sales incentives are in place while shifting the discount to a less-noticed line item in the management reports.
There was something posted a couple months ago about very similar schemes being practiced at either Staples or Office Depot.
It probably has something to do with the install DVD having files larger than 2GB on it. I have a copy of the 64bit Pro Edition, and it has a 2.7GB file on it, that's a no-go for for FAT32. Hence why the first guide I found on Google started off with telling you how to format the disk in NTFS (granted, in a rather roundabout way). Perhaps other editions are small enough to work?
Though I also don't understand how the BIOS would know how to boot off the USB drive without you don't something to make it bootable. However, I know some BIOS's can read FAT32 (since they support flashing the BIOS from an image file on a thumbdrive), so maybe they scan the thumbdrive and find the appropiate boot files anyway?
Many, MANY people are irritated because they think their computers run to slow (and they're probably right). This can be verified by looking at the headlines of the tabloids whenever nothing of interest has happened in the world: Make your PC FASTER in 10 MINUTES! The articles usually contain tips such as "close the Vista sidebar", "remove spyware programs", "update your drivers" and "defragment the drive". I suppose sometimes it even works, if you're not computer-savvy enough to do those things already.
Thing is, those articles show there's a demand. Making software that supposedly makes the computer faster is very smart business indeed. See it as the modern equivalent of snake oil salesmen and astrologers. Very few people are likely to complain - if you don't know enough about computers to recognize adware, you definitely won't install benchmarking software to test your computer's performance. A computer to them is as opaque and unintelligible as the human body must have been to the people of old who bought medicines that didn't work. Sadly, there's STILL a market for such medicines, astrology is still alive and kicking, and the computer speedup salesmen will probably be around for a long time.
As long as people are ignorant, they're going to be ripped off.
That may be true, but it's also somewhat irrelevant. 90% of these "install from USB drive" tutorials are focused directly at netbooks specifically because they don't have built-in optical drives and most people don't have external USB DVD drives they can plug in. As far as I'm aware, currently every netbook is 32-bit (certain Atom processors can run 64-bit, but those CPUs aren't currently shipped in netbooks), thus a 64-bit install doesn't really matter. It seems the 32-bit install does not have > 2GB files, as I've never had it complain copying to/installing from my FAT32-formatted USB key.
Modern bioses (especially those in netbooks, the target here) can read USB devices for booting purposes. You might have to change boot order if you have it default to your hard drive first. How the BIOSes read the USB drive in order to boot, I don't know. I just know it works.