end kvetch

Freemacware.com Is Going To Shit

I'm sure many of you mac users have heard of Freemacware.com. When I discovered it several months ago (okay, I admit, I was a little late) it was an amazing Meca of Apple freeware. I was in love.

About a month ago it was announced that it would be acquired by some communications company. I welcomed this news, as more regular updates and greater quality were promised.

However, now it is very clear that the acquisition is a very bad thing for readers. Although there are updates every day now (rather than about five a week) they are anything but regular. In the old days (ODs) you could always count on either an update in the morning or none at all. Now updates can happen at any time and I don't like it.

Then there are the ads. Back in the ODs there was a little Adsense here and no one really cared. After the acquisition more ads started to creep in. Now not only are there ads all-over the place but when you click the "download" link it no longer takes you to the developer's page (which, although not the most convenient was a nice way to find out more about the product before downloading), but, instead it takes you to an ad-ridden page where you must loiter until the download begins. To say the least, I am not pleased.

My Ad Rant

Speaking of ads...what the hell? Who still clicks on those things? Sadly, it seems that we still have too many idiots (who know how to use computers) in the world to put the advertisers out of business. Internet ads are notorious for having no useful content and just seeming shady. So the questions is...why do they work? Because people are idiots. So I guess this should actually be my idiot rant.