Is Belkin Cheating On Reviews?

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[...] Is Belkin cheating on their reviews? [...]

Never wanted to go near Belkin and now that I hear this I never will. I have a Netgear router and not have 1 issue with it other than me forgetting the login info. However I am pretty sure thats my fault.

Ah, finally someone has focused in on bogus “reviews” supplied by the company selling the products! I’ve used PC Mags fine Product Reviews for a number of years Ron, but never EVER rely on one from the manufacturer, and for obvious reasons. Has anyone ever actually seen a negative review that way? LOL. I’ve been very happy with my Zone Alarm Z100G router (made by CheckPoint). I subscribe to its annual updating service and have never been bitten once by an outside invasion.

Of course, your review of the product back then helped me make the decision to get one (remember that story!). I even got one for my son & his wife when they got hooked up, and they to have never had a problem. Suffice to say Ron, Caveat Emptor to anyone reading reviews without verifying the source. Oh, that reader above: LOL … yeah, it “probably” was YOUR fault that you forgot the logon!

Hi Don,
Glad to hear the router is still routing.
Reviews are helpful, but as you state, you have to check things out for yourself. Hope you have a great weekend.

Later, Ron

I must agree that the reviews are bogus… except for any that I make
I bought a Belkin N Wireless USB Adapter for my PC a while back (v.1000) and it worked great after calling support and asking how to set it up in Vista. (you apparently had to download an additional driver for the v.1000 model) So I used it and one day the little status light just didn’t light up when plugged in, and my computer didn’t know it was plugged in at all. I plugged it into my Mac and profiler couldn’t find it either.

So I called tech support and they told me I needed to get it replaced so they shipped me the v.3000 model and I shipped the v.1000 back. It works to this day and I’ve even gotten it to work on my Macs with some magnificent 3rd party software (teehee, right?) but I can never seem to keep the belkin products working like they are supposed to. They always have to be replaced at least once.

On the other hand, my Netgear PC card wireless that I bought in late 2003 (Netgear wasn’t a big name back then so I was skeptical) still works to this day and is faster than the USB one from belkin. (PC cards are probably faster than USB, I don’t know) I also got a netgear wireless router but it wouldn’t take the LAN connection from the Linksys switch so we gave it to my uncle and it works there.

Overall, Belkin isn’t a trustworthy company and there are plenty of better companies out there who make better quality products and offer better support for them after the purchase. Belkin isn’t one of my top companies I like to buy stuff from.

I have owned two Linsys wireless routers. My last Linksys wireless router bit the dust around Thanksgiving over a year ago so I made a quick trip to Wally World to replace it.

They had a Linksys and Belkin N router on the shelf. The Belkin was less expensive so contrary to my nature, I bought it. The Belkin N has run flawlessly.

I have always read reviews from CNet and other such sites before purchasing. The reader comments are often tripe.

It also seems to me that the professional reviewers on sites such as CNet tend to limit the scope of their reviews to products which spend advertising dollars on the site. It didn’t used to be that way.

Like an earlier reviewer, I also run the Zone Alarm security suite and have never had a problem; try to find a positive review of that security suite. Maybe I’m just lucky

Thanks for the blog. I read it frequently.

Thanks for the comments.

D Schwenk,
Thank you and please feel free to stop by any time.

Hi Ron
Yesterday I Just set up 2 New Vista Laptops
AND-A .Linksys -G …. The CD that came with it Didn’t Work..
So just did it the Old Fashioned Way
Any way everthin was Workin great when I left……..
Tested the Lappys in diferent areas
AND did Lotsa Restarts to make sure it would connect Auto…
They had all the Parts when I got to there Home……..
Somebody Else Toldum What To Buy
But didn’t no how to . Set-It-Up..?

Hi Den,
I am glad you got everything working. Doing things manually sometimes works out better than any setup CD.
Have a good one.

[...] January 17th, 2009 I wrote an article [here] about allegations that Belkin was paying a comments on their products. Now it appears that Belkin [...]