Hi Folks,
PDFCreator has been served a Long time but kicked itself out of the game today by leaving me no choice to suppress the fucking toolbar Installation.
http://abload.de/img/nochoicefmbm2.png
So I wonder what you would recommend as your personal PDF Creator replacement of choice?
Hi,
the greyed out option is still actually clickable, we reacted to many user opinions and now have an opt-in type of offer screen, so you don´t accidentally install additional software.
Sorry for the confusion.
regards,
Robin
Dear Robin,
This is complete and utter bullshit. The PDF Creator project has never responded to “many user opinions” about the absolutely shameful way the the project tries to trick users into installing adware.
As of today, April 23, 2013, the installer is intentionally designed to trick users. The fact that you have changed the color to make the option appear to be unavailable is the absolute lowest form of deception you can reach while still technically avoiding being called adware, and further, makes it obvious that the project is indeed complicit in this deception, as opposed to this being a simple oversight (not to mention the long history of deception this project has with regard to adware).
I understand about the adware but they do need an income stream. I shall continue to use pdfCreator.
> but they do need an income stream
Ok, that's an acceptable reason. Please advice your financial institution to immediately send me all your Money, because I need an income stream too.
Ok, let's put sarcasm and fun aside.
First, there have been plenty of requests, in this forum and elsewhere, that they should stop these questionable practices and start either with a donate button or with some kind of paid version. The Software is good, and I'm absolutely positive that a lot of the power users would happily pay for a "professional" version of it, myself included. There are plenty of monetarizing models, and there are surely a lot of them better than what they do now.
Next, those who try to trick users into adware are simply some of the lowest forms of life. And those, who justify such by arguing that "they need an income stream" are not much better either. I's not far away from justifying burglarizing, because "the burglar needs an income stream".
They are free and welcome to earn their dollars in a honest way. But they still deliberately decide against that option.
And that is the whole damn point of it.
PS: Thank you for the proposals regarding a replacement.
I download the offline installer and then cut off my Internet connection to install it, after that I resume my Internet connection.
The offline installer is here:
http://download.pdfforge.org/download/pdfcreator/PDFCreator-stable?download
Hi,
sorry if you have got this impression.
We didn´t design or choose these (or any offer screens) ourselves and have talked to our advertising partner to ensure clearer and better offer screens.
In case you didn't figure this out by yourselves: The user starts the Installation which has been downloaded (more or less) from your web site. The installer installs your product. Plus of course the adware scam. So who do you think will the user blame? And whose reputation will most probably go down the toilet? The adware People? Because you after each and every release make the same statements and excuses?
No, they will blame you, because it is your product, your installer and your website. You are the one on the other side of the table, nobody else. And the user gives a damn if it were really, physically, you that caused the malware or if it were just people that you hired to do so.
And your advertising partner will continue to exercise the same practices as usual, because that's how they earn their money. The (mis-)use your reputation to distribute crap that otherwise nobody would install, even if they would offer money to do that. If you are really trusting on their promises, you are more naive then I had assumed. And if you don't, but expect your users to trust on them, then you are simply dishonest.
Now take your choice, what fits more to you. However, I'm afraid, most users don't like dealing with either one of the two.
I just installed it. The grey pre-checked opt-in is still grey. But the worst part is that it installed “tuneup utilities” without asking me (or, if it did ask, it was incredibly hidden in some tricky way). I sure hope that’s all that was installed.
Your product will soon get a reputation you don’t want. I’ll be posting on my blog about the dangers inherent in your product. Maybe you’re done developing and are just ready to take the adware money and run… at least that’s what I’ll be proposing.
It would be interesting to know if you are making a fortune off the adware, otherwise why not just donations?
