Many people today benefit from software that they pay nothing for. Free software has made it possible for many to use computers that would otherwise have no access.
There are times when using something that is free is not the best idea.
There are many examples of this. Anyone who has purchased a new computer in recent memory has gotten software that is of little value, and also is possibly harmful, in a number of ways. Crapware is the term that has arisen to describe this binary sludge.
More recently a newer type of software that falls into the category of crapware, is that which has a limited featureset of a full product that is sold. This once was called crippleware, or lite ware. Programs of this type once were an older revision of the product. It served to show what the author was capable of, hopefully enticing the user to pony up the dollars to get the latest and greatest. Today, it doesn’t necessarily work that way. Little to none of the usefulness of the full product is available to the user, but the size of the program and memory footprint remain similar.
This is becoming more prevalent. Much of it can probably be traced to the small software author who is feeling an economic crunch, or possibly starts to think the work is not being taken seriously enough.
The biggest offender of this type lately is Ad-Aware Free revision 7.0.x.x. The x’s are used because the sub-revision keeps changing almost daily.
The software has a new look, and feel, which makes the user want to use the product. Never has the saying ‘one eats with the eyes first’ been more applicable.
This revision is much different than previous ones, as it immediately installs a service on the machine. This is a running process, that, as it turns out, does absolutely nothing but occupy RAM in this Free version. In the full version, the process is a watchdog to prevent malware from infesting the machine.
Since in this version, like the previous revision 1.06 [amazing how these revisions get moved about, no one seems to be in charge of counting] there is no real-time monitoring of the system, there is no reason that a system process should be installed, taking memory. There is no reason why the stopping of that process should result in error messages. Perhaps some who see this process in the task manager would be comforted by thinking that protection is being offered, but as stated on the Web site this would be illusory.
This product does little to show the power of the full version, takes resources that could be used elsewhere, and does neither the consumer, nor the company any real good. Better for both to return to the 1.06 SE revision and see how that part of the anti-malware engine works.
Ad-Aware 2007 Free has fully entered into the realm of crapware, and should be avoided, either by buying the full version, and its real-time protection, or using the 1.06 SE, which can still be found, and works well in its limited fashion.
(I was a beta tester for the full version, which is very nice, works well, and is fairly priced. )
[tags]Lavasoft, personal editions, crippleware, crapware, freeware, trialware[/tags]