No more Filehippo for me

[Curt]

It is difficult for me to describe just how disappointed I am with Filehippo and SUPER/eRightSoft.

We knew that the eRightSoft homepage author was a blithering idiot, because he made it impossible for visitors to find where to download the company's product: SUPER. But that was why Filehippo was (not is) the place to go, if you wanted to download the otherwise fine SUPER converter. On Filehippo it is easy to find where to download SUPER, so that's where we went.

And as usual Filehippo would supply a clean file, wouldn't they.
No, they won't! They would, but they won't!!


I want to tell you the story, but I need to say upfront that Opera was installed without my acceptance!  


Of course I was soon aware that this has become adware:




"Okay, I know how to unselect", I thought, and went on installing.

Notice, there is no [X] (no red Exit -button), but "Close" is spelled & greyed out
and moved to the lower left corner, (where "Close" never is situated in Windows)
and normal installation is now custom installation for experts only,



also, this picture is misleading, because all extra programs were pre-selected by default
(before I realized I needed to take some screenshots):




^ Did you notice that Opera will "be SUGGESTED"

--------

These warnings came during installation, when I unselected the extra offers:
"You removed a program. This will affect your computer. Abort?"
What would you click here? The answer is not OK...




My PC might not be infected, it is infected! (Yes, by this application!)






^ This Uniblue program is called "Speed Up", so I tried to be speedy, but I was too slow:
Even though I clicked Decline
(can you even find the "Decline" -button?)
half of Speed Up  and all of Opera  were installed!!!

This was too much for me; it is not acceptable behaviour, even from greedy, blithering idiots.


In my old-fashioned mind Filehippo should be above this. But on the contrary, Filehippo is the central part of it.
No more Filehippo for me!  

[mouser]

Thanks for warning the rest of us 

[skwire]

FileHippo moved to bundled installers (and a new site design ) some time ago.  Sad, really, as their site was beautifully laid out and easy to work with.

[Renegade]

I'm not surprised. The market has been overcrowded for a long time, and running a site takes serious effort. Ad revenues are crappy, and at some point these things creep in. The problem is similar for a lot of software authors.

[Curt]

FileHippo moved to bundled installers

-skwire (March 06, 2015, 01:50 PM)

^the tech term may be different, probably "Web installer"? "Web download & install manager"? I don't remember.

The "web" point being that (besides SUPER) it will offer you some different programs, next time you run the same SUPERsetup.exe again.

[Nod5]

Wow, that is a seriously misleading, malwaricious installer! Shame on Filehippo for hosting it.    A few thoughts:

1 I've used filehippo before and have seen the increase in these bundleware installers. My attitude was to just stay alert and avoid their shenanigans. But I've grown more negative. I mean even if I escape their tricky behaviour others do get caught up with bundleware from those installers. Otherwise Filehippo wouldn't keep pushing that. Well I don't like a site that so shadily tricks users so I'll stop using Filehippo.

2 Another reason to not use Filehippo and sites with similar bundleware tactics is that they poison the well for all sites hosting software. Howtogeek recently ran a post headlined "Spread the Word: Ninite is the Only Safe Place to Get Windows Freeware". They nuance that a bit in the text, but still. The combined effect of Filehippo tricky installers and the howtogeek type of very general advice can harm places like DC. I can imagine an average internet user who through google finds a tool on DC but in the end stay away from it simply because they've been burned by Filehippo style installers before and are just not familiar with DC.

3 In the tracks of 2, maybe DC could inform newcomers more that installers here do not have tricky bundleware installers? The about page says nothing about that. The software page only shortly state "None of our software contains spyware or adware of any kind" in the left column. Here's an idea: we add a dedicated "DC pledge" page that very clearly states no spyware, no bundleware, no tricky installers, link to info on AHK false-positives and so on. The page should also highlight the long and good track record of DC as a safe source for software. Add to that a DC pledge icon we all use to link to that page from dcmembers pages and in forum posts for newly made software. The icon could go also on the DC main page and other big landing pages.

[Curt]

3) In the tracks of 2, maybe DC could inform newcomers more that installers here do not have tricky bundleware installers? The about page says nothing about that. The software page only shortly state "None of our software contains spyware or adware of any kind" in the left column.

Here's an idea: we add a dedicated "DC pledge" page that very clearly states no spyware, no bundleware, no tricky installers, link to info on AHK false-positives and so on.

The page should also highlight the long and good track record of DC as a safe source for software.

Add to that a DC pledge icon we all use to link to that page from dcmembers pages and in forum posts for newly made software. The icon could go also on the DC main page and other big landing pages.

-Nod5 (March 07, 2015, 03:07 AM)

I really like your ideas, Nod5.  

[mouser]

3) In the tracks of 2, maybe DC could inform newcomers more that installers here do not have tricky bundleware installers?

Actually I've been thinking the same thing to.. When DC was started this was not something that needed to be said, but in today's age, it does seem something worth saying loudly and clearly.  I'm going to put a nice big sign saying this on all dc software pages.. and having it link to a nice "DC Pledge/Promise" page which also mentions our privacy policy, etc. is a great idea.  I'll have it up before the fundraiser on the 23rd.

[Innuendo]

I will miss the old FileHippo. It used to be the perfect site to go grab an old installer for an old version. All good things must come to an end, I guess.