Annoyware neverending story

Lies. How can you otherwise name authors of the following words:

“Click the links below to start download immediately. It’s ABSOLUTELY FREE!”

You download the software and it’s not even named as it was on the page, suddenly it has Professional in the name – and of course… Trial! I wanted free DVD ripper for my Traveling Wilburys DVD bought from Amazon (I always grab my stuff for quite obvious reasons) and I was pretty sure I’ll come to some software like this tonight.

Do you know about any service where one can check the name of the software (or pretended name, whatever) and find out if it’s fake or not? Is it even possible to deliver such a service really credibly? Or do I need to ignore the whole sites to avoid this? Which one then?

Today I tried to find another word than scamware for this type of really annoying software. But as it was with scamware, annoyware also – quite naturally – came to other people’s minds before. Quite naturally.

Canon doubts

I use Canon – whatever the reason is. EOS 450D. But sometimes I just can’t fight off some doubts. There’s that stupid idea with EOS Utility instead of making the camera itself simple plain USB mass storage. Well – I can live with that, at least this utility sorts out my photos in some way I’m already used to. But when you want to show a few pictures to a friend, you’re just lost unless you have card reader (luckily, more and more common). This, however, leads us to the need for the utility even if one would not want it for some additional features. (What additional features? )

Recently I installed Windows 7 and I slowly go ahead installing all the software I use. Now I’m around Picasa and Canon utils. “God knows where I have my CD, let’s just download it from internet, right?” No, not right. After you choose your OS and language, you see only “EOS Utility Updater”. “Well perhaps it somehow installs the software even if it’s called ‘updater’.” No, wrong. Canon simply is not there yet. After running the updater I was asked to insert the CD coming with the camera.

I found it. No problem after all. But why? Why I have to stand up from my chair for a stupid driver? Why can’t I install the fresh one right away? I don’t know…

Maybe for the same reason the camera is not USB mass storage. Maybe because it’s Canon.

Maybe I just didn’t find the driver. But even then Canon would be to blame. Anyway, you can check more about this whole nonsense here and here. So, dear Canon, you want us to mess with registers or buy some f-ing CD?!

Wake up, Canon! It’s 21st century already. For nearly 10 years actually!

Adding “free” to search? In vain?

It’s not the first time I’m pretty upset with so called “freeware”. This time I needed DVD grabber (or ripper, whatever) and as I was sure there is some free solution I added “free” to my search. Whether you search for free VSTi or DVD ripper – lately you’re rarely offered the thing you really want directly – especially not for free. There are tons of various syndicate sites or how to call them. Download centralizing solutions. Well I go to one such site with the list of DVD rippers. Most of them were licensed as Demo – OK, I don’t mind, at least I know what to expect – and I can simply skip them.

So it happened that I downloaded some Agree Free DVD Ripper Platinum (“free” is even in the name of the actually downloaded installation file). After all it was mentioned as Freeware on one of those centralized download sites. First the software tells you it can’t process multiple files at once – because that can do only premium version. Ok… but when you really hit the Convert, software finally tells you how much it sucks. It can’t process the whole track. “Go to hell!” I want CDex for DVDs! Something simple and working.

I don’t mind… I really don’t mind that there are softwares I should pay for. What I’m objecting is that they try to cheat me. And I guess it even works sometimes – because there is a lot of poor users who hardly know what to think about this kind of “freeware”. It’s not enough that a lot of “services” offer “free download” of Shareware… like I should pay for the download itself otherwise? There are obviously many ways how to render word “free” in your searches close to useless nowadays. And lies are far from being the least used methods.