Ghacks criticizes Cnet’s software installer and promotes a user script that replaces its Secure Software Installer links with direct download links, but ignores the obvious and ironic: Download.com already offers direct download links and Ghacks is filled with annoying “adware” of its own.
Last year I’m sure everybody noticed when Cnet rolled out a Secure Software Installer in place of the usual direct download links. Visitors long accustomed to downloads that were, as Cnet promoted, “adware, malware, and spyware free,” were suddenly confronted by annoying ad-supported installation packages.
A number of developers complained that their free software was being bundled to make a profit, and about the fact that Cnet required users to register in order to circumvent the installer for direct download links. The Direct Download Links never went away, they just became very inconvenient.
Cnet eventually relented and removed the registration requirement to use the Direct Download Links, and at the same time reiterated the fact that when it comes to the third-party offers advertised in the software installers they “… are clearly identified as such, and there is no requirement for the user to download and install the offer; rather, a user has the option to Accept or Decline.”
Now nearly all the software pages (or at least all the ones I can see worth downloading) on Download.com have a prominent “Download Now” or “Direct Download Link” displayed for visitors to use in lieu of its “Secure Download” software installer.
You can still use the “ad-supported stub installer,” as Cnet calls it, but it’s not necessary, and in fact, almost requires that you go out of your way to use it.
This is why gHacks odd promotion of a userscript that “changes Download.com’s download links to point to the direct download” is so confusing. The “CNET Download.com – NoBadware: Direct Download Links” userscipt would come in handy only if you were too lazy to select the direct download link that ALREADY EXISTS on each software download page. To suggest that people need to use a special script to rewrite the download links into the button is to suggest that users are too stupid to click the “direct download” link below the “download now (with an installer)” button. It’s possibly true, but definitely offensive.
So why all the fuss about an article that’s merely promoting a userscript that might make life easier for some? Because of the ironic fact that it has far, far, far more annoying ads and links to adware that Cnet’s secure “Secure Download” software installers do, and it even has ads that promote software downloads of its own requiring registration.
When it comes down to it freeware may be free for the visitor, but it isn’t for sites like Cnet. Somebody has to pay the costs of hosting, maintaining, and distributing the software and ad-supported installation packages with clearly defined opt-in and opt-out (and even options to bypass it altogether with prominent direct download links) is nothing short of fair and reasonable.
If gHacks really wants to promote an ad suppression tool then it ought to promote Adblock so that visitors to its site aren’t confronted by so many annoying ads of its own.
You know what they say about living in glass houses.
Stay tuned.
[email protected] | @jaredmoya
I've been interested in P2P since the early, high-flying days of Napster and KaZaA. I believe that analog copyright laws are ill-suited to the digital age, and that art and culture shouldn't be subject to the whims of international entertainment industry conglomerates. Twitter | Google Plus
