This website claims to feature over “40.000” wallpapers with two hundred added new each day. After searching for (and counting) their new wallpapers day in and day out for over a period of five years, to say they're hopped up on that cat litter is probably pretty true. To boast a claim of 200 new per day, when you only average about 190** is completely unacceptable. Although this behavior is increasingly common in today's day and age what with there being no accountability in anything, including hot pocket consistency. I mean don't they hire for quality assurance anymore?
At first glance this website may seem a notch above the rest. There was hardly five or six pieces of spyware downloaded to my computer when I opened it up. And the Facebook style header will likely lend a calm sense of ease to those familiar to the social networking site. As long-time readers will no doubt remember, I only use blogspot, where you can find me at thatwallpaperguy.blogspot.com. So I wouldn't know a whole lot about the Facebook layout, but it seems to be an afterthought anyways so I wouldn't assign trust or distrust based on this one sole component alone.
What strikes me as innovative is their ranking system. Users can rate wallpapers on a scale of zero to six stars and when sorting through their vast selection of many more than “40.000” wallpapers (unless they're from the UK and that's supposed to be a comma) you can search by “Featured,” “Date,” “Downloads,” “Rating,” “Size,” or “Random.” For the advanced wallpaper connoisseur they even have a Favorites tab so that you don't have to store the massive 200kb .jpgs on your computer if you see something like “Vintage Bridge” that you enjoy but aren't quite ready to make the commitment to download it. The Favorites tab solves this problem by allowing you to come back to it later. As far as I can tell, there is no obligation to download once you have favorited a wallpaper.
As with all websites that I review, remember that this is a subscription free website. These websites are supported by the infinite malware that they install on your computer. After all, when they have your credit card, they don't need you to subscribe to anything. But as always you can find links to keystroke encryption programs on my blog. These do include a nominal one time finder's fee but it is well worth it in the long run. For those who don't feel comfortable with the download or who have already been added to the terrorist watchlist for downloading too many wallpaper images of the Chrysler building, please feel free to follow my more advanced methods of protecting your credit card information by using cash on delivery only.
Now that you've been introduced to the website, let me evaluate some great (and some not-so-great) picks that I've found on this website.
Name: Vintage Bridge
Rating: A-
Details: This is a real up and comer. This picture, claimed to be one of the “Most viewed of the Month” features a long rope bridge with wooden slats running horizontal across the picture. You are placed at a magnificent first person point of view as you stare out into the canopy of a deciduous forest. The rope bridge sags down in the middle before resuming its upward trek into darkness. When viewed in fullscreen it is even possible to see the stabilizing wires connected to each side of the rope bridge. I can't quite give it a full 'A,' but there's really nothing wrong with it. In the mean time, if you want to see some more awesome pictures of bridges, check out my friend John at thatbridgeguy.tumblr.com
Name: Desert
Rating: D
Details: You will find this in the nature category as one of the top rated nature wallpapers. I couldn't disagree more. There's nothing special about this piece. Anyone could have taken this picture. Even probably Aunt Ethel who can't hear very well but still enjoys Death Metal from time to time. I often wonder if that's why she can't hear, but she's advancing in age now so I don't question what she likes. She knows and she's been through enough. She doesn't owe an explanation to anyone.
But back to the Desert wallpaper. It has 6 stars? Really? Really?? The composition is terrible, if the camera had an F stop on it, well it was the wrong one. I'm not even sure what an F stop is, but the aperture was definitely too exposed, but probably not to light, just to a crappy image of the desert. I can't bear to give this an 'F' but it really doesn't deserve anything better than that. I gave it a D out of pity. Besides, D stands for Desert. Six stars... you know this website is probably frequented by a lot of desert goers who are skewing the data. I'll be on the look out for that as I continue.
Well, until next time friends!
– That Wallpaper Guy
*Outliers such as Christmas and St. Gertrude of Nivelles' day (The patron Saint against mice) have been removed as such days invariably have 0 uploads. I wouldn't review a website if it uploaded on St. Gertrude's day like the bastards over at http://www.fundesktopimages.com
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