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Download.com Now Wraps Downloads In Bloatware
MrSeb writes "At Download.com, page designs have been repeatedly tweaked over the years to push its updater software (now called TechTracker), TrialPay offers, and the site's mailing list. Bothersome, perhaps, but certainly not inexcusable. They've got to make money off the site somehow, after all, and banner ads don't always do the job. Now, things have taken a turn for the worse: Cnet has begun wrapping downloads in its own proprietary installer. Not only will this cause the reputation of free, legitimate software to be tarred by Cnet's bloatware toolbars, homepage changes, and new default search engines — but Cnet is even claiming that their installer wrapping is 'for the users.'"
Jeez, you expect this stuff out of fly-by-night crapware sites. But even I trusted CNET (until now, anyway), and I'm about as cynical a bastard as there is when it comes to downloading software apps off the net.
So, is Tucows still around? I have occasionally used SourceForge, but I never felt confident they were policing their binaries very well (that could be an unfair presumption on my part).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The last few Windows apps I've downloaded from there came with their own "INSTALL TOOLBAR FOO" now in the installer. PDFCreator is one example.
This is why we're headed towards managed computing and app stores. The game is just too dirty. Joe User has no idea whats going on. His computer has a dozen toolbars and all he's done is follow his geeky friend's advice to install stuff like PDFCreator or other GPL products. I'd rather just be microbilled 20 cents or whatever they make per install. Shame no one has properly cracked the microbilling nut.
I haven't downloaded anything from them in at least half a decade. Just out of curiosity, what has anyone gone to their site to download in recent times?
I stopped using CNET a very long time ago. Sourceforge.net and Filehippo.com are about all I trust anymore. This really doesn't surprise me, the reason I stopped using CNET is that I got infected downloading something from their site years ago. The only thing I hate trying to download and find are Microsoft compatible drivers for old hardware companies that have long since bit the dust. I usually try to convince those end users to switch to linux after I confirm the kernel has drivers for their crappy old hardware.
3. Is my direct download URL still available?
Yes. Right under the main "Download Now" button is the direct HTTP download URL which registered CNET members can access.
http://cnet-upload.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2064
So now when I have to deal with Windows boxes and install stuff on there, I can't use the only site I've used in a decade. God Dammit To Hell. The sad part is that Ubuntu's Software Center and all the rest of it's ilk owes at least a tip of the hat to Download.com's ratings system. it's helped me immeasurably with the ratings systems. Although I never trusted the Editor's ratings - too easy to pay off. The user's ratings were usually right on the money.
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
c|net is long gone, they are now CBS Interactive.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Let's call a spade a spade here: App Store = Repository
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
Not to mention all the Linux distributions which have had something very similar to an app store for, what, more than a decade? Except that they have much more sane policies regarding inclusion in the "app store" and extending the app store with secondary repositories.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Apple already has an App Store for the Mac, and Microsoft will soon as well for Windows 8.
Moves like this will drive users in droves to download applications from a known, clean source.
I've been a fan of a collection of app stores since I moved to Debian 2.2, 11 years ago, nice to see the non-oss world catching up.
If you would like to opt out of the CNET Download.com Installer you can sign up for a Premium subscription or PPD promotion, both of which are being excluded at this time.
If find it hilarious that they are talking about how this is 'for the users' and such a great thing, yet the 'premium' subscriptions don't have to deal with this bullshit. If it's sooooo great, shouldn't it be available only to premium users?
One of the biggest problems with the Mac App store, IMO, is that it apparently cannot recognize applications which have been purchased before the app store was available, and thus cannot upgrade them via the app store. It would be nice if there were a way to tie prior specific purchases (that one still has record of) with one's Apple ID so that they could use the app store in this way... and have a relatively smoother upgrade path to follow in the future.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Who you callin' a "Spade"?!?
Damn, racists are everywhere.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
What's a CNET?
An installer which simply copies files from an archive to a folder on the computer (and maybe sets up some registry entries, etc) is a distinct program from the program which gets thus installed.
Just because the 'wrapper' is used to make the copy, doesn't make the wrapper part of the GPL program, or the GPL program part of the wrapper.
Er... by that logic, the WinZIP installer (or NSIS installer, or X, Y, Z installer) is "open source" if I use it to install a GPL game. Not true.
The GPL only applies to the source code and binaries produced therein, and wrappers, compressors and installers are fine so long as they don't form almost the complete binary itself (and it's not as simple as a bit-count, but by functionality).
Also, by your logic, any application that bundles or uses GPL executables would subject it to the GPL - also not true - so 99.9% of those "video convertor" utilities that use things like ffmpeg.exe would also be GPL (and things like the iPlayer downloader).
Please don't spread GPL bullshit. They are perfectly entitled to do this, and we're all perfectly entitled to never touch it with a bargepole.
I just sent the following email to Download.com:
Please be advised that your your "CNET Download.com installer" is in violation of the terms of my software. Section 4a) permits distribution UNMODIFIED copies only. Additionally, section 4c) does not permit "bundling" with other software components.
Please remove my software from your site immediately, as the reputation of my application is now at risk.
Sincerely,
Steven Greenberg
Author, GSpot Codec Appliance
Since the switch I have stopped downloading anything from them. If you click the link to show all information it usually has the developers site, and many have the clean download available directly.
Is there a quality download site left?
That gives me a good laugh. Insightful in the modern world is colluding against the least colourful guy at the poker table as if he isn't even there.
Now if I were to disable my putrid content blocker, the first thing that happens is that I become less effective at my day job, because my mind has trouble filtering anything that blinks, flashes, throbs, or scrolls. The visual edge and motion detector is part of the predation reflex. My predation reflex is robust and immediately recruits part of my brain that would otherwise be earning me income.
Ignoring that, my conscious response to advertisement is to make a mental note that the vendor isn't competing on merit. I win most of my battles at the store rather than in front of the fridge. I lose all my battles in front of the fridge. If I put it in there, I'm allowed to eat it. Hallelujah!
In order for advertising to be effective, they need to turn the world of consumption into a giant fridge of immediate pickle and prosciutto goodness. For example, PayPal and online ordering with credit credentials liable to go walk-about. But the goods arrive quickly, so no matter.
In the store, having set aside a block of time just for this purpose, I'm able to recruit the whole of my rational brain to the task of rational consumption. As unreliable as rationality is in human affairs, there is in fact an on switch, should you choose to use it.
I choose to use it. Which means that the advertising to someone like me has little upside for the vendor, either. I'm not claiming I'm not influenced by advertising. What I'm claiming is that I make my decisions when the influence is counterbalanced by more powerful forces, of which I happen to have some.
The advertisers don't consider this argument worth much. For the small percentage of the population that successfully defects, the vast majority eventually (after say 100,000 to 1,000,000 lifetime ad impressions) falls into learned helplessness. The cable TV companies all know this. For a month they offer to part for free on your front lawn a giant white truck full of 500 salty snacks ranging from 100% MSG on down. Even after you narrow down to the five channels with more carbohydrates than smut and jiggle, it gets pretty easy pretty quickly to reach for the salty chips in any moment of weakness.
The credit cards with the points system is pretty much the same thing. They're cultivating you to believe you're getting something for free. No, not even slightly. You're basically just ripping off the guy who does business in cash, by having a rule that if a vendor takes CC the vendor can't offer a cash discount for not providing the CC service which therefore must have zero actual value. Costs the retailer a lot for zero value, I must say. But you might score a free flight to destination tropical chip truck. This is for when the truck on your lawn hasn't shaken out enough of your loose coin.
The average person starts to rationalize as if this "something for nothing" actually exists. Most people engage in impulse purchasing, so it becomes easy to rationalize "I was going to do it anyway, I might as well collect me some perks" such as free downloads from Joe's Ziphouse Emporium.
I don't engage in impulse shopping. I'm not willing to pay the impulse shopping tax (watching any of 99% of the Flash content ever produced) for a trivial economic perk.
Anyone here with a compact ID whom you convince to turn off their ad-blocking to help the finances of download.com is not going to do anything for the finances of people who pay money to advertise there. You're just shifting the chump. In theory, we're all chip-truck addled morons. In practice, a few of us take exception.
All those millions of
You can configure Google to just omit the domain from search results - problem solved. Not like there is a shortage of download sites such that users should actually consider putting up with this kind of crap.
Now that I've made the world a better place on a Monday, what should I do?