According to PETS, these companies force software to undergo lenghty and arduous tests, often without rest, for hours or days at a time. Employees are assigned to "break" the software by any means necessary, and inside sources report that they often joke about "torturing" the software.

"It's no joke," said Grandola. "Innocent programs, from the day they are compiled, are cooped up in tiny rooms and "crashed" for hours on end. They spend their whole lives on dirty, ill-maintained computers, and are unceremoniously deleted when they're not needed any more." Grandola said the software is kept in unsanitary conditions and is infested with bugs. "We know that alternatives to this horror exist," he said, citing industry giant Microsoft Corporation as a company that has become successful without resorting to software testing.