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Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

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Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#301

Post by alanctgardner2 »

darklajid wrote: post #277
alanctgardner2 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's cognitive dissonance ( maybe I'm thinking of the wrong phenomenom ) that you 'see more and more of [these people]' every day. It makes this seem like a big bad trend, when really it's been happening forever and it just happens to support your point. Lots of people release ad-supported free software, not because they want to turn a profit, but because they don't want a net loss. They aren't comfortable wi…

You're mixing things up. I like software with ads (well, sorta. CAN you like software with ads?). I don't run AdBlock on all my machines. I have "free" ad-supported Android apps. Bundling ads in an application is not the same thing as installing utter, total bullshit. Your point is still very weak in my books, because you haven't explained in half a sentence why someone would like to release software as 'free' and st…

I attempted it pretty well in the last post, maybe you missed it.

Free software costs money to host and maintain. If you want to break even, you need some long-tail income source to cover hosting, etc.

That was a full sentence, happy?

People who release free software are often not hustlers. Hell, if they had business sense, maybe they'd make it a paid product. If you don't feel comfortable asking for money in exchange for your software, ads and bundled installs offer a much lower friction way to cover your costs. Charging 99 cents for a desktop app is ridiculous right now, although maybe the windows and mac app stores will change that. Either way, collecting a few dollars per user directly is a huge pain in the ass.

If these companies did what they're supposed to do, it'd be more about discovery, and less about shoving downloads down your throat. I had this argument about IVRs yesterday; how do you make a good product in a field people hate? If everyone shouts down the notion of an IVR, who's going to bother making a good one? If everyone is automatically against bundled downloads, the best, least sleazy company in the world wouldn't stand a chance.

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#302

Post by jiggy2011 »

joering2 wrote: post #262

Why not? PG is about to make killing on AirBnB and co-founder is a well-known spammer from top-100 FBI list [1] that used our tax money to send his spam, and AirBnB been known for spam practices contacting people from Craigslist [2] to crank-start their startup with empty database. Further, AFAIK his SocialCam is worth tons of money as well, mostly thanks to Facebook overspamming practices [3] Truly surprised PG is n…

Ironically enough, IIRC PG was one of pioneers of spam filtering.

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#303

Post by gshubert17 »

chinmoy wrote: post #43

Wow....I thought these kind of companies stay and operate from the darkest corners of the internet, just like those CPA networks where you get paid to SPAM the hell out of the internet. Frustrating that these are coming mainstream and Y Combinator has backed one of them.

Help me with CPA; it's not certified public accountants. Is it cost per action?

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#304

Post by illuminate »

Shorel wrote: post #226
jbk wrote: post #49

I can speak quite a bit about this "industry": We (VLC) receive 1 of those offers per day. They are liars, shady business, IP violators and are downright dangerous. They have all those great offers for you, but they refuse to give any details as soon as you ask any question. More than half of them are "the biggest in the world" (sic). They lie about download numbers, about download size, about number of software actu…

> They also have deals with download.com/softopedia/softonic The problem here is that those sites still rank very high in search results.

Why is it that they've lasted as long as they have? They offer so little to the end-user.

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#305

Post by gus_massa »

jbk wrote: post #248
tobylane wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you do, what proportion of your time is advancing yours or flagging them?

Sorry, I cannot answer to that publicly. Mail me.

I understand that some details should be kept secret, but it would be nice to read a blog post about this.

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#306

Post by patio11 »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #293
patio11 wrote: post #152

So when earlier it was mentioned, I assumed "They have to have a different angle on this; they're a YC company." And seeing a strong thread title and no evidence for it other than "The industry they're in is ridiculously seedy", I thought maybe HN was in rush to judgement mode. So I thought I'd try, you know, installing something. Make your own call: http://images1.bingocardcreator.com/blog-images/hn/its-not-a...

There's isn't even a cancel button! Hopefully at least the top right X cancels the installation rather than just respawning the popup and requiring manual killing from task manager.

It pops a modal dialog saying that if you cancel the software won't get to be installed. I don't have a screenshot handy, but I get the feeling it was worded a bit verbosely to prevent people from guessing the correct of the two buttons to actually stop the install. If you pick the right button, your default browser gets force-directed to a page on their site to either a) re-start the download and install process or b) send a message to their CS team so that they can assist you with installing it. (I've got to admit, that is crafty, since you can presumably do the entire thing automatically.)

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#307

Post by jiggy2011 »

Silhouette wrote: post #256
Aardwolf wrote: post #133

This is the reason why I don't understand that people say that Linux is for "technical" users while Windows is for regular consumers. In Linux it's easier to install something that in Windows. E.g. to install a CD to MP3 rip program, in Archlinux all you do is: # Search for some mp3 ripper program pacman -Ss mp3 | grep rip # Install one of them from the list that looked ok from the description pacman -S ripperx In Wi…

In Linux it's easier to install something that in Windows. Sure, as long as it's in your distro, and it's the version you want, and you haven't installed anything else that might interact with it from another source. But if any of those three statements is not true, best to start praying to whatever deities you believe in for one of them to help you, because chances are no-one else is going to. The thing that really…

Because often applications need to be able to read and write files that have been created by other programs.

Some programs also have features which add functionality to other applications. Sometimes this can be useful , in cases such as lastpass and dropbox but other times they can be bad in cases such as spyware.

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#308

Post by jiggy2011 »

amirmc wrote: post #166
Aardwolf wrote: post #133

This is the reason why I don't understand that people say that Linux is for "technical" users while Windows is for regular consumers. In Linux it's easier to install something that in Windows. E.g. to install a CD to MP3 rip program, in Archlinux all you do is: # Search for some mp3 ripper program pacman -Ss mp3 | grep rip # Install one of them from the list that looked ok from the description pacman -S ripperx In Wi…

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic (but I'll assume you're not). From my point of view, your comment describes exactly why Windows is easier. In the Linux example you're using the command line with commands folks don't know about ('pacman', 'grep') with flags they'd have to read about ('-S' and "How do you make that vertical line thing?"). Of course they'd also have to understand the output of those commands. The…

To be fair, almost every modern Linux distro does provide some GUI for package management. In ubuntu you can either search the software store and click "Install" or download a .deb, double click it and click "Install".

It's just that experienced users tend to find the command line versions quicker and easier.

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#309

Post by jiggy2011 »

keyboardP wrote: post #247
webreac wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a linux user (linux mint cinnamon). When I need a new software, I launch the software manager, I type in the search criteria. This gives me a list of software. When I click a software, I have a list of users feedbacks and an install button. When I click install, it asks for my password and that is all. When I am on the command line and I type a command that is not installed, I get: jef@sweethome ~ $ 7z The progr…

I have Ubuntu and the software manager works fine. I was just responding to the the comment that somehow the command line is easier than Windows's GUI for a regular user. Windows 8 and, presumably, future versions of Windows will have the same store format. Regardless, I think your XBMC example highlights the difference. Ask a user to click on "Windows" from the XMBC download page and immediately the familiar install…

The solution some sites seem to use is just to look at the user agent. I often his software sites now and if there is a Linux version with an Ubuntu package it just gives me a big button that says "Download for Ubuntu", this either adds a repo or gives me a .deb which is as easy to install as a .msi.

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#310

Post by jey »

binarycrusader wrote: post #263
npsimons wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Linux on the desktop were to get popular, I'd hate to imagine what might happen to the open source Fedora and Debian/Ubuntu repositories. Nothing. In case you haven't been paying attention, Debian repositories were "app stores" before there were app stores. The software goes through extensive vetting and rigorous testing; no, I'm not saying every line of code is inspected, but to claim that a Debian maintainer wou…

...through extensive vetting and rigorous testing... I wanted to upvote your comment, but then I almost died laughing when I read that. Most Linux distributions are better about it now than they were many years ago, but I still remember being absolutely floored when RedHat had packaged a Perl module with a syntax error some years ago. Same goes for Debian; some of the more "fringe packages" (those of upstream project…

Usually there's a few tiers of packages, with the first tier packages being extensively tested and maintained, and the second tier packages mostly just provided as a convenience. I believe Debian calls the first-tier "main" and the second-tier "contrib" (and Ubuntu calls them "main" and "universe").
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