An era when websites were fast-loading, simple, information-dense and distinctively-styled yet still very readable.
The rest just makes it hard for average people to figure out what exactly the software is and how to download it.
It is not hard to figure out what it is, apart from the news announcement and a download link it says it right there with one sentence.
Want to know how it works. Press "How it works". Want do download it? Press "Download".
Contrast that with today where you have to figure out which filter bubble the author of the page is in. Such niche questions such as: Which OS does this work on? Which language is this library for? Can be quite tiresome to find out...
nowadays people will probably miss the download link by mistaking it with some advertisements or something similar. they look just like it nowadays...
though back then, the ads where mostly Flash so you it wasnt auto-filtered by your brain like it is now :)
Or, under the <h1> title "Downloads", the bolded table header "Download from" with the "Download from this site" link.
Good design doesn't require a huge, centred, flashing "DOWNLOAD!" button. This seems clear and uncluttered enough to me.
- The large, bolded "Click to download" text isn't clickable, like pretty much every other "Click to..." prompt you've seen.
- After a moment of confusion you think oh okay, there'll be a list of links to places I can download it from then. But there isn't. There's just the product logo. Download the product from itself, maybe? But why is it written like there's supposed to be a list? Hm.
- Oh wait, after "Download the latest version" there's a separate section called "Downloads", that's where the downloads must be.
- Okay, down there after a while there's bold text that says "Download", but that's not clickable, nor is the text next to it that says "Sandboxie Installer." Keep reading.
- Ah, okay, here's a table with a single row for some reason, with a nice link "Download from this site."
- Wait, why did "Download from this site" take me to a completely different site? The address in the bar is totally different, the design is totally different, I've never heard of this new site before and it wants me to give them my job title, full name, company name, and zip code. Is this a popup ad? Is this a scam? I thought I was downloading it from that site I was just on.
Incidentally it doesn't matter as the form doesn't understand my country's zip code system and won't accept it.
I suppose it may just boil down to a fundamental difference of opinion; I don't really think it's necessary for every website to try to accommodate entirely non-tech savvy users — especially a site offering software that already assumes existing technical ability (if you can't negotiate an antiquated download page, you're probably going to struggle to use a lot of software of that era, including Sandboxie).
Also, I can find the download link in maybe 5 seconds, but I bet my father who happens to be an aging software engineer, savvy enough to use this but getting slower, definitely can’t.
I personally have a project that is in it's early stages and the worst thing that could happen right now is that it goes viral and then I won't be able to work on it at my own pace anymore. Having a user base of 3 people is already tiring enough as it is.
And I hope you never lose half of your family to cancer within a 2 year period, like I dod. But, should that happen, you might appreciate what that word means. But I wouldn't call you "stupid" just because you don't get it. I'd say that we have different life experiences and assumptions.
A giant "download" button is perfect if your general audience is "everyone". Sandboxie is _nowhere near that level of popular_ nor could it be. Heck, that's literally why it's going open source right now: it's so niche, with such a narrow demographic, that there's isn't even any appreciable amount of money to be made from the people that DO use it.
The word 'download' is exactly the same font as everything else. So it's hard to find. Why not have a button that stands out? There are 2 links called 'click here'. So you have the read the surrounding text before knowing where you want to click. I can't think of a good reason not to have a clear call to action button that stands out from the rest of the page.
Compared to almost any modern site, this is really bad.
This site even works perfectly on mobile, because it doesn’t change to simplify itself to the point of being unusable, like many modern web sites do, often even refusing to stop doing so when choosing “request desktop site” in the mobile browser.
I'm on a 55 inch screen and have no problems with this website. In fact, I much prefer it to websites that only fill the center third with content.
I've been conditioned to almost subconsciously ignore "big green download buttons", because the vast majority of them are fake.
The only sites I know of that does that are pirate sites.
Are we talking about people who don't understand that if you want the actual details rather than the summary, that's not going to be on the landing page, but on their own dedicated pages?
As an example, take this Android tool I just downloaded:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.dvilleneuve...
Very early on, the copy says: "Lockito allows you to make your phone follow a fake itinerary, with total control over the speed, altitude and GPS signal accuracy. You can also simulate a static location. This is the must-have tool for any Android developers who needs to test geofencing-based apps or just test his app on different locations."
It's a clear, concise description of what the tool does, who needs it, and why.
If you don't have that, will some people still rummage around and download your thing regardless? Sure. But fewer of them. And here, for a product that people may not know they need, it could be a lot fewer.
I do not want any product page to do anything more than this. Please.
> Due to requirements of the U.S. government, export compliance is now mandatory when downloading our software. Complete the form to proceed with your download.
That's totally fine by me.
- it actually loads fast - it works without scripts. - it has no ads. - it has no tracking beyond page analytics.
If those are the benefits, then please, give me more shitty looking websites like this for all the other essential software that should be found on any sane professional's machine, and any "taking personal responsibility" home user's machine.
You're clearly disliking the design to the point that your criticism doesn't even make sense, if that's your complaint then say it outright instead of hiding it behind a lie.
i lived thru that era.
how were they fast on 56kbps modem connections? i clearly remember having to leave my pc on all night to download a single mp3. for websites i would usually grab a book and read a few pages while the site loaded.
Few third party js files
Optimized images
And the fact the site had to actually open on 56k modems
Pages were better before this modern SPA thing that ironically get sold in to improve user experience.
End of discussion I guess..?
Now that I see what things like Angular can do, with lazy-loaded components, and only downloading JSON data and letting the client render the DOM, my pages are actually much faster and the UX is vastly better.
Yes, you need to download the Angular libs, but so many pages use them now they are likely cached, and are negligible in size for a fast connection.
After that, it's client-side routing and downloading mostly just downloading JSON from a REST API. You don't need to server to push a 5,000 row table with all the mark-up, you just grab that data and have the browser construct your table.
And yes, you can still copy/paste the URL. And save the page as HTML. And everything else you can do with a "non-SPA" page.
YMMV.
And no doubt you can do amazing things with it.
But just because I and you can make good pages with it doesn't mean that everyone should do it.
Also, in my experience I guess it will typically
- more than doubles the cost (and I guess this is a conservative number)
- can easily introduce unnecessary problems that prevents cross-browser compatibility
- can often introduce security issues that many developers are unaware of
etc.
Then again maybe I should just let the SPA projects keep on coming: I am a consultant.
What I remember from that era is Flash, living through the shit show that was browser quirks and dealing with a front-end stack with no foundation in computer science.