About Computer Hope

Founded on November 1, 1998, in Salt Lake City, Utah, by Nathan Emberton, Computer Hope re-invented the term "technical support" by offering everyone free technical support and information.

Today, Computer Hope continues to provide free support and online services that allow users to learn more about their computers and find technical assistance. Our services include free help, information, tips, computer history, contact information, dictionary, drivers, and a community of experienced volunteers.

Our vision

We hope to make Computer Hope the number one computer support destination while also helping everyone get the most from their computer.

Website goals

1. Complete the new mailing system and improve the overall quality of how e-mail is answered.
2. Continue the overall development of the site.
3. Develop a better system for creating content.

We appreciate everyone's patience while we continue to make Computer Hope the best free service on the Internet.

Who wrote the pages on Computer Hope?

The pages on the Computer Hope site are written, maintained, and frequently updated by many different individuals at Computer Hope. If you need author information for a page on Computer Hope for citation purposes, cite "Computer Hope" as the author. Further information and examples is on our cite definition.

Each page written on Computer Hope goes through a review process where Nathan and at least three of our writers review the page for errors or updates. After a page is created and published, it may continue to be updated by the Computer Hope team. Below are some of our writer credentials who have created content on Computer Hope.

Nathan Emberton

Nathan has worked with computers and in the computer industry for over 30 years after getting started on an Atari 1040ST. Before starting Computer Hope, Nathan worked as a level IV senior technician at Packard Bell NEC and ZDS for five years and as a Network support engineer for Enterasys for three years. While working at Packard Bell, Nathan became A+ certified and has also been awarded a Microsoft MVP. Since Computer Hope's founding in 1998, Nathan continues to learn about computers and has helped hundreds of thousands of people through the website, e-mail, chat, and forums.

Tim H

Tim has been around computers nearly his whole life, and built his first computer at 14 years old. For the next 30 years of his life, he worked with computers in various capacities while helping Computer Hope since 2011. Tim has built web pages, ran a Best Buy Geek Squad team as a supervisor for two years, was the primary IT support person for a school district (elementary schools, middle school, and high school) for a year, and was one of three IT support people for the corporate office of a Fortune 500 company for three years. Currently, Tim is a cyber security architect for another Fortune 500 company, managing anti-malware applications for over 70,000 computers and an e-mail security solution for over 80,000 mailboxes.

Geoff H

Geoff has been interested in science and electronics since he was a teenager. With degrees in Economics, Physics, and Business Management, Geoff enjoys learning and writing about different technologies and their practical applications within society. Like Tim and Nathan, he likes building his computers and participates in gaming in his spare time. Geoff joined the Computer Hope team in 2014 and has been happily helping others learn about computers since.

T.L. Ford

T has been playing with and programming computers since her dad thumped the massive Atari 800 programming manual on the desk next to her when she was a child. T is a retired software engineer. Her expertise is full life-cycle database support from requirements, creation (backend structure and user interface), maintenance, migration, and retirement. Her certifications include: Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Security+, Linux+, Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), and the now deprecated Certified Technical Trainer (CTT+) and Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP), for Microsoft Access, Visual Basic, and Windows Architecture. T authored eight books, including sci-fi, fantasy, and a math book. Find more about her on her website: https://www.Cattail.Nu.

Computer Hope history

November 2021 - Added a new scramble and unscramble feature, which lets you scramble any word or phrase and unscramble any computer-related word.

October 2021 - Added new word and letter search feature, which lets you search for computer-related words containing words. For example, entering "device" to see "input device" and hundreds of other words.

December 2020 - Added dark mode that is automatically enabled if dark mode is enabled on your computer or device.

May 2019 - Changed many CSS classes that affected almost every page on Computer Hope for a better look and feel. The update also included several thousand other minor updates to the content throughout the site.

November 2018 - Uploaded update with over 40,000 minor updates throughout the site.

March 2018 - Updated the search question feature to help answer questions asked in our search even faster and with less chance of getting a false answer.

May 2017 - Redirected all the Computer Hope pages to HTTPS, added Cloudflare to help speed up all international requests, and added the last updated information to every page.

December 2015 - Added detection and logging of questions being asked in searches.

October 2015 - Moved Computer Hope to a new server.

May 2015 - Added a new Text Tool to handle stripping text, searching and replacing, counting, statistics, and other text manipulation tasks.

April 2015 - Added a new Computer Hope tool called How Many and directed related searches to the tool. This tool lets you find how many x are in y. In other words, give you results on searches like "how many bits are in a byte?"

January 2014 - Released an update we've been working on for over a year. Information about Computer Hope redesigns.

August 2011 - Completed work on a new search engine that directs users to pages if exact matches are found. If no exact match is found, it display results from a generated Google results page. This feature evolved into Hopebot.

June 2011 - Updated our color codes page to list every color possible and provide related color links.

January 2011 - Added a new Computer Hope tool called modify text that converts any text into over twenty different versions.

November 2010 - Introduced a dynamic homepage to bring this day in computer history event and computer word to the front page.

May 2010 - Converted the table-driven site to a CSS (cascading style sheets) style website. This update involved several hundred thousand changes throughout the site and included updates for RSS feed support and better support for printing Computer Hope pages.

August 2009 - Computer Hope was mentioned in Reader's Digest Fix Computers, Cars, and Appliances for Free article and on the Today show.

March 2009 - Computer Hope was mentioned on the BBC Webscape show.

November 2008 - Released the Computer Hope Process and HijackThis tool.

March 2008 - Releases the Computer Hope System Information script tool.

September 2007 - Posted our 1,000th questions and answers document.

March 2007 - Completed conversion to the new Computer Hope forums. The new forums offer many new features, fix all the issues encountered, and increase the overall performance and future capabilities.

August 2004 - Computer Hope surpasses one billion hits.

March 2004 - Implemented the Computer Hope online chat room and the Computer Hope online forums to improve Computer Hope's community and means for visitors to find help.

January 2003 - Developed script to help automate tasks, created a new search engine, updated the content on hundreds of pages, and completed most of the new dictionary updates.

April 2002 - Computer Hope began the process revising each of the thousands of definitions with more information and links to related pages.

March 2001 - Computer Hope is featured in PC World Sixth Annual Best Free Stuff on the Web (page 126).

November 2, 1998 - Computer Hope is released to the public; see: Why did Computer Hope change names?

Website statistics

As of March 2018

Page statistics

Forum statistics

Press - Contact Us - Hiring - Media library - Home