Update: (October 4th, 4:30pm PST) Download.com is no longer doing this (at least, not with Paint.NET).
I just noticed that download.com updated their listing of Paint.NET to version 3.5.9. Neat. Except that now they’re wrapping it in their download manager which tries to get you to install the “StartNow” toolbar. What a bunch of **** (insert your favorite 4-letter word).
I’ve already sent them an e-mail telling them that this is a violation of the Paint.NET license and to either cease this, or to remove Paint.NET from their site.
In the meantime, I obviously recommend not downloading Paint.NET from download.com.
More info on this despicable practice: Download.com wraps downloads in bloatware, lies about motivations (extremetech.com)
Update: (October 4th, 9:30am PST) I received a reply from them at 2am stating they had removed the download manager from their listing of Paint.NET v3.5.9. However, as of 9am, they have not actually done this. If you go to the Paint.NET v3.5.9 listing on download.com, it still has their spammy download manager attached to it!
22 comments
October 3, 2011 at 6:33 pm
Ron
Rick, I applaud your stance on this. I no longer download anything from download.com because of this practice.
October 3, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Lance McKnight
Interesting. I have frequent download.com before, which is how I discovered Paint.NET as a free alternative to PS, and never knew that they try to force feed Bing to users. That is my problem I have with the new IE9, the browser keep insisting to try to install Bing toolbar, which I keep telling it “No, No, and NO!” Or was that for ask.com toolbar? Anyway, as Ron said, I agree with your stance.
Also, I downloaded the newer PDN version and so far, haven’t had any problem. Keep it up, man!
October 4, 2011 at 12:14 pm
Tom
IE9 does not ask to install the Bing toolbar — or any toolbar. If you keep being asked, then you may need to scan your computer for malware.
October 3, 2011 at 8:02 pm
Tommy Rutledge (@Tanliel)
We’re all behind ya, Rick! Keep up the great work.
October 4, 2011 at 1:47 am
Klimax
This is kind of unfortunate as they’re listing is/was quite huge and this appears to be quite recent “addition”.
It looks like they allow users to deselect Bing, but wrapping itself might be problem…
(However there is small funny thing though…)
October 4, 2011 at 9:06 am
Rick Brewster
What’s the “small funny thing” … ?
October 4, 2011 at 10:10 am
Klimax
Not anymore. And no longer sure if original thought is correct.
Consider “funny thing” withdrawn. Just error… (or exception?😀 )
Sorry.
October 4, 2011 at 10:50 am
Rick Brewster
I just didn’t know what you were referring to🙂
October 4, 2011 at 6:02 am
@WinObs Tweeted Links for 03 October 2011 | WindowsObserver.com
[…] Paint.NET v3.5.9 and Download.com Source: Paint.NET Blog […]
October 4, 2011 at 9:43 am
AngryTechnician
Minor correction – it’s not actually the Bing toolbar, its the StartNow toolbar. It does use Bing as its engine, but the real Bing toolbar is far more benign (and actually has some useful features, unlike StartNow).
October 4, 2011 at 9:47 am
Rick Brewster
Yeah I got the two mixed up. I’ve updated the post. Thanks.
October 4, 2011 at 3:42 pm
Victor Zaguskin
They’ve done the same thing with my products but removed the wrapper after my request. Many other developers report the same.
Sad that the largest download site that used to be good and had reputation is now involved in such crappy behavior.
They didn’t even make their crapware installs opt-in, but opt-out! Which means that they completely stopped caring what people think of them.
October 5, 2011 at 2:13 am
Eduardo Maldonado (@emaldonadomalo)
I use http://www.filehippo.com, and there are not problems like these.
October 6, 2011 at 12:33 pm
jb
great job, really!!
October 6, 2011 at 11:53 pm
FreewareBB
Rick, my name is marko from freewarebb.com – like many download sites we’ve felt the pinch and I personally have been paying hosting costs since last year after our advertising revenue dropped dramatically. This is the reason why these download sites are beginning to introduce these “installers” – tucows are doing it as well now, they too are feeling the pinch. However, I would rather shut down the site than integrate any kind of installer or try to trick users – we even blacklist software when we don’t like what developers are doing with their own installers. As a responsible developer, stick to responsible download sites – even if they remove the installer from your application, for me, it’s once bitten twice shy – they’ve shown their hand as far as I’m concerned!
October 8, 2011 at 3:17 am
Thu Win (@tyw7)
They (Cnet download.com) now offer the installer as a zip WITHOUT the wrapper exe. I tend to use major geeks for downloads.
October 8, 2011 at 11:12 am
Rick Brewster
Yup. Hence the “Update” at the top of the post.
October 11, 2011 at 5:50 pm
CNet’s Download.com Now Installing “Crap-Ware” | Daniel Woolnough
[…] We are all used to freeware authors trying to package some other tools such as the “ask.com” bar into their programs to make a little extra cash aslong as you can opt out before the installation process.. BUT in this case, it is download.com packaging these software files into the “crap-ware” package. Even some program creators are shocked by this, such as the creator of the popular image editing freeware, Paint.net, Rick Brewster. REF […]
December 3, 2011 at 2:12 am
William
Hi-ya.
It is becoming more and more difficult to publish free software. I tip my hat to you for making a stand against what CNET’s download.com does. Thank you for linking to the “extremetech” article.
Having said that.. I understand that money and not charity is the motivation to such services.
I wish I could be a paying patron of your brain child. PAINT.NET does deserve to be paid for software. All I am left with is to say thanks for sharing your passion with us. May your fingers keep on doing the walking on your keyboard.
As side notes:
I use your software mainly for designing pictures for industrial operator panels. In the PC world the pixel sizes makes it icons. Funny things happen in PAINT.NET when using 1px and 2px rectangles on a canvas of +/- 64x64px.
The option to create your own colour scheme is brilliant and works very well when you only have 4 colours of grey to work with.
A 1,000,000 thanks.
— William
(Industrial programmer)
December 7, 2011 at 9:55 am
AngryTechnician
2 months later and Download.com is still doing this for a lot of other software, but it’s finally all kicked off after the developers of Wireshark and Nmap found their software was affected: http://insecure.org/news/download-com-fiasco.html
Hopefully the amount of bad press now going around will force a policy change (and a pink slip for whoever’s idea it was).
December 7, 2011 at 12:14 pm
Rick Brewster
Iiiinteresting. Thanks for the link. They’re even infecting installers for games, like Microsoft’s Age of Empires II!
December 7, 2011 at 1:03 pm
download.com getting more attention for spreading malware « Paint.NET Blog
[…] I posted earlier about how download.com was wrapping Paint.NET with their own download manager / installer which would install a toolbar or some other stupid thing. Thankfully this issue was resolved, although not without a few bumps (“yes we removed it” … 24 hours later … “no you didn’t” … 6 hours later … “OH sorry we’ve fixed it” … “damn right you have”). […]