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Weather Watcher 5.6 - now better than ever!

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Mike Singer:
I just wanted to drop by and help clear up some of the confusion.

The 5.6.* version of Weather Watcher is offered in two setups.  The "Full Setup" is the setup that I have always offered.  It includes all of the files that came with all of the previous versions of Weather Watcher.  The "Bundle Setup" includes everything that the "Full Setup" includes, plus some extra skins and WhenU SaveNow.  See http://www.GetWeatherWatcher.com for a complete list of what each setup includes.  What you see there is what you get -- no tricks, nothing else hidden, etc.

The WhenU SaveNow product that comes with the bundle Weather Watcher setup is not spyware, malware, or any of the other things that people are slapping on it based on the reputation of the WhenU of the past.  Yes, WhenU has had problems in the past, but they have gone a long way since then.

We could all sit around and assume things about the bundled setup all day, but it's always much better to work with the facts  :)  If you wish to learn more about the bundled setup, then please see the following link from my support forum:

http://www.singerscreations.com/Forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=962

You'll in fact see that the WhenU SaveNow bundle is not spyware, it's not malware, it does not harm your computer in any way, it does not do anything behind your back, it does not try to trick you into anything, it does not nag you... need I go on?  8)

Creating, distributing, and supporting freeware is not an easy thing to do.  It is true that everyone gets to use Weather Watcher and everything that comes with it for free, but it does cost a lot of money to keep such a project going.  If I had to guess, I'd say that I recover about %1 of the money spent.  WhenU SaveNow is just a channel I am utilizing to help recover a little more of my expenses.

While I have done my best to educate people by giving them the facts, there are always going to be people who won't believe me, people who believe everything they read on the Internet, people who believe all bundled software is evil, people who don't understand the need to recover free software costs, people who don't understand the time it takes to keep a program like Weather Watcher going... oh, I could go on all day  ;D

mouser:
Thanks for taking the time to post mike - it's appreciated.

As I was saying, I think you are just trying to find a way to get a little money back from your software to help offset all of the time spent, while still being able to keep it available for free - an approach we can obviously identify with here on this site, since we are interested in the same thing.

I appreciate that people can be overly reactive about programs that show ads.  As we've discussed on this forum, people tend to mix in their minds spyware and adware, and think of any ad showing ap as evil spyware/malware, which it isn't.

It can be hard to tell the difference though, especially when something gets installed which doesn't just show ads in its own window but rather messes with other software on your system..

Personally I wouldn't bundle software like WhenU SaveNow - I know that it would upset people and confuse them - though i agree with you that its not going to harm their system.  But having said that we should appreciate that you are making a full version without any such adware available and easy to access on your site, so that anyone taking the time to visit the site and read can get a version without any advertising at all - and that should be commended.

Anyway, again I'm a weather watcher fan - i would heartily recommend it (and in fact we did recommend it in our review of such programs) as long as you keep a non adware version available - i would just caution people to visit the site and make sure they download the right version for them.  And if you like the program make a small donation.

clif_notes:
Hi all.

Thanks to Mouser and Mr. Singer. I'm happy to see good discussions of issues like this. I love controversy. It makes people think.

WhenU is still a bad word with my friends in the security forums. There's not much hope they'll accept any changes to their opinions soon. To be honest, I think WhenU is getting exactly what they deserve based on past actions. Just like Karma.

I've got no opinion or knowledge about SaveNow.

I still can't recommend anyone use either one, even if they play nice.

I'm wondering if either of the adware programs is targeted by my two favorite scanners, AdAware and Spybot S&D? I never worry about defining whether or not a program is bad. I let those two scanners decide for me.

Opera used to be adware. Neither of those two scanners ever complained about it, nor should they have. I used it for years with no problems.

brotherS:
I just wanted to drop by and help clear up some of the confusion.
-Mike Singer (November 13, 2005, 03:47 PM)
--- End quote ---
Hi Mike, thanks for that and welcome. :)

I'm curious: did you just 'accidently' find this discussion or did you use Google (Alerts)?

mouser:
i mailed mike with my donation and asked him if he wouldn't mind taking a look at the thread and adding any comments if he had any.  i think it's always helpful to hear from authors if they want to take the time to add some comments. it also tells you alot about the authors if they take the time to make a comment.

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