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Comment by jonathanlydall | Hacker News Reader

If you click the "quick download link" on the home page it will lead you to downloading a "sponsored" version of the application, e.g. "FileZilla_3.66.5_win64_sponsored2-setup.exe" for me on Windows.

Clicking "show additional download options" takes you to https://filezilla-project.org/download.php?show_all=1 which has links to "clean" versions of the client.

Sidenote: It was Windows Defender which pointed out to me that I had downloaded "unwanted" software, otherwise I might have missed this before running the installer since I had downloaded FileZilla many times in the past without having to worry about it being bundled with unwanted stuff.

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I hate bundled adware as much as the next man here, but we also need to be fair and acknowledge that FileZilla plainly informs the user:

"This installer may include bundled offers. Check below for more options."

The download page[1] that is referred to by "check below" then gives a list of both installers (without the adware) and ZIP archives, and notably does not list the adware'd installer.

[1]: https://filezilla-project.org/download.php?show_all=1

"may include bundled offers" is not the same thing as "this will install adware on your computer."

This is incredibly deceptive for FileZilla and excuses like this just add to the embarrassment.

It's exactly the same thing.

Using "may" when you know full well it's "will" isn't honest. And I imagine the UI to install the "offers" makes them not really an offering, but a default.

I agree with you, but it being dishonest doesn't make it mean anything different.

No it's not.

If I say I 'may' give you a million dollars it's much different from _actually_ giving you a million dollars.

Included discounts versus mining your pc for advertising purposes, ok

If they're exactly the same thing, why doesn't it say "This will install adware on your computer" ?

May include bundled offers has different emotional implications to me.

Ah, I see you're on our team. Well played!

If the situation were reversed, and the default were clean and the adware was buried under "check below for more options," nobody would do it. The entire point here is to trick or confuse people who aren't paying attention.

I don't know why anybody would ever trust software that uses such dark patterns. Yes it's open source, but who has time to audit everything? We have to rely on other signals to determine how trustworthy a project is, and this is a strong negative signal.

https://www.deceptive.design/types/preselection

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