Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion

Are software reviews important and effective? If not, why not?

(1/3) > >>

urlwolf:
I joined DC because of the software reviews (but mind you, I have found a lot more and I check the site everyday).

I have seen many people swearing by DC's reviews. The software industry certainly has high regards for DC's reviews. I love them, I think they are great fun a good for the ecosystem.

But I found one thing that puzzled me: I don't really use the recommended soft!

Let me explain.
The titanic https://www.donationcoder.com/Reviews/Archive/NoteTakers1/index.php
Notetaking Software Roundup #1
Recommends not one, but three programs… I use a completely different one (oneNote).

The Best Email Client review, recommends the bat, I use Opera.

The Power-user Backup Guide recommends Genie Backup, I hate it with passion and use synchBackSE (although honestly, I'm not very fond of it either).

Ultraedit gets the best text editor award, but I use vim.

You know what I'm getting at?

Are we humans so variable that it doesn't make sense to make software recommendations? If so, what is the alternative? We sure like to read the comparison, but for some reason we end up having our own take on it… and using something else!

Comments? Are you in a similar situation? If so, what are the implications for the reviews?

nudone:
the reviews have never been there to dictate what to use. merely to offer comparisons and suggestions - i think it says that somewhere in the review section(?)

mwb1100:
Well, everybody has their own likes and needs, and I think it's always clear that a 'best' award is only the opinion of the reviewer.  The value in the reviews is that they add information and may narrow the field of what you decide to look at.

I think this applies to any review, not just DC's and not just software reviews.

mouser:
Also a review can help you answer the question:
Is there anything i'm missing to make me want to swtich?

Often what you wonder is, is there stuff i don't know or am not using that i should be, and the review can help you answer that question.

JavaJones:
I definitely think reviews are useful and agree it's important to keep in mind that the "Editor's choice" or highest rated program is not necessarily the one for *you*. What they're good for - regardless of whether you choose "winner" that they chose - is giving you a (hopefully) good overview of all products in a given market segment and how their general features stack up to each other, how they perform relative to each other, what problems they might have, and hopefully some idea of how they are to use. It's up to the reader to read something like "I found the automatic file organization to be invasive and destructive to my existing filing system" and think to themselves "Well I have no existing filing system, it's all just a mess, so automating file organization would be great!" (this is something you would find in a review of iTunes for example, vs. Winamp). I think the commentary and information presented is useful in itself and of course just needs to be interpreted and filtered by the reader for their purposes.

On the subject of "winners" in particular, there are a number of publications that have multiple people work on reviews and each often provides their own "winner" in these cases. This can be a helpful moderating factor on the review and contribute to keeping it from being too one-sided. It can also be good if you come to identify with a particular reviewer's general opinions and style - you may trust their recommendations more in the future on that basis. So you see that John in this roundup of email clients recommended Pocomail, and he was also a former user of Opera and really liked moving to Poco, then you are inclined to try it.

Anyway, just some random thoughts. I definitely think reviews are useful, just not too much importance should be placed on winners and ratings, especially by the astute reader.

- Oshyan

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page