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Avast Installs Chrome
40hz:
At least with Open Candy it's right out in the open and obvious and you can opt out or opt in if you like.
-Renegade (February 08, 2013, 06:17 AM)
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Provided the developer plays by the rules. OC has taken steps to try and ensure that. Not everybody else has.
In the end, however, the responsibility must always rest with the developer. The piggy-back crowd still needs to have somebody bundle them in.
f0dder:
which make me wonder what incentives Google is offering to software authors that this is now happening.
-40hz (February 08, 2013, 06:07 AM)
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It makes me wonder whether Google tolerates this behavior - that'd be piss-poor of them, and be a pretty damn clear violation of "do no evil".
Dormouse:
I tried downloading something from CNET recently, and found that it wanted to use a CNET installer and was going to install other stuff. I left it and found the software available on Softpedia with no extra stuff. I can't remember what the program was, but I've avoided CNET since.
Google do seem to be offering incentives to developers for recommending Chrome or getting it installed - but then they have been large funders of FF and Opera as well as developing Chrome themselves. I think that is at least as much about opposing MS & IE, as it is about being the preferred Search Engine.
wraith808:
which make me wonder what incentives Google is offering to software authors that this is now happening.
-40hz (February 08, 2013, 06:07 AM)
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It makes me wonder whether Google tolerates this behavior - that'd be piss-poor of them, and be a pretty damn clear violation of "do no evil".
-f0dder (February 08, 2013, 09:16 AM)
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That bird has flown the coop. The horns are out, and the cackling has begun.
40hz:
I tried downloading something from CNET recently, and found that it wanted to use a CNET installer and was going to install other stuff. I left it and found the software available on Softpedia with no extra stuff. I can't remember what the program was, but I've avoided CNET since.
-Dormouse (February 08, 2013, 09:44 AM)
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That was definitely a jive move on CNET's part. But they got so much backlash on it that they now furnish a very discreet link on most software titles that will let you go directly to the developer's webpage. If you open the full specs link from the product's main page you'll find it. Unfortunately more than a few devs are now either hosting their downloads on CNET's servers - or have cut a deal with them. So now, even if you go to some dev's homepage, their download link will still direct you back to CNET for the actual download.
Avast Installs Chrome
In the case of a product like Piriform's CCleaner, the link goes directly to Prirform homepage. And the download can be done directly from Piri. But other products like Virtual DJ, just send you back to CNET.
I have a firm rule that if a product is only available using the CNET loader, I'll pass. There's enough good stuff out there that we shouldn't have to put up with that.
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