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12951

General Software Discussion / Re: Cnet's Download.com and the installer scam

« Last post by mouser on August 26, 2011, 07:12 PM »

Renegade, your technical description of what's happening is accurate -- but i think you're talking about a distinction without a difference.  It might protect them in a court of law but it has no relevance in terms of evilness to the user and author.

The point is not whether they are technically modifying your installer or simply running a small stub program to make it appear as if they have done so.

The net effect is that for many/most users, they click download and think they are downloading and running the program installer, and instead then go through the installation procedure which introduces cnet download.com adware.

And the worst part is that the users will assume that this adware is something that the authors have chosen to include as part of the program installer.


And even though I don't make any, I'm not one of those people that views adware as an inherently horrible thing.  The problem is that it has to be up to the author to decide if they want to do this.

A site should not be able to trick naive users into thinking they are downloading and running a program installer written by and vouched for by the developer, which actually is adware/spyware that a 3rd party is serving up.


Note also how this perverts the whole incentive system for a site like CNet in evil ways -- their goal is no longer to help you find information about the program you might be interested in -- their goal is to keep you away from the real program website where you might god forbid be able to download a clean version of the installer.

A key evilness here is that many/most users will likely assume that THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE INSTALLER that they should even bother to look for.  This is critically important -- most users may have not the slightest idea that there is somewhere else a CLEAN installer provided by the author.  This is something completely new in the world of legitimate freeware/shareware, where a link to download a program has always been to the original unmodified files.  The only sites that have ever tried to make people think they were downloading one program while serving up modified or re-packaged versions are malware sites.

12952

General Software Discussion / Re: Cnet's Download.com and the installer scam

« Last post by mouser on August 26, 2011, 06:42 PM »

The best solution would be developer opt-in, with revenue sharing for those that opt-in, and a clear link to program homepage.

But as far as I'm concerned the only real bottom line thing that absolutely *must* be remedied as soon as possible is providing a cost-free way for developers to opt out of this installer wrapper.  Until that happens I think all of us are going to keep screaming bloody murder.

12953

Living Room / Re: The Official DonationCoder.com card game: CodyCards

« Last post by mouser on August 26, 2011, 05:41 PM »

What i'd love to see is a good video of a family learning to play CodyCards for the first time.

I will personally mail a deck of cody cards to any family with kids who promises it record and post a full video showing them learning how to play cody cards for the first time.

12954

DC Gamer Club / MOVED: The Official DonationCoder.com card game: CodyCards

« Last post by mouser on August 26, 2011, 05:29 PM »

This topic has been moved to Living Room.

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=26210.0

12955

Screenshot Captor / Re: Some coding help please? (scold me if you want)

« Last post by mouser on August 26, 2011, 04:14 PM »

Ok most of what you want is already default what Screenshot Captor does.

Start Screenshot captor, and then here's what you would customize:

1. In options tab "General Settings", check the box marked "Start Minimized":


2. In options tab "Interface Options 1", select the "After Capture Show: Stay Minimized"


3. In options tab "Screenshot Folder and Tools", click the button to set your Screenshot Folder as "c:\snaps\"


4. In options tab "File Naming Template", in the top Default New File Name, put: %customdate%
and at bottom Custom Date Format put: %Y-%m-%d %H_%M_%S
(note you cant use : as you requested since that character should not be used in filenames so i used _)



Capture sound should be played by default (check Post-Capture Options tab), so nothing to do here.
Hotkey should already be set as you want:



Let me know if it works for you.

12956

General Software Discussion / Re: Cnet's Download.com and the installer scam

« Last post by mouser on August 26, 2011, 03:01 PM »

Hi Seth,

First, thank you so much for posting, and for taking the time to talk with me/us about the issues.

You can tell that many of us are pretty upset over this issue.

I'm going to email the cnet-installer address and i will report how it goes trying to have the installer removed.

As I've expressed before, i think that 99.99% of this entire problem will be solved very easily if cnet simply makes it possible for authors to say they don't want their software wrapped with the cnet adware installer, without paying a fee.

CNet visitors may still rightfully be unhappy with getting this installer when they download certain software -- but that's a much more trivial issue that your visitors will have to make a decision about.  But as long as authors can freely exclude their software from it, that would satisfy me.

[there is still the issue of cnet download.com not showing links to program web pages that i think should be addressed, but that's a separate issue]

12957

Screenshot Captor / Re: Bug? Arrow Endpoint Text very slow

« Last post by mouser on August 26, 2011, 02:01 AM »

Can you try this version:
https://www.donation...nshotCaptorSetup.exe

Hopefully it will not only fix the slowdown bug but also speed up editing of the text from what it was before and improve the look of anti-aliased text (especially in memo boxes) when you use the default settings to anti-alias when not editing.

Let me know!

12958

Screenshot Captor / Re: LATEST MiniCap VERSION INFO THREAD - v1.20.01 - May 4, 2010

« Last post by mouser on August 25, 2011, 06:24 PM »

You want Screenshot Captor, it will do everything you are requesting easily.

MiniCap is when you don't want it to stay resident and don't want to trigger capture via hotkey.

12959

General Software Discussion / Re: Cnet's Download.com and the installer scam

« Last post by mouser on August 25, 2011, 09:43 AM »

Acceptable or unacceptable isn't what I was talking about -- I merely wanted to point out that I don't think that it is likely that they WOULD do it. I wasn't trying to comment on whether they SHOULD do it.  It simply makes for a much better page to have links to the original source. So, yeah - I'm agreeing with you about the "should" part.

-Renegade (August 25, 2011, 09:39 AM)

Ah ok I misunderstood you then -- my apologies.


I don't think these big sites have much incentive to listen when people like us complain, but I do see a possible long term solution, in the creation of an advocacy organization whose only purpose was to establish guidelines to benefit consumers, and which worked to get SEARCH ENGINES to penalize sites that don't score well on the recommendations.

The search engines are the key because they have an insane amount of power over ranking results and therefore an instantaneous dramatic effect on income for big sites.  A search engine could destroy any company on the web in a matter of minutes, and even a tiny change in rankings is likely to result in a very painful loss of income for a company.

So I'm basically suggesting that the most efficient and likely-to-succeed strategy for handling things like this is to set up an organization that establishes fair guidelines and for software sites, and reports on good and bad sites with respect to these guidelines, and then try to get the search engine companies (google, etc.) to treat the adherence to such guidelines as a factor in search engine rankings.

This would also help solve the problem I always rant about, which is companies which build up a reputation and then once they have earned respect and high search engine placement, they start to go rogue and do bad things, and by then their web traffic momentum is enough to keep them from paying a price.  Getting search engines to rapidly adjust rankings when a company starts behaving wrongly is the key to stopping these bad behaviors.

This is similar to the idea we discussed regarding anti-virus program awards.

Anyone at DC feel particularly motivated and qualified to start a new site to establish guidelines for such things and evaluate sites for good behavior? DC could provide the web space.

12960

Screenshot Captor / Re: Bug? Arrow Endpoint Text very slow

« Last post by mouser on August 25, 2011, 09:39 AM »

John,

I just managed to reproduce this.  It's definitely a bug, and it's definitely related to SC trying to anti-alias the text while you are editing it -- even when you tell it not to.  Seems that for some random reason sometimes high-quality anti-aliasing is being enabled during editing.

Working on a fix now.

12961

Find And Run Robot / Re: Cannot open item!

« Last post by mouser on August 25, 2011, 09:37 AM »

Try this option -- if it works i will try to make FARR smarter about launching unusual shortcuts directly:

12962

Site/Forum Features / Re: Posting from Mobile View

« Last post by mouser on August 25, 2011, 09:23 AM »

phitsc, see also this thread about it: https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=19208.0

Something I noticed, and wanted to make sure I was reading this right:  I posted from the mobile view for the first time today, and there was a little phone beside the post topic where the rectangle normally is.  Does this happen whenever you post from the mobile view?

I think you might be right.

12963

General Software Discussion / Re: Cnet's Download.com and the installer scam

« Last post by mouser on August 25, 2011, 09:20 AM »

I have to disagree with you there Renegade.

Not having a having a prominent link to the program homepage is unacceptable for a download site.

12964

General Software Discussion / Re: Cnet's Download.com and the installer scam

« Last post by mouser on August 25, 2011, 08:16 AM »

After talking to a CNet editor, I'm a little more optimistic about CNet coming to their senses and realizing that they need to give author's a way to opt-out of this process for no charge.. Keep the pressure on folks.

In my opinion, if a software site offers a program for download, a link to the developer/author should be displayed prominently as one of the first links you see.

This really needs to be mandatory -- and not a link to some generic developer home page -- but a link to the PROGRAM home page.  This is something that should not be optional.  Any site not doing this is purposefully and unreasonably trying to make it hard for you to go get the latest original download and information about the program (probably in an ill-advised effort to avoid you "leaving" their site).

12965

General Software Discussion / Re: Cnet's Download.com and the installer scam

« Last post by mouser on August 25, 2011, 07:47 AM »

vlastimil -- Awesome page

y0himba -- That's very interesting.  The one thing that would make Cnet reverse course faster than anything would be if this move started causing them to drop in rank on search results.  Here's a case where a policy of ethical search engine strategy could be used for good and not evil.. The problem is that the search engine companies are such behemoths that it's impossible to contact anyone at the companies who has the power to do something..

mahesh2k -- Actually I've only recently noticed that CNet software listing pages seem to not show links to the authors web pages, which is a separate battle we need to fight with them, since that's pretty outrageous on it's own.  Because of that, I'm not sure that CNet creates much traffic to DC from their normal software listing pages.  However, CNet seems to be sufficiently popular download site and users and editors review and rate our software on those pages.  And DC software tends to be quite highly regarded on those pages.  And the review ratings are shown as graphical stars and are ranked very high in (google) search engine results.  I think the ner effect of all this is that CNet pages are likely to have a positive effect in terms of people discovering our software.  That's more intuition than anything.  On the other hand, your point and vlastimil's very interesting early post where he suggested that the CNet pages could actually be competing for traffic *against* us are intriguing.

12966

Find And Run Robot / Re: Cannot open item!

« Last post by mouser on August 25, 2011, 07:46 AM »

See if there might be a space at the start or end of the filename.

12967

General Software Discussion / Re: Cnet's Download.com and the installer scam

« Last post by mouser on August 25, 2011, 12:24 AM »

I think at this point I would advise people *not* to remove their software from cnet *yet*.. But instead try to keep up the pressure on cnet to allow authors to disable this feature for their software, and make a final decision about what to do after we see how cnet responds to this criticism.  DC will push as for changes and try to highlight why the current situation is so unacceptable.

12968

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Feature request: Web clipping, permanent note keeping

« Last post by mouser on August 24, 2011, 11:24 PM »

As an aside: What I've said before is that I am always open to creating a *new* notetaking/pim tool, if someone could convince me that there is a real need for one that is highly specialized and focused on solving a narrow particular need/approach/workflow/personality.  There are some really good general purpose note tools out there that I have no interest in trying to compete with.  But if someone could come up with a streamlined focused idea for a lightweight notetaker with a specific point of view i'd bite.

12969

General Software Discussion / Re: Cnet's Download.com and the installer scam

« Last post by mouser on August 24, 2011, 08:20 PM »

That's a fantastic blog post Oshyan  

Really it would be trivial for CNet to solve this problem simply by letting authors choose to not have this adware installer bundle injected into their software download, without trying to extort $99/month from the author for the privilege.

That would essentially resolve the issue completely.

And then if they were smart they would what you suggest, which is to offer this as an option and offer to share some of the revenue with the authors.

12970

General Software Discussion / Re: Cnet's Download.com and the installer scam

« Last post by mouser on August 24, 2011, 06:49 PM »

Everyone should try to let CNet know how much they are opposed to this policy and will boycott CNet until they fix this.  Write emails, post on websites --we need to let them know this is not ok.

12971

General Software Discussion / Re: Cnet's Download.com and the installer scam

« Last post by mouser on August 24, 2011, 05:27 PM »

We could probably easily write code for standard installers (inno, msi, nis) that detected when an install was launched through cnet installer and aborted the install and warned users to avoid/boycott cnet and told them why, and directed them to the original download site.

That's not a bad idea.

12972

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Share your mouse and keyboard with multiple Mac or Windows computers

« Last post by mouser on August 24, 2011, 04:42 PM »

That sounds quite interesting!

12973

Find And Run Robot / Re: Search in Ceneo.pl

« Last post by mouser on August 24, 2011, 03:18 PM »

congrats

you are now an elite FARR user 

12974

Living Room / Re: Movies I Love to Listen To: Dialects and Accents

« Last post by mouser on August 24, 2011, 11:24 AM »

Great southern accent movie:
http://movies.netfli...Corndog_Man/60035068

12975

General Software Discussion / Re: Cnet's Download.com and the installer scam

« Last post by mouser on August 24, 2011, 05:59 AM »

Over and over and over and over again we see this same basic model for websites to make their money:

• First, the bait: the website is free for everyone and does provides tons of free information and writing, open to all equally and everyone is treated the same.
• Often a major part of the content is generated by users contributing their own time.
• Then after a reputation is built, and high placement on search engines is achieved.. time to pull the switch and make the money! Policies are changed to make money off of companies whose products are featured on the site, by offering to favor them over their free alternatives.