FREE dSS Subscribers

[Marshall]

Hello Everyone.

I want to give dSS away for free to my customers from now on, and make it publicly available for download on my website "As is".

Is anyone else doing this currently, and having success implementing the download on their site?
Have you had any issues?
Have you experienced any negative or positive PR?
Have you had any legal complaints?

I'm looking for a Pro's vs. Cons list of sorts, based on our community experience with this...if we really don't have much, I'll go first and let you all know how it turns out!

I am not expecting any income off of doing this. It's purely a public service.

[bertie40]

Making Dss publicly available for download ?

Please don't.

That makes a mockery of our resales, and with respect, disses the authors work.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2,..... Whilst proclaiming the machine fixed, grabbing the cash and running like hell.

[ajgyomber]

I don't use dSS but I don't see any issue with offering a Freemium service. I would suggest your restrict it to your service area and limit it's functionality in hopes of enticing them to a paid plan.

[Xander]

I don't see any problem with it. I was thinking of having a Lite and Premium versions where the Lite version would do very minimally basic things like a cleanup and defrag and the Premium would look after 3rd party updates and all that jazz. You could have the Lite version open up a URL at the end as an ad for the Premium.

[Marshall]

Xander and ajgyomber, you're right on track with my goal. It's a marketing campaign really. It will essentially include basic features that come with the Vanilla dSS, and maybe a tweaked app here or there, but nothing spectacular.
My company only supports businesses (I have not worked for residential clients for a bit now), and this is just a kind way of giving back to my community (I love my home town, and hope to one day offer free IT services to those in need). I plan to restrict use to local residents only, through IP, web forms; city, zip, area code, and street. I feel like this will seriously narrow any clever 3rd parties from downloading it on their own. I am also a few months away from implementing this, and plan to work with Nick to further advance the idea and secure it so that there is no "Fiasco".

bertie40, while I understand your point of view, and appreciate your input. I do want to point out that providing dSS for free in any capacity, is providing it for free. It is not a mockery of our resales to do this if there is a calculated profit generated from doing so, which in my case, there is. Nick is aware of my intent, and I don't think he's insulted by my plan to use his software as a springboard in a marketing campaign (it creates even more exposure for him in fact). What's the difference between a free Vanilla dSS, and free CCleaner, PatchMyPC, Malwarebytes, etc., all powerful tools. If you want to get the value added features, you have to pay (something I am not offering locally, because I actually want to push residential work towards competitors who want the work).

I hope this clears up any confusion on the matter, but if not I would be happy to explain, and share my marketing campaign for those who are interested. Thank you, and I hope everyone is having a great Thanksgiving!

[TwoPlus1]

Hi Marshall did you get any further with this? I'm just about to add dSS to my d7 and CriptoLocker Prevent tool set and was wondering if a Freemium version would make a good advertising tool and maybe even bundle in the white labeled CryptoLocker Prevent app.

[Marshall]

Hello TwoPlus1,

Are you related to Equals3 at all? (haha I'm so funny)

I actively install a Freemium version on any non-commercial computers I service, if the client wants me to. This provides them with a taste of what it's like to be on a managed plan. Even if they don't realize the improvements it gives them an easier way to contact me for support next time, which creates loyalty.

A word to the wise. Don't offer the keys to the castle unless it's a first 30-90 days free plan. You deserve to get paid for what you're giving them, and the intent of a Freemium offering is to peak their interests in other offerings. I don't give away CryptoPrevent for free, period, because it will quite litterally save a person or business hundreds if not thousands of dollars if they're attacked by CryptoLocker. That's just my opinion though, and you should decide for yourself what you give away for free, and what you know you should charge for.

It is an excellent way to advertise to the Freemium crowd as well. You're pretty much guaranteed to get your webpage ad to pop-up in front of them at least once a month. I would recommend that you send them to something informational and then on a schedule (once a month, two months, whatever works best for you) send them to a ad page for something you think they would buy.

[TwoPlus1]

Thanks Marshal, can CryptoPrevent be switched of if the customer stops paying for the service?

I'm thinking of three tiers

Free: Business Card with manual tools and ScreenConnect access.
£5 p/m: Add CryptoPrevent and Panda Cloud Office Protection.
£10 p/m: Regular System Tuneup and Ninite application updates.

[mrapoc]

Thanks Marshal, can CryptoPrevent be switched of if the customer stops paying for the service?

I'm thinking of three tiers

Free: Business Card with manual tools and ScreenConnect access.
£5 p/m: Add CryptoPrevent and Panda Cloud Office Protection.
£10 p/m: Regular System Tuneup and Ninite application updates.

sounds very similar to what i want mate - can cryptoprevent and something like unchecky be removed if the customer stops paying?

[Marshall]

CryptoPrevent does not currently support remote uninstallation.

I would suggest that you pair it with dSS so that when you need to remove it from a non-paying customers account you can add a custom script to run the uninstaller with the /verysilent switch.