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What Happens When You Install the Top Download.com Apps

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Re: What Happens When You Install the Top Download.com Apps

#51

Post by iSnow »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #41

And this is why Apple created Gatekeeper and made the Mac OS X App Store so ridiculously onerous for developers[1]. The software world is, for all intents and purposes, a thin sheen of gold flecks and diamonds atop a veritable cesspool of shit. You can just imagine the conversation at 1 Infinite Loop: Marketer: The Panic guys are considering pulling out of the App Store. Maybe we should reconsider our App Store strat…

Ironic, considering that Apple did exactly the same, when you installed QuickTime on Windows. They tried to trick you into installing iTunes and Safari and set them as default apps.

Also, it stinks that Apple has nailed iOS that shut that even as a knowledgeable user you are not able to bypass it. They did not yet dare to do the same on Mac OS, but who knows when that comes.

Re: What Happens When You Install the Top Download.com Apps

#52

Post by huhtenberg »

apetrovic wrote: post #27

Microsoft dropped the ball with lack of App Store. With all app store's drawbacks, that's the place where regular user can pay easily without thinking will someone steal his/her credit car number, the place where applications should be harmless, and the place where (and this is important) the user can compare prices between similar applications. Windows doesn't have the app store. And nobody (read: very, very small p…

> And nobody (read: very, very small percentage) is willing to type the credit car number on some unknown site to pay for some utility. So shareware died, and shareware authors went to the dark side.

HAHAHA. Oh, jeez... /wipes a tear. You clearly have no idea how the shareware model actually works.

Shareware is very very far from being dead. Yes, some of the devs take the lazy path of bundling crap, but it is an absolutely common knowledge in shareware circles that doing so will essentially kill your product, the goodwill and any hopes for any natural growth. It will also create problems with Google ranking and a headache with antivirus positives. With few exceptions only very desperate devs do that and typically only with throw away projects.

There are, of course, companies whose entire business model is based on scamming and scaremongering people, and generally treating them like a gray mass of idiots that always click on Next. But this has very little to do with the validity of the shareware model, and much more with simple "get rich quick" appeal of the bundleware.

The matter is not whether or not shareware model is dead. The matter here is that CNET traded its past reputation and ethics for the affiliate fees from the scamware vendors. Don't over-extrapolate, it just looks ... ridiculous.

Re: What Happens When You Install the Top Download.com Apps

#53

Post by thaumaturgy »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #41

And this is why Apple created Gatekeeper and made the Mac OS X App Store so ridiculously onerous for developers[1]. The software world is, for all intents and purposes, a thin sheen of gold flecks and diamonds atop a veritable cesspool of shit. You can just imagine the conversation at 1 Infinite Loop: Marketer: The Panic guys are considering pulling out of the App Store. Maybe we should reconsider our App Store strat…

There might be some room for something somewhere in between download.com and Apple's app store.

Re: What Happens When You Install the Top Download.com Apps

#54

Post by dspillett »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #48
dspillett wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's why I also feel no guilt for browsing with AdBlock on I understand the reasoning, but you seem to be taking it to a logical extreme. There are some reputable and useful sites that use ad income, I don't routinely use AdBlock or similar for that reason. If a site annoys me with its ads it gets DNS blacklisted (pointed towards my "you don't want to go there" page via local DNS config. > neither the ads nor the…

> There are some reputable and useful sites that use ad income, I don't routinely use AdBlock or similar for that reason. If a site annoys me with its ads it gets DNS blacklisted (pointed towards my "you don't want to go there" page via local DNS config. This is something that sometimes actually crosses my mind. I acknowledge the existence of good people who rely on ad income (assuming they get something from ad view…

There was once an AdBlock extension that replaced ads with lolcats instead of removing them. I think it was an April Fool thing, but the code is probably still out there to be used as a starting point.

Another good option for replacing the ads would be to put appeals in place, things like the recent push for funding for the ebola hit areas in Africa, the appeals that followed tsunamis, famines, and other natural/humanitarian disasters, and so on.

Re: What Happens When You Install the Top Download.com Apps

#55

Post by TorKlingberg »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #9
Kiro wrote: post #7

How can these be legal?

I don't know. But I wonder how is that those sites haven't yet ended up on Chrome/Firefox "Malware-serving Site" blacklist?

Google itself pays to have Chrome installed as bundleware. I for got which, but it comes with either Adobe Reader, Flash or Java in some geographical locations.

Re: What Happens When You Install the Top Download.com Apps

#56

Post by tobltobs »

cturhan wrote: post #39

I really wonder why people prefer some other websites to download the product instead of its own website. When you type "ccleaner", "kmplayer" etc on google, the first one is always the product website. The second and third ones are the websites distributing product with adware/spywares.

But if you add 'download' or 'install' the first one is usually one of those mafia downloading pages.

Re: What Happens When You Install the Top Download.com Apps

#57

Post by darklajid »

favadi wrote: post #30
serf wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubuntu is bundled with crap-ware , too; it's just more subtle. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ubuntu-spyware.html http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/09/ubuntu-bakes-amazon-...

I wouldn't call it crap-ware. Sure, it's turned on by default but there is an option to turn them off.

I'm not judging the Ubuntu stuff, I .. don't use that.

But your comment could be equally applied to the crapware installers? Most stuff could be opted-out of - if you're actually careful and ignoring the UX dark patterns (like small print, grey skip buttons etc).

Re: What Happens When You Install the Top Download.com Apps

#58

Post by TeMPOraL »

weavie wrote: post #38
BSousa wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't you do something similar with Windows Restore points?

I seem to recall getting burnt by them a long time ago, so I've never trusted them. Are they stable now?

They seem to be. I successfully used them a few times to get rid of that annoying kind of malware that tries very hard to not let you uninstall it (includind even automatically killing any open cmd.exe and regedit.exe window).

Re: What Happens When You Install the Top Download.com Apps

#59

Post by briandear »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #9
Kiro wrote: post #7

How can these be legal?

I don't know. But I wonder how is that those sites haven't yet ended up on Chrome/Firefox "Malware-serving Site" blacklist?

Google penalizes sites for SEO negligence, but CNET is a prominent result? If these sites were deindexed, this problem would be substantially improved.

Re: What Happens When You Install the Top Download.com Apps

#60

Post by TeMPOraL »

dspillett wrote: post #54
TeMPOraL wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are some reputable and useful sites that use ad income, I don't routinely use AdBlock or similar for that reason. If a site annoys me with its ads it gets DNS blacklisted (pointed towards my "you don't want to go there" page via local DNS config. This is something that sometimes actually crosses my mind. I acknowledge the existence of good people who rely on ad income (assuming they get something from ad view…

There was once an AdBlock extension that replaced ads with lolcats instead of removing them. I think it was an April Fool thing, but the code is probably still out there to be used as a starting point. Another good option for replacing the ads would be to put appeals in place, things like the recent push for funding for the ebola hit areas in Africa, the appeals that followed tsunamis, famines, and other natural/huma…

Thanks, I think I'll look for it after work.

Yes, that's also an excellent idea. The point is to allow people, per the quote I linked, to adapt the ad space to their own taste. Humanitarian appeals could be a good default. This could also solve the problem that some people complain about, that some pages have layouts built with ads in mind and become "uglier" when ads are blocked (not that I ever saw this actually happening).

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