Video conversion: What's the best (freeware or shareware)?

[CleverCat]

all I have to do is get distracted for a split second (phone, kids, TV, whatever) and then I have a mess to deal with.

This is why I always monitor any installation with Total Uninstall. Ashampoo Uninstaller is also good for this.

Me too!

[Bamse]

Much trust could be gained if developers/marketeers, small or huge, supplied information about what is installed. Changes to startup, shell, folders used, registry changes or whatever impact their stuff has. Not really that hard to throw in if modern website tool is used. Then Total Install or other monitoring program would be waste of time.

[sajman99]

Not to be too pessimistic, but I cannot help but wonder if this type of trickery signals the end of "freeware". I mean, appreciation given to software developers is great and all, but it surely doesn't pay their bills. If some of these developers catch too much flack, I suppose many will just switch to shareware/payware. If this happens, freeware as a concept could gradually disappear. I really hope not.

[Bamse]

I think it is a minority who are concerned. More might get annoyed about toolbars or strange redirections in browser but will they know where it came from? Probably not even aware most can be uninstalled with no side effect to main program. Don't think you should be worried for lack of offers.

Sometimes it does help though. Like with Digsby. Only took 1+ year for Lifehacker and such popular sites to figure out details. Up to the "gone evil" complaints they were all for Digsby. There were hardly any mention of the truly clean "alternative download" link. Real one was not transparent and full of junk and fixed settings - for the not so aware at least. So don't trust review/tech sites either   Really a user/personal task to weed out crap. Or get used to it. I do use Digsby but no way I have much faith in developers approach to users. They did not end with complex bundling (worst ever?) but had it ready right from the start. There were not even a donation button on their site. Only reason they changed mind was because they got so much exposure on for example Lifehacker. Check their extremly late "discovery" here http://lifehacker.com/5336382/digsby-joins-the-dark-side-uses-your-pc-to-make-money vs. their victory 1 month later http://lifehacker.com/5361938/digsby-sees-the-light-removes-some-bundled-crapware Great effort unless you search for "digsby"  

[Zero3K]

This is free and works, although I use Pazera a lot.

http://www.oxelon.com/media_converter.html

I have just recently uploaded its source code to GitHub. It can be found at https://github.com/Zero3K/OxelonMC.