9/10/2023

Proton Mail (Encrypted Mail Service)

I've been using Proton Mail as my main private email service for many years, since they first came out to the market. I started with a free subscription  just to try it, and I was happy with the quality of the service, especially the end-to-end encryption and all the security features. After that, I've paid for a personal plan for several years already. 

The differences between the paid and the free versions and the pricing can be found on their website, here. One of the things that made me sign up is not just the reasonable pricing, but also the fact that I would be able to have unlimited organisation folders and more mail storage. One of the things that I noticed when I started using Proton is that I barely receive spam, ever, and I love/d that.
 
Pricing is quite decent for a fully encrypted email service, especially if you pay yearly, bi-yearly or for 3 years. You can pay in Euro or US dollars, which isn't great for any other currency with bad exchange rates with those two. Sometimes they have promotions to subscribe for discounted fees or competitions to get a year subscription, but those are rare.
 
The basic paid subscription has drive, your own domain, several calendars, basic VPN, a vault and also the possibility of creating several alias email addresses. This is my subscription and that's more than enough for me. Perhaps the 15 GB storage capacity is a bit low if you intend to use the domain or Proton Drive. However, I use it mostly for email; despite having a very busy email account with plenty of attachments, this storage is pretty good. 

You can use your email service online on your browser, on the desktop version (with Thunderbird or Outlook for example) and on the mobile app. If you want the IMAP version, you have to install the Proton Bridge on your computer as this is what allows you to have the account encrypted. The Bridge is very easy to download, install and configure, as you'll get step-by-step info re the settings you have to put in. The app is very easy to configure and use, and, most importantly, very reliable. Synchronization is good, but not excellent, with some sort of time-lag between mobile and desktop versions. 
 
The interface on the browser and app is OK. I like the colour scheme and overall look, but it lacks serious customization features, something that annoys me.
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Customer Service is poor. They always blame you for any problem that comes from their end or anything that happens that they don't know what it is.  Their 'solutions' are always primary-school sort of thing. They act robotically, don't read your emails in full, don't listen (read) to what you say properly, and have a sort of cockiness that annoys me. It doesn't matter that you write on weekdays or weekends, they're always slow and terrible. My guess is that the company has no interest in having fully trained staff and on the quality of the CS they offer, or just pay their officers little money and they don't care. Thanks gosh, I barely have any problem with the service, so I don't have to contact them much. 
 
IN SHORT
Overall, I find the service terrific for a cheap paid subscription, with all the software working well most of the time, reliable app, barely any spam, full encryption and plenty of features for you to take advantage of. The main downsides are the small storage capability if you want to use your Proton domain and slow unhelpful customer service.  Of course, you can subscribe to Proton Unlimited and many of the things that bother me, would not be a bother. 

RESPONSE FROM THE COMPANY
Hi! Thank you for taking the time to review our service and share your feedback with us. Please note that each of our customer support agents is trained and prepared with great diligence before they start answering publicly and will never address you in a rude or obnoxious way. Our support agents are also in constant communication with our developers and engineers to provide you with the latest information regarding bug fixes, troubleshooting, and upcoming improvements. However, if the assistance you had received was not to your liking or seems unfit, please update your review to share your ticket number with us here. We'd be happy to track your case internally and investigate.

WHAT I'M GOING TO DO 
Nothing. It is all true. I have had no results, help or solutions from CS every time I have contacted them. The company can come and say w-h-a-t-e-v-e-r. That doesn't change that CS is poor. I don't blame CS people, just the company, who trains them poorly.

9/06/2023

Usertesting24 (Online Platform)

 

I found the company and the link on Trustpilot Au. I followed the link to the website, and it looks pretty dodgy. It's full of clickable buttons. When you follow the "user testing website" it takes you to a screen with two buttons, which take you to two different white screens with these messages "Error. Page cannot be displayed. Please contact your service provider for more details. (24)". This is in a non-secure connection and directs to this lyfbodn.com which is a hijacker created by potentially unwanted program and it could also be a phishing site, so I would not be login into anything. When you click on the button 'usertesting get paid' it takes you to another page also a lyfbodn.com page with two buttons, and when you click them it takes you to different sponsored companies. When you click on "usertesting signup' it takes you to the same 2-button page. Again, nothing called usertesting24. There is no about us, contact us, registration info, location, etc. so not a trustworthy place I would go back. Due to what I've said above I don't trust all the 5-star generic reviews that are before mine  on Trustpilot. I might be that the site has been spoofed or hijacked, but that would never say anything good about an user testing platform. Avoid.

9/05/2023

Curasept Chlorhexidine Toothpaste 75 ml

This is a medicated over-the-counter toothpaste that my dentist recommended to me, years ago, to treat bouts of bleeding gums. Like other similar treatments it does the job if used for at least a week or two up to three months if your mouth is in a bad shape. It differs from other similar pastes in the fact that it doesn't turn my teeth yellow. 
 
This paste has a very mild and pleasant licorice flavour, which I like despite not being a fan of licorice. It has a very light gel texture, less dense than average gel toothpastes, so a small dollop goes a long way and spreads great on my teeth. 
 
As this is a treatment, I tend to use it for short periods of time and then I go back to my usual paste. If I can find it, I compliment this paste with the same brand mouthwash, or, if impossible, with a medicated mouthwash from major brands. 
 
It works for me.

Riot Arts & Crafts (Online Store)

 Riot Arts and Crafts, not Riot Projects, have amazing prices and a great selection of arts and craft products. Most of their stock is Australian art brands, some of them excellent like Matisse and Holcroft, for example, mixed with a smaller selection of international brands and a small selection of their products (Golden, Liquitex, Posca or Faber Castell for ex.) They have free shipping for orders over 80 bucks, which is an increase of 5 bucks since last time I purchased something from them. Still better than most online art supplies stores.

I've both from them many times and they deliver via AuPost. Product quality has always been good or great, except for one case, and the pricing excellent even when the products aren't on sale. But every time I check they're on some sort of sale. 

The main issue with Riot Arts & Crafts is that the dispatch time is ridiculous and can take over a week or more, depending on the time, to get the products dispatched, plus the time AuPost takes to deliver a standard parcel. If you need materials for a upcoming project, this is not a place you want to buy from as, more likely, you won't get them on time. However, it's a great place to take advantage of their offers and stock materials before the ones you already have run out.

Another downside is that, due to the fact that their prices for good brands is below most online sites, the products I want are always sold out or out of stock.  

My last parcel in April, took about 10 natural days to be dispatched. The last one, in September ditto. The shipping info on their website says that intercity or interstate takes average 7-10 business days, which is about 2 weeks, for the parcel to arrive to your place, and they cannot guarantee that either.

So, if they cannot fulfill the demand, why not stop, get more staff and reorganise the business? Most of the negative reviews online are on this issue.

Customer service by email is corteous but minimal, androbotic, full of vacuous wording. Last time I asked why it was taking so long to get the product dispatched the answer was 'we've changed our procedures at the warehouse' or were working on it kinda nothingness.  

8/29/2023

TEK Firm Toothbrush

This is an average toothbrush but one of the few hard-bristles that I could find on Amazon at an affordable price. I don't use hard bristles on my teeth due to my dentist's advice. The product page advertises this as having a in-built special tongue scraper. There is not such a thing and reported this to Amazon. You might consider the curved handle the scraper, but the design of the handle would not allow me to use it as such, and there is no special scrub feature on it or on the top of the brush head. This is a very simple average toothbrush.
 
I bought this brush because the hard-bristles are perfect for cleaning small and difficult-to-reach corners in my kitchen and bathroom, and to clean tiles grout and the dirt around my taps. They are great for that. The handle is medium strength, not the most sturdy I've had, but good enough.

Red Rock Deli Potato Chips Variety Multipack x 10 28g

This selection of small chips is one of my favorite multi-packs out there. This brand is my fav chips brand due to the quality of the flavors as well as the the thickness and crunch of the chips. I love this multi-pack, firstly, because it has 4 flavors that I really-really like (the honey-soy and the sea-salt my favs). Secondly, because I can easily pack these small bags in my work bag to have a treat at work myself, or to offer it to some of my colleagues, which also love them. Besides, sometimes I feel like having a snack, and having this small portion bags is great to control how much I eat. They're a bit more expensive that an equivalent large bag, but I like the variety and versatility of this pack.

The Tin Box Company Star Wars Vintage Classic Tin Lunchbox, Black

I'm a SW fan and I was looking for a roomy tin box to store some of my collage papers and small art supplies. This is perfect for both purposes. It looks as good in person as in the photo, and looks cool wherever I place it. The handle can be comes handy to carry my lunch or if I was carrying this anywhere, which I initially don't intend to; the handle can be put in, so it doesn't protrude, making the box more compact. The locking system is great to prevent the lid from self-opening.So far, so good.