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Comment by Dalewyn | Hacker News Reader

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

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"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.

Included discounts versus mining your pc for advertising purposes, ok

May include bundled offers has different emotional implications to me.

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

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.

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

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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