Question: UserBenchmark and information it uploads

[FrowningHippo]

Hello!

 

So, I recently build a new PC. I normally don't really do benchmarking of the sorts. But I figured running the benchmark from UserBenchmark would be fun with the scores and all that. I downloaded it from the official source: userbenchmark.com/software (small .exe, not really any installation, more like: Where do we put it? And off to the races).

 

It ran the benchmark and then auto-uploaded the results. Now I didn't get any antivirus warnings, but I was worried the program might be malicious and interested if anyone knows what it actually uploads to it's servers.

 

Should've Googled the website before running the program, because it's clear to me now that it isn't a realliable source for information. But that's not the question here. So please spare me that. 

 

So in short; Is it malicious and is it fully removed if I just remove the directory (since it doesn't register in the Windows Apps and pograms screen)? And does anyone know if it really just uploads generic 'number' information about your system?

[Isuck Assimov]

It's a very popular benchmark so you don't have to worry.

They face a lot of criticism because they allegedly are extremely biased towards Nvidia GPUs, but all in all it's a useful tool to compare your PC to others with the same hardware or just to check whether certain settings result in better scores.

It's certainly not a professional tool, but perfectly fine for a quick consumer benchmark.

edit: https://www.userbenchmark.com/page/privacy

[jaslion]

40 minutes ago, Assimov said:

It's a very popular benchmark so you don't have to worry.

They face a lot of criticism because they allegedly are extremely biased towards Nvidia GPUs, but all in all it's a useful tool to compare your PC to others with the same hardware or just to check whether certain settings result in better scores.

It's certainly not a professional tool, but perfectly fine for a quick consumer benchmark.

edit: https://www.userbenchmark.com/page/privacy

I mean they are biased. Thats not wrong. Much less so now than in the past since their bias metrics started affecting the companies they were biased for and scoring them worse :p.

 

 

[BiotechBen]

The problem it has is that it collates the tests into a single overall result that is really only relevant for co.parison with people who have an IDENTICAL system, so with how many permutations there are it is a limited dataset at best. 

It is biased toward Intel and Nvidia, and often struggles to differentiate between mobile and desktop hardware. I had it confuse the Vega integrated graphics on my 3700U with the Vega desktop cards because the iGPU was Vega 10, and the Vega desktop cards were in the Vega 10 family. Also had it unable to differentiate between a SODIMM and a UDIMM and the increased latency that accompanies SODIMMS had userbenchmark saying that both the GPU and RAM were defective and broken. If you want to use Userbenchmark: use it like you would the "bottleneck calculators", to tell you if something is horribly unbalanced about your system or drastically affect performance at a given resolution. 

 

Personally, I'd go for Passmark, 3DMark Time Spy, and the Unigen suite of tests.

[FrowningHippo]

1 hour ago, Assimov said:

It's a very popular benchmark so you don't have to worry.

They face a lot of criticism because they allegedly are extremely biased towards Nvidia GPUs, but all in all it's a useful tool to compare your PC to others with the same hardware or just to check whether certain settings result in better scores.

It's certainly not a professional tool, but perfectly fine for a quick consumer benchmark.

edit: https://www.userbenchmark.com/page/privacy

Thank you for actually replying. I understand the website is a controversial topic. 

 

That being said. If anyone else wants to weigh in on the actual questions......

Edited January 2, 2023 by FrowningHippo
Forgot to reflect the actual answer given.