On Tue, 19 Aug 2014 10:45:15 +0200 Roberto Galoppini <[email protected]> wrote:
> Morning all, > > Thanks Andrea for looping me in, in line comments. > > > 2014-08-19 8:42 GMT+02:00 Andrea Pescetti <[email protected]>: > > > Well, if this is the case then SourceForge committed to removing unwanted > > ads. They have even setup a dedicated channel for reporting this kind of > > situations. I'm including Roberto in the conversation (Roberto, see below > > for context) since he already took action in a few other cases discussed on > > the dev list. > > Regards, > > Andrea. > > > > On 19/08/2014 Brian Barker wrote: > > > >> At 08:14 19/08/2014 +0800, Carl Wilson wrote: > >> > >>> When you download open office it comes with an attached piece of > >>> software called Driver Manager which is spyware, they do not claim to > >>> be affiliated with Apache but they seem to have succeed in attaching > >>> Driver Manager to your download. > >>> > >> > >> When people make suggestions such as this, they are normally dismissed > >> with comments insisting that they simply must have downloaded OpenOffice > >> from some unofficial source and thus obtained a contaminated product. > >> (That hasn't happened this time so far, though.) May I make an > >> alternative suggestion? > >> > >> When prospective users visit the official site and click on the download > >> link, they are redirected to sourceforge.net. They need to wait a few > >> second until the download begins, and even then they probably need to > >> recognise their browser's warning bar requesting confirmation. They may > >> not even know what to do with this at first. Meanwhile, they are > >> presented with a Sourceforge page which generally advertises other > >> possible free downloads. These advertisements usually contain a large > >> green "Download" button. > >> > >> Surely it is quite likely that users will be distracted by a big green > >> Download button and not, initially, notice some beige banner from their > >> browser? They will click the big green button, understandably thinking > >> that this will download the product they have come for: after all, this > >> is still the official OpenOffice download site, isn't it? When they > >> install the extra software along with OpenOffice, they will blame > >> OpenOffice or - as here - remark that the rogue item has somehow > >> infected the OpenOffice download. > >> > >> Note that DriverManager is indeed a program distributed by Sourceforge: > >> see http://sourceforge.net/projects/drivermanager/ . There is > >> suspiciously little information about it at the Sourceforge site. > >> > > > > I'm not familiar with that project, but it has 0 files < > https://sourceforge.net/projects/drivermanager/files/?source=navbar> and it > has been downloaded 0 times < > https://sourceforge.net/projects/drivermanager/files/stats/timeline?dates=2014-08-01+to+2014-08-19>, > I guess that's not the program you're talking about. > > Having said that we are committed to remove all malicious ads that do not > clearly state what are they about. All I need to remove those it's a > screenshot of the download page with the misleading ads and the link to > which such ads points to. Most of the times we are able to get rid of that > in few hours, only over the week-end it could take longer. > > >From Italy as of now I'm seeing an ads about "LogMeIn", an Anti-Virus trial > or an invitation to monetize your downloads. None of them seems ambiguous > or misleading and I'm not able to get a "green button" anyhow. If you can > would you please send an email to me or to [email protected]? > > Thanks in advance and thanks for heads up. > > Roberto Some non-SourceForge sites which come top of Google searches use a DownloadManager (or similar name) of about 34MB to download OpenOffice. Such sites, in my limited experience of investigating complaints on the en-Forum, always include unwanted add-ons, usually an intrusive and persistent toolbar and who knows what other nasties. Unfortunately one cannot unquestioningly accept the URLs reported by inexperienced computer users - they often report that they used their desired URL, not the actual URL used. > > > > > > > > >> Should there be some explanation and warning on the OpenOffice web site > >> immediately before the transfer to Sourceforge ("Don't touch the > >> button!"?) to help potential users avoid this trap? Should those > >> responding to complaints be aware of this likely cause of the problem > >> and not so quick to dismiss the user as having used ill-advised > >> alternative download sources? > >> > >> Is this what happened to the current user? > >> > >> Brian Barker > >> > >> -- Rory O'Farrell <[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
