It seems more and more developers are insisting on bundling extras with their freeware; toolbars are becoming common place as well as changes to home pages and search engines. Some are open and up front about it, many adopt a more sneaky approach – such as including automatic approval for additional installations/changes in a license agreement, or hidden away in an ‘Express’ installation option. Either way, users are often going to end up with more than they bargained for.
If you are a regular Daves Computer Tips reader you will likely already be aware that we recommend FreewareBB for all freeware downloads, and with very good reason. FreewareBB is not only the safest source for freeware downloads, it is the only one which is actively monitoring bundling trends and issuing appropriate warnings for downloaders.
FreewareBB already include advisories for freeware known to bundle OpenCandy and other common extras:
Now they have now taken it a step further by warning users about products which are known to bundle extras surreptitiously – you will receive this warning at the the top of the product download page:
This is why we recommend FreewareBB; no-one can ever give a 100% guarantee, but FreewareBB is doing its utmost to help downloaders avoid those unwanted extras, now and in the future.
