eHow

Two fundamental objections to this site:
1. They really need to discover the value of visual support for the "information" they post. They seem to think their clever wording of complex procedures and designs will suffice without pictures... when, in fact, it usually DOESN'T.
2. They have too many posts on the same topic, which tends to clutter up a set of search results with similar entries that are equally unhelpful. Hey, eHow... more isn't always better.

This is one of those sites that everybody is guided to whether by chance or link or direct inquiry. Most times it's adequate. That is my review of it... ADEQUATE. You can get trapped in "LINK HELL" though, so be careful. This site apparently makes its cash off links, not information. They tease you with just enough then bait and switch you. (my computer is wacky so if sentences/words are screwy, i'm sorry) hell i forgot what i was talking a bout...

Asked 1 medical question. Their answer was of zero benefit (ie; offered no hints as to various things that could cause the problem I was having). They then sent me an offer to "subscribe" to their service, which I declined. Am still getting monthly fees showing up on my credit card (and I have to call my credit card to have them removed each month). I can find no instructions as to how to terminate my dealings with this company. The only phone number I have (as shown on my credit card bill) is answered by a machine who does not identify their company and where you can only leave a message that is never returned... It's a SCAM!

I attempted to use the site "ehow.com". It turns out the site is a complete fraud, stealing "how-to's" from legitimate sites. I went looking for instructions on replacing a head gasket on a 1.9 liter ford engine, there were some errors on the site so I sent a question to the web- manager. After 30 days without an answer I get an email stating that "my problem" was resolved. I re-sent the same problem along with excerpts from "chilton's auto repair manual" using exactly the same wording(with exactly the same errors).
Please don't waste your time with "eHow.com", and tell their advertisers that eHow is a complete fraud, and reflects badly on their companies. Thanking you in advance for your attention, Henry

They list free Vin reports. You fill out all kinds of personal information and then at the end of it FreeVinReport.org tells you "our system is down" so go get one with one of our "partners" for a discount price. NO. Even though you have asked for No Services, including "insurance" my phone started ringing off the hook with auto insurance companies saying I asked for a quote. I will never get on EHow again. Ever. Scam, scam, scam

Have you ever Googled a car repair and it took you right to EHow? The writers for EHow quite often instructs you to open up the hood, change the part, then shut the hood. How about a home repair article? Go to your home improvement store and buy the material, then repair your home. You are better off going to YouTube and getting the rest of the 99% of the steps that EHow conveniently forgot to tell you. If they do give you more than 3 steps, it's not always accurate.

EHow may be fine for some types of advice, but it should **not** be relied upon for advice regarding the care of pets--especially sick ones! Some eHow articles on animal care are obviously written by people who have NO CLUE what they are talking about. I read an article that says you should put cat flea powder on a rabbit to get rid of mites. You should never put products on rabbits that are intended for cats and dogs. You can kill your rabbit. Frontline *forbids* the use of its flea products on rabbits due to so many rabbit deaths and neurological problems in rabbits whose well-meaning owners used it on their bunnies. I feel it is very, very irresponsible of eHow to put information out there that is so potentially harmful.

I visited this site because I have been searching for more ways to protect my computer since I received a bad virus awhile back. When I found this site I was really amazed at what I did not know. I learned a lot of different ways to fix my own PC. The site covers so many ways to check for and track any hacking. I found this information very enlightening. I kept going back to the site everyday. The topics are really cool. There is list of hacker prevention methods I that are very helpful. When you go to the site type in the search engine, stop hackers. The site also shows you how to remove viruses and trojan horses. It also has other links, food, home, style, money and health topics. I typed in pretty much anything I was curios about in the health search and if gave me answers about health that I found very helpful. For instance on headaches. In the money section it gave interesting news on who gets what in the event of someone passing. Also what would happen to debts on a deceased person. I think this site is really informative about so many issues. Very nice http://www.ehow.com

1) information is frequently incorrect
2)"how to" articles are usually too brief and simplistic to be useful
3) often multiple articles covering same topic
4) directions are interrupted by advertising blocks and pop up ads

EHow should really be called "How-to for Morons". The articles are apparently written by the same folks who prepare those assembly instructions that come with cheap furniture kits. They're clearly paid writers who are copying information from other unreliable sources on topics that they know nothing about (click on the contributer's name to get their bio and you'll see what I mean). I've looked at dozens of topics on that site and the info is usually incomplete, inaccurate, or irrelevant to the question addressed. When it is accurate the instructions given are typically so generic and obvious as to be insulting; "to replace the battery in your remote control, remove the battery cover, insert new batteries, then replace the cover" - D'uh! Overall, I'd say eHow is even worse than message board sites like Yahoo Answers where at least you get several unreliable opinions to choose from.

I'd SO like to write a glowing review of this site. The member-contributed articles cover an astonishing range of topics, ranging from how to repair a computer to how to address an envelope, and the site is well laid out and looks thoroughly reliable.

But it's not. I recently sought instructions on how to upgrade the CPU in my laptop, which I hadn't previously opened. Having a step-by-step guide to which screws need to come out and which don't is a great help, and I found the appropriate article here and printed out the instructions, which were clear and concise.

Unfortunately they were for an entirely different laptop, as I discovered immediately, so I ended up just doing the upgrade with commonsense and a willingness to overlook the odd screw or two that was left over at the end.

The site is definitely worth seeking out if you're interested in trying something new or getting a refresher on something you've now forgotten how to do, but don't use it as your sole reference if you're doing something that needs to be right the first time around.

Some of the articles are a bit flaky and seem to have been written simply because the writers are claimed to receive $15 - $20 an hour for them. I don't need to be told that the best flowers to use in my room as an air freshener are the ones that smell nice. I really could have figured that one out for myself. And the community aspect of the site doesn't seem to have got off the ground, with a sparsely populated forum and groups that mainly seem to have only a handful of members and postings at the rate of one a month.

Ehow tries, but could do a lot better.