Disclaimer: I’m being paid to write this review.

iBackup is another member of the overcrowded online backup services field, but are they just another? I set out this afternoon on our new Gateway Vista powered machine to find out.

Company background
From the about page:

IBackup is a service of Pro Softnet Corporation, an ASP and Internet Solutions Provider based in Woodland Hills, CA. Since its inception in 1995, Pro Softnet Corp. has been harnessing the power of Information Technology by providing Internet based solutions and customized Internet Software solutions for many Fortune 100 companies.

On the first site visit I noticed that at wider screen resolution the design didn’t expand and fill up the screen (see screenshot to right). They might want to have their web designer look at making the design create an expanding style sheet. Also, the picture of the woman smiling with her chin on her hands doesn’t really immediately say “backup” to me, although I like the floating file graphic floating through her head.

Is the free trial really free?
To sign up for a free account you must first enter in an email address. I’m very much against free trials that work this way. Let me download the software and/or use the service without giving you any information first. Most netizens are suspicious of this and it may cause prospective customers not to try the service. Offer people a no-hassle way to access your trial.

I entered in my email with a + and an identifier and the system told me my email was invalid. Wrong. name+identifier@account.com is a valid email format.

Regular readers know this test well. Note to iBackup team: please fix. I used a different email without the + in the name and received the message in the browser:

An email containing the link for registration has been sent to the email address you have specified.

Additionally, there was a note that Hotmail and Yahoo users should check to see that the mail wasn’t incorrectly flagged as spam. Nice touch but in my case, Gmail didn’t flag it as spam and it was waiting there almost immediately. The email offers a confirmation link to click to continue the process and explains the different iBackup options:

iDrive - setup an extra drive in Windows or on a Mac that you can drag and drop files to backup: “allows opening and saving files directly from your IBackup account using most applications like Microsoft Word, Excel to name a few.”
iBackup for Windows - downloadable Windows backup software: “Features FAST drag-n-drop, mirroring, incremental options and much more.”
Web Manager - “collaboration features for sharing, Image Gallery, drag-n-drop using WebFolders and search options to search by file names and by file content. You can view thumbnails of the GIF, JPEG and
TIFF images stored in any folder.”
Web Folders - “map your IBackup account as a network folder
on Windows Explorer, provides drag and drop functionality and also SSL for secure
storage and retrieval of your files and folders.”
FTP Ready - compatibility with “most” FTP programs

A nice, convenient selection of options for doing backups.

But.

That’s right, there’s a but. You can’t get access to any of these options with your 15 day ‘free’ trial until you whip out the plastic. This sucks, I’m sorry. You need to fill out the secure form and give them your credit card and other billing information. The 15 day ‘free’ trial option that allows up to 5GB of space needs to be cancelled before the 15 days is up to keep from being charged. I noticed plans that went all the way up to $4,000/year for 200 GB. Overage charges cost a pricey $2 per GB.

Unlike some of their competitors, there are no unlimited plans either for personal, business or both. For example, Mozy, that we advertise in the RSS feed offers unlimited backup for $5/month for personal use.

When looking at something like iBackup also keep in mind that one can get a lowend dedicated server from hosting companies for around $50/month these days, hard disk space is dirt cheap (TB drives are running under $500 now) and there’s plenty of software out there to use to backup files, some of which is even free. With Windows Home Server coming later this year, there will be yet another option for those who want to do local backups.

The major advantage to using services like iBackup is that the backups will be remote in case of local fire and they make the process easier and hassle-free. This service is worth paying for if the price and service is right.

After entering in my signup data, no confirmation or success screen was offered, it simply returned me to the home page. I tried to use my login information and it responded with the following:

Riiiiight, my login just created is incorrect? Maybe my password didn’t get entered correctly so I decided to try and retrieve my password. It wouldn’t take my username or email, simply responding with:

Argh.

Next I was off calling them on the toll free number to try and get some assistance: 1-800-949-3555. To get to sales you use extension 114 according to the machine, but on their support page it says extension 117. At 7:15pm PST this evening the automated response received was the sales help was “unavailable.” The reason why of course is that their support hours are: Monday through Friday, 6:00 AM to 5:00 PM PST, so I was too late. For businesses that work during the day these support hours work, but what about people who want to sign up in the evening and have trouble like I had?

I would like to have been able to review the actual software and see how that compared and also figure out if my credit card actually was processed or not (?). Guess I’ll need to call them tomorrow and watch my credit card statement to unravel this mystery.

Broken.

Unfortunately most, if not all, trust I might have in an organization to backup my important files with a miserable registration experience like this is gone. Don’t think I could envision a worst ‘free’ trial experience if I tried. I hope anybody who tries iBackup has a much better experience than me and that won’t be difficult to pull off. Feel free to write about your experience with iBackup below, especially if it’s more positive. For whatever it’s worth they have some rather impressive customer testimonials. Grade: F

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