Well said. Agree wholeheartedly. Too many of us use our computers like we drive our cars. Most never read the operations manual. Bless this blog :-)

Scroll down and look at what Mariska (Mod) has to say. Especially her comment about MajorGeeks.

ninite is great but it has limited softwares listed checkout filetoss.com totally free from pups and even no ads, pops or any redirects not found on site just direct downloading links and up-to-date

Free free free! I want all my software for free because I get all my apps for free on my iphone “computer”. I bet at least half the people that get so upset about paying for software in one way or another don’t have the slightest clue about what it takes to create the software.
Hey, if you think a certain software should be completely free – why don’t you go ahead and just make it yourself…. it will save you time whining about it.
Do you ever complain why you don’t get refrigerators for free or why the a/c guy doesn’t repair your air conditioner for free? What about free car washes and tire replacements…? Free movies, free Netflix (how dare they charge you $9 a month).
I’m sure all of you guys work mostly for free too because all you do is show up in the morning, sit on your desk, do some stuff, there’s really no value in it, right? How could you expect your employer to pay for something like that?
Don’t you people realize that there is no such thing as a “free lunch”? The only time you really get something for free is when you show up late for a yard sale and the people are giving away the stuff they couldn’t sell – everything else, there’s always strings attached.
Wipe the fairy dust off your eyes and realize that software companies employ people, just like you (only smarter), and that they want to get paid at the end of the month too, just like you….

I don’t understand why snapfiles makes this list. They have always marked adware as far as I can remember. If you download a bundled program from there, they have a note below the description, right above the download button, and they have another note with a red exclamation mark on their download page – it’s really difficult not to notice.
I have contacted them several times over the years and they have always responded and either removed a listing that used tricky installers or flagged one that they missed.
From my perspective, they are one of the most legitimate download sites out there.

The reason that I suggested looking them up in Wikipedia, is because other people’s experience with NCH was far worse then mine. It has been a few years since this happened, so I might not remember every problem, but the ones that stick out in my mind are how at times I would try to open a file of some sort, usually an audio/video type for which I had some program already installed to handle it, I would get the Open With Menu, but at the top, I was “informed” that I did not have a program for that particular extension. Mind you I suckered for that a couple of times, because it was an extension that I rarely used, and probably hadn’t picked a program to handle it. It gave some sort of message that would induce you to click on it, and it proved to be a shortcut for NCH Software’s website. When I finally wised up, I then uninstalled all things NCH. This was not entirely successful. I still had that message on the top of the menu, not to mention NCH files all over the place. After downloading some cleanup software for no other reason than to get rid of their garbage, I was able to get rid of the menu problem, but believe it or not, I would still find something NCH related in some file folder. The sad thing is, they seem to write decent programs and you have to wonder why they would resort to such tactics.

Well spoken. I remember, many years go, when I first started with a download site, people where thrilled to see free software. Many casual Internet users didn’t even know that free software exists, they would buy all their software at Office Depot or similar places….
The tides have changed and now people are “What, you have to pay for software….?”
Not a good time for shareware developers. Many of them are simply forced to change their revenue model to sponsored installers because their competitors are doing it…

Unfortunately, the (monetary) success of these installers has spawned a whole new breed of software – trivial, low quality products that are purely designed to attract interest and get people to install the software. Once the software is installed, the developer has made his money (or not). These product often use some of the more shady installers like Somoto which can be very tricky and have a high rate of accidental installs.
More legit installers like OpenCandy for example adhere to certain standards that prohibit these types of exploits. In addition, they also have certain quality standards and often require a minimum number of downloads per month. You still have to pay attention during the installation, of course, and if you just click Next, Next and OK, you will end up with something extra.

I think you misunderstood me. I didn’t say that download sites don’t
make any money. Download Portals, like the vast majority of websites,
make money from advertising that is displayed on the site.

Some
sites extend their revenue model by using wrappers (Download Mangers)
that offer promotional products (PUPs) and then download the actual
software.

This business model has the advantage of generating
quite a bit of extra revenue but it comes at the cost of alienating
users. Typically, download sites that receive the vast majority of their
traffic from search engines, don’t really care because these are all
fly-by users that probably don’t even remember the name of the site
where they downloaded from.

Now, as to the free products like
uTorrent, Ccleaner, Freemake Video Converter etc. (just to name a few) –
their business model is to generate revenue from the promotional offers
in the installer. That is how they recoup the cost of development,
bandwidth etc. You will get those PUP offers no matter where you
download the software from, be it the developer’s site, a download site
or a Google search.

Maybe not 100%, but well over 95% of the cause. Some of the rest can come from other causes, like letting others use their computers, on their main accounts at that? Inserting Flash & optical drives not knowing what on those (or the owner not knowing it’s done behind their backs). Visiting sites such as Yahoo Mail & clicking onto ads that promises things ‘too good to be true’. Evidently the ‘Free Laptop’ scam never fully played out.

And the cure as well. Watching out where one gets their downloads, take Emsisoft Anti Malware, for example. Some of those very same sites hosts the download, File Hippo (a site I once held in high regard) even still carries the older, Free version of A-Squared & other sites still hosts the Free Online Armor downloads. Yet I’m sure something comes with those, and of course I don’t believe Online Armor is free anymore, it’s also likely that A-Squared, if it works, will be updated to EEK or Emsisoft Anti Malware.

At any rate, one can get EEK, EAM or OA direct from the site with no PUP’s attached. Not sure about ‘A-Squared’, it’s been like 8-9 years back since I’ve used it.

Finally, if you’re going to let others use your computer, create a separate account with limited privileges, then set the restrictions so tight that they’ll not want to ask again. It works!

Or if they say ‘it’s important’, give then that XP computer that was last used 2 years ago, and see how important it really is.

Cat

You run a server linking consumers to all of these sites & yet you state ‘nor do we make a dime on it’. I’ve heard that from many in the retail business, from furniture sales to those who sells used cars. Many will say the same exact thing, not a dime is made on used car sales, yet if one goes to the same auto lot to purchase a new one, they’ll say the same about new cars, ‘there’s no markup on new cars, as you see on the sticker’. ‘Our money is made on used cars’, ha, their ‘money’ is made on everything that comes & goes from their lots/stores.

I was in sales for 13 years, and I’ll be honest, I made a small fortune. There is nothing to be made in giving away anything, including links to downloads loaded with PUP’s, if what you’re saying is true, you’ve lost a boatload of cash in lost opportunity alone.

What’s the point of being in business if no money is made?

Cat