Why big open-source projects are fleeing SourceForge's free software hub

Why big open-source projects are fleeing SourceForge's free software hub

Why big open-source projects are fleeing SourceForge's free software hub

And another download site bites the dust. Bundled junkware is the bane of my existence as far as working on computers. I should keep track, but I'm going to guess that 70% of the issues I deal with are caused by bundled junkware in a download. I nearly wept when the venerable Tucows went to the Darkside.

SourceForge is starting to back off of the adware laden installers, but the damage to their trust and reputation has been done. Then there are the installers from what should be trusted sources like Adobe that now try to sneak in garbage like searchbars, McAfee or Norton, unwanted browsers, etc. and unfortunately these are almost always opt-out installers, not opt-in.

Collector, you certainly speak the truth. When I updated Adobe Flash Player a few days ago, I almost missed seeing a checked box that was going to download something else along with it. Fortunately I caught it and canceled the download and then started over. It reinforced the fact that I can't ever assume now that there won't be stuff attached to downloads by default, no matter how "trusted" the vendor.

In my opinion, Adobe is one of the worst offenders because people assume they can trust them. In fact, Adobe is at the top of my list for warning my people because they regularly get notices for Flash and other Adobe products.

Adobe and Java too. I've heard numerous people saying they opted out when updating, yet the extra junk installed anyway.

To me that is worse than simply including the junk. The "opt out" controls need to be 100% trustworthy. And the junk should not be included in any "update."

I do not know what moron thought this would be a good idea.
Unwanted advertisements equate to "Do not buy the advertised product under any circumstances."
...which defeats the purpose of advertising.

Collector,

I notice the DOSBox downloads at
http://www.dosbox.com/download.php?main=1
still point to Sourceforge.

Do you know if that going to change?
I hesitate to recommend DOSBox to anyone if the only download site is Sourceforge.

I am starting to agree with Steve Jobs about Flash and the sooner that we make the transition to HTML5 and dump Flash the better. That still leaves Java and Acrobat Reader.

if you are going to wonder about morons pushing ads then spammers have to be added to that list. Who would possibly click on drug or enlargement spam? Even the more annoying embedded ads simply get blocked with the likes of Adblock plus never to be seen.

The DOSBox installer is safe. It was mostly the abandoned SourceForge projects that were getting bundled. I have the DOSBox installer source and can testify that it is clean. Qbix (the main DOSBox author) is aware of the SourceForge scandal and does have undisclosed contingency plans, but so far it is the same installer that he compiled himself. If anyone is still leery they can always unpack it with 7-zip, but it is really a very minimal installer. It makes no registry entries and the only thing is writes outside of its own folder is its Start Menu items. It does not even install its video capture codec unless the user does so manually. Running DOSBox the first time will create its %AppData%\Local\DOSBox folder for the conf file and default captures folder. It is very light on the system. Enough so that the "Portable Apps" version is rather silly. It is even easy to prevent stock DOSBox from writing to its %AppData% folder.

I miss the good old days when they only picked on Microsoft

I wouldn't complain so much if they removes the garbage from their installers. But HTML5 is still the future.