Humble Software Bundle $534 worth of awesome software, by Corel, Sound Forge,etc

[disenchanted]

Just arrived in today's email from Humble Bundle.

Several windows software programs. All on a Pay-what-you-want promo at Humble Bundle. Estimated value, as high as $534
At present time, it would appear a $12.00+ donation gets all software in this particular bundle.

SOUND FORGE Audio Studio 10,
Corel Painter Essentials 5,
Corel Aftershots
Corel Photobrush
Soda PDF V9
Magix Music Maker
a 1-year subscription to LastPass Premium,
Windscribe VPN [1-year]
CloudApp Pro,
and more On Humble bundle website, look under GAMES BUNDLE for this offer. Located right below the website's SEARCH box


Note: I'm not sure if this Soda PDF V9 is a perpetual license [without upgrades beyond current V9 version] or  "yearly" type license. I have used Soda PDF V7 and never upgraded.
When SODA PDF V8 came out, online end users complained that Soda PDF had become a 1 year "subscription" model/type license, requiring renewal every year. So I never updated my V7 , as it stayed a perpetual license.

[mwb1100]

Note: I'm not sure if this Soda PDF V9 is a perpetual license [without upgrades beyond current V9 version] or  "yearly" type license. I have used Soda PDF V7 and never upgraded.
When SODA PDF V8 came out, online end users complained that Soda PDF had become a 1 year "subscription" model/type license, requiring renewal every year. So I never updated my V7 , as it stayed a perpetual license.

-disenchanted (June 22, 2017, 04:46 PM)

It appears that it's the non-subscription "Home" license that normally sells for $79:

  - https://www.sodapdf.com/buy-edition/  (you have to read carefully to find the link to this purchase option from the normal subscription-buy page)

So I think that once you get this license you should never need to pay again as long as you're happy with v9.  That said, I became a little reluctant to invest the time in getting to know Soda PDF because something in the marketing & licensing of the software seems a little bit not-my-style. 

I don't really need a PDF editor, but I have occasionally wanted to remove or reorder pages in a PDF.  Also I have needed (rarely) to convert a PDF to Word and the software I used to do this with landed some PUPs on my system. That was annoying. So there's potentially some value in Soda's convert-to-Word functionality.

Since it's only $1 I might give it a try.  I'm also considering the $12 tier so I can try out a VPN for an extended 1 year trial on the cheap.

Does anyone have more detailed knowledge/opinions about Soda PDF or Windscribe VPN?

[Deozaan]

Does anyone have more detailed knowledge/opinions about Soda PDF or Windscribe VPN?

-mwb1100 (June 22, 2017, 05:44 PM)

You might find some answers about Windscribe from these other threads:

Windscribe - Get 50GB free VPN bandwidth every month for life
should I be using a VPN? why? what about the recent deals?

[4wd]

I'm also considering the $12 tier so I can try out a VPN for an extended 1 year trial on the cheap.

Does anyone have more detailed knowledge/opinions about Soda PDF or Windscribe VPN?

-mwb1100 (June 22, 2017, 05:44 PM)

FWIW, I picked up a lifetime Windscribe VPN deal on StackSocial about 8 months or so ago, (was ~AU$50-60), and have been using it pretty constantly while I've been in the UK and Ukraine, (leave UA tomorrow).

It's been great for me, constant connection and the speeds have been very good, (except UA in where almost every WiFi hotspot I've had access to, dialup would almost have been preferable - I'm talking about the raw WiFi speed, not after VPN connection).

All the exit gateways have worked except one, (can't recall it atm).
Using it via Secureswan on Android has been easy, (they are writing their own app).
Bittorrent is available on all exit gateways, IIRC, within reason, they start limiting if it's abused.
You can combine the Windscribe VPN program with the Chrome browser extension to do a Double Hop, eg. Choose UK in VPN program, the browser extension will automatically switch to UK gateway but then you can tell the browser extension to use, say, Germany.  So for browser traffic you go: Home->UK->Germany->Destination, through a VPN.

Only thing that would be better is if they provided the exit IP rather than TLD, eg. 1.2.3.4 i.l.o. uk.windscribe.com, (for Secureswan or OpenVPN configuration).  You can always look it up though.

For what I paid even if they go broke in a year it was still a good choice. 

[disenchanted]

Regarding Soda PDF, I got V7 a year or 2 back and have used it on my main laptop for printing online receipts [vs sending to a printer and killing trees] and saving copies of webpages [though I know better programs exist for saving a webpage and it's "look" and "data", on a specific date in time].

I haven't been a hardcore, look-under-the-hood-to-see-what-it-can-do type of user.
Just create PDFs , read and/or open, modify PDFs.

In that regard it is about like any other PDF creator program.
I do like the fact that if I create a PDF, it is smart enough to gather data from the PDF to automatically add a title to the file, right before I click the Save button.
[I've had a few PDF programs that wanted me to type in my own file name and that became a real PITA].

For me it's a basic, no problems yet, type of PDF program.  But then, I am not a PDF poweruser.  I  can't say it has bells and whistles that other PDF programs don't as I have not done any side-by-side comparisons.
It would be nice IF they added the OCR feature to the lessor editions of Soda. I think it is only offered within the highest edition of Soda.