4 ms·

Yes, Every Freeware Download Site Is Serving Crapware (Here’s the Proof) (2019)

19 points by memorable 4y ago

NickRandom 4y ago
(2019)
toss1 4y ago
ok, So it ends up strongly recommending Ninite as the only way to go for cleanly installing freeware/open source software. Since this is 2019, does anyone have any current info on the reliability of that recommendation?
morsch 4y ago
Tucows used to be such a quality site. Here's their 1999 listing for download managers (themselves pretty much obsolete unless you're connecting from an oil rig): http://web.archive.org/web/19981202201711/http://www.tucows.de/manager95.html http://web.archive.org/web/19981202201711/http://www.tucows.... Their ratings were a good indication of software quality. My download manager of choice was GetRight, which naturally got the coveted five cows rating. (And I probably downloaded it from Tucows many times.) To get to that page, I first had to manually select a Tucows mirror from a long list. CDN was manual on both ends, the client selected the closest mirror manually, and the mirrors were sporadically synced. With a tool like GetRight, you could actually download large archives from multiple mirrors (by manually looking up the URLs and pasting them in GetRight); and, if course, (usually) resume a download when the dialup connection broke, this was a download manager's primary purpose. Almost mandatory for things larger than the average software utility. I guess I should stop rambling now.
- Lammy 4y ago
  > you could actually download large archives from multiple mirrors I still have this need these days, but for kind of the opposite reason as I did back in the GetRight days. Today my own internet connection is fast and always-on, but lots of files I want to download get shared via file-upload services like Mediafire, MEGA, etc. JDownloader2 does a great job resolving links from disparate sites into a single download and gracefully handles the countdowns/captchas/quotas when I don't want to buy a premium plan for any given upload service: https://jdownloader.org/jdownloader2 https://jdownloader.org/jdownloader2
nmstoker 4y ago
Do sensible people honestly use these sites? Might make me seem a bit of a tin hat nutter but once you've taken a risk with a site like this, you've basically no idea what they did to your computer. What's wrong with solely using trusted sources or direct from safe looking open source repos? (not that this guarantees safety but it's a much more likely outcome than some blackbox where they barely hide the fact they put other things in the downloads!)
- lock-the-spock 4y ago
  The majority of computer users have little idea of what they are doing or how to distinguish a good from a bad site...

19 points by memorable 4y ago

(2019)

ok, So it ends up strongly recommending Ninite as the only way to go for cleanly installing freeware/open source software. Since this is 2019, does anyone have any current info on the reliability of that recommendation?

morsch 4y ago

Tucows used to be such a quality site. Here's their 1999 listing for download managers (themselves pretty much obsolete unless you're connecting from an oil rig): http://web.archive.org/web/19981202201711/http://www.tucows.de/manager95.html http://web.archive.org/web/19981202201711/http://www.tucows.... Their ratings were a good indication of software quality. My download manager of choice was GetRight, which naturally got the coveted five cows rating. (And I probably downloaded it from Tucows many times.) To get to that page, I first had to manually select a Tucows mirror from a long list. CDN was manual on both ends, the client selected the closest mirror manually, and the mirrors were sporadically synced. With a tool like GetRight, you could actually download large archives from multiple mirrors (by manually looking up the URLs and pasting them in GetRight); and, if course, (usually) resume a download when the dialup connection broke, this was a download manager's primary purpose. Almost mandatory for things larger than the average software utility. I guess I should stop rambling now.

Lammy 4y ago
> you could actually download large archives from multiple mirrors I still have this need these days, but for kind of the opposite reason as I did back in the GetRight days. Today my own internet connection is fast and always-on, but lots of files I want to download get shared via file-upload services like Mediafire, MEGA, etc. JDownloader2 does a great job resolving links from disparate sites into a single download and gracefully handles the countdowns/captchas/quotas when I don't want to buy a premium plan for any given upload service: https://jdownloader.org/jdownloader2 https://jdownloader.org/jdownloader2

nmstoker 4y ago

Do sensible people honestly use these sites? Might make me seem a bit of a tin hat nutter but once you've taken a risk with a site like this, you've basically no idea what they did to your computer. What's wrong with solely using trusted sources or direct from safe looking open source repos? (not that this guarantees safety but it's a much more likely outcome than some blackbox where they barely hide the fact they put other things in the downloads!)

lock-the-spock 4y ago
The majority of computer users have little idea of what they are doing or how to distinguish a good from a bad site...