Support

[Buster]

Hi.

Since a few months ago I have been critic in this forum with Invincea. I consider there has been a lack of support since Ronen left the company and I have been pushing (with facts like bumping bug report threads without any reply at all) to probe something I see like obvious.

In this time I have received some support in private, from users that told me I was right but did not want to express it in public, and a few in public. Some users came to the forum asking for support and never came back when they did not receive it at all, and others just bumped their bug reports a few times or just did not bump them at all.

So far in the forum I have been the user making more noise and finally, a few weeks ago, I was banned for a month for doing that. After ban expired, I continued telling the support is not good at all and I was ready to be banned again. Then a few days ago I received a private message from Curt. It was very surprising because he finally spoke clearly, without excuses, just with the truth. And I really appreciate Curt for doing that.

With his permission I am going to reproduce parts of the private message he sent me.

Invincea makes multi-thousand seat enterprise deals worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. These businesses have their own trained, IT support staff that deals with the individual problems of their users. Unlike a Sandboxie user, enterprises don't use off-the-wall software downloaded from God knows where. They typically have 1 set of approved applications for everyone. If I solve a compatibility problem for them, I have solved it for tens of thousands of users and a deal worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Or I can take the same amount of time (sometimes more) and solve an issue on the forum for 1 application on 1 user's computer, and that user may not have even paid for the product.

No software company can survive by selling a product for $40 (most users don't even pay for the product, actually) and then provide unlimited developer time, 24/7 to diagnose what is wrong with 1 user's computer and their particular, personalized assortment of applications.

I have spent many extra hours of my own time trying to accommodate people and their issues on the forum, because I personally think Sbie is a good standalone product and the feedback from individual users is valuable. But I am growing weary of the complaints and demands. Perhaps it is time to shut the forum down or end Sandboxie as a separate, home product. That is not my decision to make. At the very least it is probably time to come up with the typical, canned "thank you for your report... we will get back to you" corporate response.

We have investors that demand we use our time, and hence their money wisely, as well as customers that have their entire IT department at risk. I'm afraid the days of unlimited free Sbie developer time are over. Ronen could have stayed on to maintain Sandboxie. He chose to retire.

Finally we get an explanation about why the support became poor. Reading between line for me it is clear: Sandboxie´s users are not a priority anymore. Now the priority are the companies paying big money to Invincea. Our problem reports will have a very low priority and therefore reporting bugs will be a waste of time more of the times.

As I told to Curt in private, this way of speaking clear has been the best way to stop me. Now I know the priorities of the company and I will have to live with that. So insisting in the lack of support would be a nonsense.

I sent a mail to support@invincea.com commenting all this and Curt told me Norm (Chief Operating Officer) wanted to talk with me over phone to discuss my issues. My skills are not sharped enough to follow a converstation in english over the phone and as I told to Curt, anyway they are not "my issues" because this is something that affects to all Sandboxie´s users.

If anyone wants to comment anything the thread is open to everybody.

[Mr.X]

Many thanks Buster! Muchas gracias amigo!
It's important to know these news although not so news for me as I could intuit/suspect that money is behind any motivation for almost every human activity.
Still is Sandboxie our first line of defense and we the average non-enterprise users should be patient with support team.

[bo.elam]

The line.

"But does not entitle you to any guaranteed level of technical support".
http://www.sandboxie.com/index.php?HomeUse

at the bottom of the personal license Sandboxie web page, has been there forever and its very clear what is about. We as Sandboxie users, can not expect Invincea to fix every conflict between Sandboxie and every program that is out there. But I think, its reasonable to expect them to spend their SBIE time making sure SBIE works with the most widely used programs, browsers, flash, antiviruses, Windows updates, etc. Thats how its always been, I hope that continues.

Lets put ourselves in Curts and the other developers shoes. I would get tired of reading the same guy complaining over and over about a stupid toolbar not working with SBIE. And despite being told many times that the only workaround that there is, is to disable the toolbar, he rehashes the complaint and post it again, two, three times in one day. Tiresome.

Bo

[Buster]

When Sandboxie´s acquisition by Invincea was announced, some users raised their worries and concerns about the operation. They were afraid the support, the quality of the product, ... could be affected. In that moment we were told:

http://forums.sandboxie.com/phpBB3/view ... 878#p97878

The only big change is that Ronen is departing.

In this time there was other big change: when Ronen used to own the product, Sandboxie´s users and their problems used to be a priority. Now we are not.

The technical support will not be guaranteed, but we were told nothing would change and things changed. That´s a fact.

And even with that statement being there for years, Ronen was able to provide a good support, fix incompatibilities with all kind of software, ... and he was only one person. Now it is supposed to be a team backing the product and the support is worst than ever.

[JoeHood]

I have spent many extra hours of my own time trying to accommodate people and their issues on the forum, because I personally think Sbie is a good standalone product and the feedback from individual users is valuable. But I am growing weary of the complaints and demands. Perhaps it is time to shut the forum down

How can anyone interpret Curts statement as being only about money? And just for the record, Tzuk did not handle the forum completely on his own. There used to be quite a few real knowledgeable forum members that checked in regularly to answer a good many questions. They would narrow the problem down and then Tzuk would take over with a solution. SnDPhoenix and a bunch more. That's how I learned. And then I took Bo's advice; if it doesn't work with sandboxie it doesn't stay on my computer.

[bo.elam]

And even with that statement being there for years, Ronen was able to provide a good support, fix incompatibilities with all kind of software, ... and he was only one person. Now it is supposed to be a team backing the product and the support is worst than ever.

Things have worked out pretty good despite Tzuk being gone, Buster. Is a shame how you stopped helping people and have turned into a complainer. You, someone who knows about programming and coding, knows it takes a lot of time and effort to maintain SBIE. Instead of encouraging the new developers you flat their tires with your nagging. The new SBIE developers need encouragement like we all do in whatever we do.

Bo

[Buster]

I wonder what part from what Curt wrote you did not understand to say what you say.

Curt himself recognized things have not been working good for Sandboxie´s users because we are not the priority for the company.

days of unlimited free Sbie developer time are over

If you do not want to realize or accept that, you will know why, but saying "Things have worked out pretty good" is very far from reality. A reality even finally accepted by Curt, the guy who provides the support.

I guess even if the forum is shutten down or Sandboxie ends as a separate home product you would continue saying that things are working out pretty good, would not you?

[JoeHood]

Our problem reports will have a very low priority and therefore reporting bugs will be a waste of time more of the times.

Bugs are seperate and there have not been more than a couple. I was involved with one discovered by danicx in a thread with other users. It was stated,
it was proved, you do A and then B and then C and you will see the bug. Curt noted it. There is a possible bug with "runas" being discussed right now.
But they don't stand out because now it is "hey, I have my printer sandboxed and my browser can't find it and plus I unplugged the printer" bullchit threads followed by a bump the next day.

[Buster]

Bugs are seperate and there have not been more than a couple.

I do not follow you.

there have not been more than a couple... on last week? on last month? on last year? ...?

What happens with the users that got tired of waiting for support and never joined the forum anymore? Do you want examples of such users?

Look at this thread:

http://forums.sandboxie.com/phpBB3/view ... 11&t=18900

A nice example of how things have been working out pretty good.

Or look here:

http://forums.sandboxie.com/phpBB3/view ... 7&start=15

Re: Really dissapointed with post 3.76 releases

Postby monami » Sat Jan 17, 2015 7:39 pm
Just for the record I LOVE SANDBOXIE it is one of my favorite programs and I very much want it to succeed now and in the future!

With that said this post is to provide some support to the views of Superkyro and Buster.

I am an old timer here as well though I do not post very often, however, I do visit the forum almost every day to keep up with what is going on with Sandboxie. As a mostly passive onlooker I too can clearly see the reduction in support/problem solving by the new administration. It was much better when Ronen was running the company! My intention is not to deride Sandboxie, the new adminstration, or any of its users/forum members. My intent is to hopefully spur on the new administration to take a more active role in the forums and hopefully take a proactive approach to problem solving instead of just reactive which is currently poor to say the least! I have stopped reporting any problems I run into because of what I see in the forums and that is they are either not addressed at all or have typical responses like the following:

1. Don't run/use/install this or that
2. Run/use/install this or that instead
3. Hardly anyone uses this or that
4. Sandboxie runs this or that just fine on my system
5. People don't realize how much development time is required to fix this or that (sorry this is what you are paid for...In my working career as an engineer I would have loved to have been able to go to my manager and say that is to much work so I am not going to bother doing it...my butt would have been out the door so fast)

There is more but you get the idea...more exuses then real solutions!

Can you imagine anyone writing something like that when Roned used to give support?

[Mr.X]

It's more than obvious Buster's interpretation of the facts is the right one. I do agree with him. But I'm not against Curt, for the record.
I'm against the current status quo, speaking in general terms... perhaps?

[Curt@invincea]

I'm going to try to lay low in this discussion to let everyone have their say. I do want to clarify, however, my comments about priorities. This is not all about money. It is simply about the number of users impacted by a problem. Example: if a Windows update breaks Sandboxie, that takes priority over everything because it affects everybody. If 1 user is getting some Sbie error message when using some application very few people have heard of, that goes to the bottom of the list. Everything else falls somewhere in-between.

Mr. Spock said it best, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one"

Sbie 4.x had a lot of problems when Invincea took over -- especially with Win 8.1 compatibility. Most of the major ones have been fixed. Sandboxie is a much more solid product now. If anyone can show otherwise, I would love to see the evidence. I can't think of ONE bug that has been created by Invincea developers (other than minor issues created and fixed during a beta-cycle). All we have done is fix problems and incompatibilities.

And before anyone thinks I am slamming Ronen, that is absolutely not the case. He is a superb developer (one of the best I have known), and created a great product. But there is only so much 1 person can do on their own, no matter how good they are.

[bo.elam]

If you do not want to realize or accept that, you will know why, but saying "Things have worked out pretty good" is very far from reality.

Buster, my reality and your reality is totally opposite. When I say things have worked out pretty good is because they have. I base what I say in my personal experience using SBIE and what I read other users say about it. Let see what others are saying, last week.
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/ ... st-2481862

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/ ... st-2482516

Bo

[Buster]

Ronen used to solve almost every incompatibility problem reported by users. Nevermind if the software was known and used by many people or unknown and used by very few.

Only a few problems were not solved and I guess most of them were due conflicts Sandboxie could not fix. A list of such software can be found here:

http://www.sandboxie.com/index.php?KnownConflicts

Now, in theory, Sandboxie is being developed by a team, so in theory the support should be even better than when only just one person was in charge of the project. But it´s not.

When I have done questions about how things work internally at Invincea I did not receive a reply. Now that things are being talked clearly, maybe it is time to get replies to such questions.

Why Sandboxie´s main developer is giving support in the forum? Should not be that work being done by other person? A person with a different profile... less technically skilled but with experience in support.

For me it´s pretty obvious the main developer should be working full time on the code. He should not touch support at all.

How many people are working in Sandboxie and what are their functions?

[Buster]

Buster, my reality and your reality is totally opposite.

Rectification: "Buster, my reality and Curt´s and your reality is totally opposite."

You pretend to ignore that Curt just recognized that things have not been working fine because now the problems reported by the enterprises get the priority over Sandboxie´s users, which in most cases don´t pay for the product.

Now we are talking about what Curt wrote me, not what I feel or how I consider the support became. Do you see the difference?

You are contradicting Curt, not to me.

[JoeHood]

Bugs are seperate and there have not been more than a couple.

True bugs in sandboxie? Yes I stand by that statement. And in the context of since Tzuk left.

Look at this thread:
http://forums.sandboxie.com/phpBB3/view ... 11&t=18900
Or look here:
http://forums.sandboxie.com/phpBB3/view ... t=15[quote]

[/quote]
Seriously? A random guy wants us to actually download his sandbox and his ini file to reproduce his problem?
And we test it ....... How? Since we no longer have control of our sandbox? Not exactly A+B+C=D

So the guy was using Kaspersky and now a long period of time later it is not working as expected. Ho-Hum