steven36 Posted June 9, 2016 Share Posted June 9, 2016 The simple model that gave us all sorts of cool utilities, add-ons, and entire suites of software has changed drastically. As I write this column, I immediately wonder if the situation is so dire that I have to actually define freeware and shareware. I hope not. Freeware and shareware rode a wave of popularity and success in the 1980s, as providers got rich sitting back and collecting donations for their coding efforts. But over time, the simple model that gave us all sorts of cool utilities, add-ons, and entire suites of software changed drastically. It forked into a number of new models, most of which were designed to get more money. One of the most onerous models was crippleware, which limited file size or how often and long you could use it, etc. Parallel to this was nagware, which relentlessly reminded you to buy the software as you were using it. This sort of technique is still used by free anti-virus software providers, which want you to upgrade and add features you may or may not want. All this is a nuisance, but nothing like the plague of misdirection download services. This particular trick stems from sketchy companies doing deals with download sites to get people to accidentally download crapware, or software that ostensibly provides a handy feature but is often infected with malware. Download sites are also often littered with a slew of fake buttons that make it easy to download the wrong thing. I've looked at some of these sites and wonder why the FTC doesn't go after these folks. Some of this software, for example, will serve you unwanted ads carefully planted on legitimate sites in places where there is not supposed to be an ad. Advertisers that use these ad agencies should be ashamed of themselves, although I believe few even know it's actually happening. Even individual vendors have set up shop with these folks as a way to make money for their legitimate product. So you are inconvenienced by the crapware, so what? You're a cheap bastard anyway. That is how they think. The shining star in all this is Sourceforge, where the good fight is still being fought. No scams, no misdirections, and an amazing amount of very high-quality products along with beta gems being polished. There is nothing quite like it. My advice is to go there and look for those handy utilities before looking anywhere else. Freeware is not yet fully dead as long as these folks keep this site alive. Side Note : SourceForge has been under new ownership since Januray and they been working real hard to keep it clean and safe from now on and if you like free stuff it's still there . You can read more about what SourceForge is doing here The State of SourceForge Since Its Acquisition in January The Source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
player Posted June 9, 2016 Share Posted June 9, 2016 wasn't sourceforge once listed as malicious site by google and blocked by ublock? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sylence Posted June 9, 2016 Share Posted June 9, 2016 1 hour ago, player said: wasn't sourceforge once listed as malicious site by google and blocked by ublock? Yep! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OrbingStorm Posted June 9, 2016 Share Posted June 9, 2016 Sourceforge is awesome.Lost count of the number of downloads I've done from there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VileTouch Posted June 9, 2016 Share Posted June 9, 2016 does that mean they're returning the projects taken over from owners and removing their own unofficial builds with adware and god knows how many vulnerabilities implanted? i mean, that was a really dick move. they can't expect people will forget that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mona Posted June 9, 2016 Share Posted June 9, 2016 4 hours ago, player said: wasn't sourceforge once listed as malicious site by google and blocked by ublock? 2 hours ago, saeed_dc said: Yep! SourceForge has been under new ownership since Januray 2016, and it makes a difference : the current staff has been working real hard to keep site clean and safe from now on. So if you like free stuff it's still there . @steven36 actually posted the link with further information above. ................. Logan Abbott , the new President of SourceForge said lately on Rededit : Quote We acquired SourceForge and Slashdot in January from DHI Group (also known as DICE). The first thing we did after we took over was remove bundled adware from projects: https://sourceforge.net/blog/sourceforge-acquisition-and-future-plans/ As of a few weeks ago, we also now scan for malware in case third party developers are adding their own adware: https://sourceforge.net/blog/sourceforge-now-scans-all-projects-for-malware-and-displays-warnings-on-downloads/ Today we launched a great HTML5 speed test that works on all devices and does not require Java or Flash. To my knowledge, this is the most comprehensive HTML5 speed test on the web and provides a ton of customized detail to the user after the test is complete: https://sourceforge.net/speedtest/ In the past, SourceForge has also taken heat for deceptive ads that may look like download buttons. To this end we have a full time team member that polices the site and blacklists deceptive ads that sneak in via programmatic ad exchanges. And we have not announced it yet, but in the next couple of weeks we will be releasing a self-serve tool where users can report those misleading or deceptive ads that sneak in via programmatic ad exchanges so that we can blacklist them right away. We're committed to restoring trust in SourceForge and building out some cool new features. Any feedback or comments are welcome. I'll also answer any questions that come up. EDIT: I'd love to hear what features/improvements you would like to see at SourceForge. Feature requests, partnerships with other open source repositories, etc. EDIT 2: Not quite AMA level verification but for those asking for some verification, I tweeted a link to this discussion to my personal twitter here: https://twitter.com/loganabbott/status/740606014173544448 and the quote from following discusion : Quote [–]trevorishereSharePoint Server MVP 439 punktów 1 dzień temu After a protracted mistrust of SF for multiple reasons, what are your plans to regain that trust and attempt to bring in F/OSS projects once again? Why would one want to move from GitHub, GitLabs, or even CodePlex to SF at this point? permalink embed [–]loganabbott[S] 477 punktów 1 dzień temu* Good question. A few of the things I addressed in my original post. The first thing we did was address the "low hanging fruit" so to speak which was immediately scrapping the bundled installer "DevShare" program that installed unwanted malware with project downloads. We also now scan for malware on all projects so that users can feel secure in downloading from SourceForge once again. Our view is that if users start to trust us again, then developers will be more inclined to host projects with us as we are still a great vehicle for distribution. One example that comes to mind of the benefit of this malware scan is that projects like FileZilla bundle adware with their installer if you were to download it from the FileZilla official website, but due to our malware scans they have a clean download available on SourceForge now. GitHub and the other repositories you mentioned are great, but for the everyday, completely non-technical user, SourceForge is still easier to download software from. For example, my mother could figure out how to download and install software from SourceForge, but would probably have a harder time getting up and running with a repository on GitHub. The knock in the past has been that SourceForge has ads that look like download buttons. As I mentioned in the original post we have a full time staff member dedicated to identifying and blacklisting these ads. In the coming weeks, we will be launching a feature that allows any user to report a deceptive ad for blacklisting. These ads are not ads that we want on our site, and are mainly a result of underhanded advertisers trying to take advantage of users on our site by building deceptive ads and getting them through via programmatic ad exchanges. We are not looking to get people to ditch GitHub et all, but rather to view SourceForge as a valid alternative and to give developers more options. SourceForge still hosts half a million projects, and we receive over a million unique visitors per day, so it's a great distribution channel. In the near future we will be modernizing the backend interface for project admins, and we're exploring partnerships with other open source repositories. As soon as these materialize, I will let you all know. The main thing I want to impart is that we are a completely different company than the one that made the decisions that ended up causing mistrust. permalink embed rodzic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pc71520 Posted June 9, 2016 Share Posted June 9, 2016 SourceForge = Clean again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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