Like the product when it works.
I spent 1 1/2 months working on a problem related to my pst files not backing up - ended up being a corrupt manifest on the Mozy side. That problem was fixed and no more problems. I had amazing response from Mozy support and had 30 people sign up for Mozy Pro - I was spreading the word about Mozy.

Then with the most recent application upgrades my wife’s laptop stopped fully encoding and would hang backing up the pst files. I spent a lot of time trying to decode this problem, sending screen shots, rerunning test etc and the Mozy support went from being Rock stars to dud’s. I would go 1-2 weeks without a response to my problem. In the middle of all of this, my wife’s manifest kept getting cleaned 2-4 times a week, which means we had to partially backup 6GB multiple times a week to create a new manifest.

I grew very tired of the slow response and unwillingness to address the problems, so I switched.

It is possible I’m part of the problem, by sending so many new customers to Mozy, they could be growing very fast and not able to service customers properly.

With Mozy, I never got phone support - just e-mail. I really wanted to talk to a person.

Mozy is a good company, but I couldn’t put up with data not being backed up and the lack of focus to fix problems. Maybe in a year or two I will switch back.

To help clarify a couple of things we may not have made clear enough:

re Ads – I agree, you (should) never see an unexpected ad on your desktop. If you/designer, etc create a 360, you’ll never see ads. But, we’ll have partners who create branded 360’s (and pay us to do it - that’s how we keep product free) If you want a branded or sponsored 360, then you’ll know it before you download. If you don’t like the brand, download another one. We estimate less than 0.5% of the 360’s will be sponsored.

re navigation – you don’t need the mouse, there are keyboard shortcuts to jump/pan where you want to go.

We’ve also added a couple of other angles to 360desktop in addition to virtual desktop – create a desktop widget from any web widget, youtube video, etc or by web clipping any part of any web page. Also coming soon, is the online authoring and gallery, where anyone can create and share their own 360’s.

Thanks Evan CEO - 360desktop.

I installed this product for my PC as I have a LOT of data to back up and I needed an offsite online backup that was affordable and had the space I needed. BIG mistake. The original backup of my data took almost 5 days. I’m okay with that because it was behind-the-scenes and there was no hurry. It was invisible to me. But FIVE days??????

However, now that I have actually suffered a hard drive failure and I need to restore my data (the whole entire point of purchasing this service) - EVERYTHING has changed.

First of all, the interface to Carbonite (ie: Craponite) is not overly user-friendly and you have no detailed way to see what is really restored and not restored or what phase the restoration is in. Oh sure, there’s a ‘Recovery Log’ that you can click - but it hasn’t changed status (currently at 52%) or updated information in DAYS. Even their customer non-support claimed it wasn’t always accurate… (then why have it?)

Also, I have been trying to restore my Outlook PST file for FOUR DAYS. Did you read that? ONE FILE = FOUR FULL DAYS AND COUNTING. It was only 1 Gig in size. Yes, that’s a large file, but NOT FOUR DAYS LARGE. Halfway through the first download, the file stopped downloading and I waited several hours before calling Carbonite hoping that it would restart and it was just their HORRIBLE restore speed. I was wrong. After calling their customer UNservice number and being on hold for 72 minutes (Yes, 1 hour and 12 minutes) I spoke with a rep. He was nice and I don’t blame him for the company’s poor service, but he said the problem was something on THEIR SERVERS that was a ‘random error’ he had never seen before. WTF!?!?! That made me feel good (NOT); a ‘random error’ on the servers of the company that I am paying to backup and safeguard MY data. He had me go into my registry and make changes so that THEIR system would ignore the error and keep restoring… Are you kidding me???? I had to modify MY registry so THEIR system would work?

THEN, I restarted the ‘restore file’ for this one PST file again on Wednesday (it’s now Friday) at 10:00 AM and it’s now Friday 9:00 AM and the file is STILL not restored. One file. Correction, it did ‘restore’ (after 24 hours each time) - but as soon as the restore completed the file was magically erased from my desktop. TWICE. I wait a full day and the system automatically deletes the file I just ‘restored.’

As an FYI, I called again this morning at 9:00 EST and got the message that I was the ‘first caller in line’. Whatever. It’s now been over 30 minutes and I’m STILL on hold (again) even though I’m the ‘first’ caller. What a fraud and scam this company is.

Better yet, I have called customer UNservice Four times over the last several days and I have been on hold for a total of over EIGHT HOURS. Did you read that? EIGHT DAMNED HOURS!!!! However, if I want ‘Priority Customer Service’ - which supposedly gets you ‘immediate’ customer service with their ‘most experienced and senior technicians’ (their on-hold message quoted verbatim) all I have to do is pay another $20 and they’ll actually answer the phone (or so they say). The message here is that normal everyday paying customers can go get screwed and only those people who pay Carbonite more money above and beyond the actual service price will ever be taken care of. The funny thing is that I DID choose to pay this money because my time is more important than $20 - but when I pressed the star key for access to this service (the ‘Priority Support Line’), the SAME TECH GUY that I had spoken with three times previously as a ‘regular’ peon customer answered - just with the new line: “Welcome to Carbonite Priorty Support”. This is the same guy that when I asked yesterday how long he had been with the company told me just THREE MONTHS! This is Carbonite’s idea of ‘most senior and experienced technicians’ - someone whose been with the company three months? The SAME NEW GUY that answers regular support calls? I asked him what the advantage of paying $20 this service was and he said I’ll only be on hold for 30 minutes instead of an hour or two. He REALLY said this. I’m paying for nothing other than to cut down (not eliminate) my hold time!!!!!

Also, if I have happened to talk to the SAME guy each and every time I have called and been on hold - doesn’t that mean that they only have 2 or 3 people supporting the entire world that uses their faulty and misleading product? I can’t be so lucky as to magically get the same person each time if there are 10 or 50 support reps.

In my opinion, Carbonite promotes false advertising and they lie about the quality of their service. They are unethical and extremely undependable. This is a pathetic company with the worst service I have EVER experienced (I would rather call India and speak with ‘Bob or ‘Nancy’ for support - does that tell you anything about how lame their support is?) and I hope that their false advertising, poor product, and miserable customer service catch up with them and that they go out of business. As soon as I get my file back I am cancelling my subscription.

Take my advice and RUN RUN RUN. Buy an external drive and backup locally. This service is horrible and the people that claim to have never had problems with Carbonite have probably never actually had to restore their data yet. This service is pathetic and I don’t have a single good thing to say about them.

I’m glad that you’ve chosen to comment a bit on the 3rd section of the clause, the one that really troubles me. While I’m sure that your intentions are most likely very good, the intention of a privacy policy as a binding document is to make sure that they are - and the one offered by Mozy simple doesn’t deliver. The two other examples Søren mention deliver much stronger language, and thus better protection, should the matter come before a court or law.

It is my hope that Mozy will take this discussion as a starting point to reviewing this clause of their privacy policy.

Søren, good point about the wording of that third clause. I’m assuming the lawyers required it just in case something ever happens where the world is in danger and some data on the company’s servers can prevent a major catastrophe (but that’s just me talking). But I would expect that the company would only retrieve information if it were ABSOLUTELY necessary. Accessing a user’s information without permission could harm the company’s reputation, and that would be quite a high price to pay. That fact, in-and-of itself would seem to be a pretty high motivation to keep everything secure. And for those individuals that are still hesitant, I repeat, use the private key.

I appreciate your suggestions though. Your newest post is even more helpful. I invite you to add other suggestions in the comments and I’ll pass along what I can. We’re always looking for ways to improve the product.

(And no Søren, I’m not in charge of PR or security, I’m just an employee that wants to clear up a little confusion.)