The Software Awards Scam

Posted by kdawson on Friday August 17, 2007 @08:15AM from the bottom-feeders dept.

jamie sends us to a blog post about the worthlessness of some download sites' "5-star" awards. Andy Brice, a UK-based software developer, packaged up a little text file full of the words "This software does nothing" as an EXE and named it "awardmestars." So far his self-proclaiming useless program has garnered sixteen 5-star awards from download sites he submitted it to. Brice concludes that many of the download sites are "just electronic dung heaps, using fake awards, dubious SEO and content misappropriated from PAD files in a pathetic attempt to make a few dollars from Google Adwords."

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I'll stick with Tucows by Zerimar · 2007-08-17 08:33 · Score: 5, Informative

Tucows hasn't failed me for 10 years now.
A scam? Maybe. But perhaps... by Perseid · 2007-08-17 08:59 · Score: 2, Informative

...they have Slashdot moderators handing out the stars.
Re:Tucows?! by Zerimar · 2007-08-17 12:18 · Score: 2, Informative

Yep, still there and still loved by a few :) BTW, there are plenty of freeware apps there that are not open source - you should venture back one day! And who doesn't love the name?