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Why do these sites even exist?

If I want HandBrake, I get it from handbrake.fr. I get VLC from videolan.org. I get OpenBSD from one of its mirrors. Etc. Etc.

So are download sites mainly for the subset of people who a) download software (a small percentage of all users) and b) don't know enough about that software to know where it comes from?

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In the past people knew the WWW was risky and that you should only download software from trusted sources. These places quickly became trusted sources.

That's obviously wrong, but the problem wasn't helped by a bunch of projects using eg Sourceforge for hosting.

Sometimes the official website only provides their software through these websites

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