Comment by ComputerGuru | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ComputerGuru | Hacker News Reader

Shit. I just found that my application which was updated last week and is the 10th most popular system utility app on Download.com is also being similarly bundled [1]. This was not the case last week.

I think Softpedia and FileHippo are the only big sites left not doing this ridiculous practice. I'm debating whether or not to pull the application listing. What do you guys think?

[1]: http://download.cnet.com/EasyBCD/3000-2094_4-10556865.html

EDIT

The benefit of our freeware not being open source is that we retain full control over distribution and packaging. Unlike nmap and others, we actually have a legal right to demand that CNet, et. al. either host the unaltered EXE or pull their listing.

I have just sent CNet a "cease and desist"-ish open letter, which we've also published on our blog. We will be forwarding this to any and all download sites we find bundling EasyBCD with their intrusive downloaders and installers, as that goes explicitly against the products' licensing agreements, which are there to prevent exactly this type of behavior.

Link: http://neosmart.net/blog/2011/open-letter-to-cnet/

tl;dr of link: C&D bundling of EasyBCD with installers and downloaders or pull the listing.

Most people would think it was you who bundled those extra "apps", not download.com. To protect your app's brand I would remove it from download.com

You can certainly put such demands into an open source license.

Perhaps the easiest way of doing it is to actually put the restriction on the trademarked name, forcing them to distribute it under a different, likely unrecognized, name if they want to change the officially distributed package.

I'd personally pull it. People are going to download it and it will then look like YOU bundled it this way.

Either it's your app or not.

(What would Microsoft's reaction be if BestBuy modified Office to install iTunes?)

The benefit of our freeware not being open source is that we retain full control over distribution and packaging. Unlike nmap and others, we actually have a legal right to demand that CNet, et. al. either host the unaltered EXE or pull their listing.

This isn't correct. Having open source software only means that you have to provide a way to get the source (for example, a download link, or an email address to contact; note you don't have to provide the source itself directly). You can control the branding of your application so only the official bundle can be distributed under your applications's name.

If you take a look at Mozilla Firefox, it can only be branded as such if it hasn't been modified. If you do modify it, you have to turn off branding, and you get a generic globe icon with the development name. This only applies to the program itself however, not the installer. For your case you could probably mandate that distribution of a binary installer with your application name must be your official installer.

If you ask them to they'll probably remove the crapware. Paint.NET is no longer bundled with anything due to the author contacting them about it.

http://blog.getpaint.net/2011/10/03/paint-net-v3-5-9-and-dow...

majorgeeks.com has been my go to download site for awhile now because of this kind of nonsense. I hope they don't go down the same road as download.com

While you're here:

The gallery link appears to 404:

(http://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/gallery/album/view/neosmart/Easy...)

Thanks. It was a absolute link missing the leading / so it went elsewhere. Should point to http://neosmart.net/gallery/album/view/neosmart/EasyBCD/Easy... now!

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