Questions

[Methadon]

Weird, I tried replying earlier but it hasn't shown up yet. Well I'll try again.

This whole thing about the adware makes me somewhat uncomfortable. If I hadn't done a paid registration before I heard about this for ver 4 I might have waited.

HOWEVER, since they have been so upfront about this, even including the information in the release notes linked from the front page, and allowing you to uncheck the installation of the toolbar, and have posted a bunch of detailed information in this forum, that makes me feel better about the daemon tools decision in general.

You don't need to double post, your post will show up.
All posts in this part of the forum has to be moderated before they show up.

[WhenUSal]

WhenU: The Facts!

Greetings everyone ....

I work with WhenU and I have a few questions ...

If you're buying a jacket for $100 (US) and someone hands you a coupon for 20% off the price - is that bad advertising?

So if I'm shopping online for a specific laptop for the best price ... or booking a flight for the holidays ... and i get a pop-up ad for similar or lower prices ... is it bad to click that ad?

As consumers - aren't we always looking to Save money?

So please help me understand why all adware is 'bad'

I agree that there has been questionable practices in the past from certain people and companies ... but there are some that care very much about keeping a positive user experience.

And don't you think that the Daemon-Tool's team would only choose the best contextual ad company in the world for the users they love & respect most - you!

The DT team has worked VERY hard to offer you a great product - and all they ask is that you support their efforts by accepting some ad-ware that is 100% safe. And if you gave it a chance - it will probably add great value to your on-line shopping experience

Now I know what some of you are going to say "you work with WhenU so for sure you're going to say all good things"

But let me be very honest - I have personally worked with the DT team and they are a group of smart and dedicated people who care VERY much about all their users. And what they want is for you to be happy with their product ... and I think they've accomplished this - DT4 is amazing!

We need to support the DT team and show some love. More information about WhenU can be found here: http://www.whenu.com/overview_of_practices.html

Kind regards!

[cyt0plas]

So if I'm shopping online for a specific laptop for the best price ... or booking a flight for the holidays ... and i get a pop-up ad for similar or lower prices ... is it bad to click that ad?

Ok, I'm a webmaster -
I pay for the bandwidth and produce the content, and I do so in order that I can make some money by ads.

I place a review of Product X on my site, with an affiliate ad, and a user of my site clicks to buy it. WhenU, without my permission, takes over a large portion of the screen, and offers to save the user $0.30. In so doing, they have just let me make a sale, then taken it away for themselves. They have undercut me, and they have done it on my own site.

I also make money from ads on my site, and absolutly refuse to use popups on my site. WhenU competes with my ads, and places popups. On MY site. That's simply unacceptable.

Fortunatly, I've learned from the spyware companies (such as WhenU, or the slightly less evil CoolWebSearch). IE makes it real easy to tell if a given piece of scumware is installed, and Java exploits and the like make it just as easy to remove a given piece of software as it is to install it. Sounds like it may be time to update my Drive-By uninstaller - I'll have to see if the Daemon-Tools searchbar has a different GUID than the standard WhenU junk.

Do what you want to your site - my site is MINE. I work hard to make a living from my web sites, and I've carved out my little niche. When you sell on my site, it's just like Pepsi opening a booth in the middle of the Coca-Cola headquarters, without permission.

[chaosuser]

I have a Question regarding the Ad does it work with Firefox ? Or just IE ?

[cyberguy777@charter.net]

I want to preface this reply with the fact that I have used DT since the 2.x days. Since then, the guys at DT NEVER forced a buy and have NEVER forced Adware on we the users.

Now they are ASKING for us to help them and giving the option not to. A simple check box at the beginning of the installation. I personally detest all forms of adware. But they have not FORCED any on me.

It is for the reason that they have not forced adware on me in all this time and do not force it on me now AND still keep their hard worked on product free for personal use that i am going to buy a licensed version. Lets face it guys, most of the other asshole companies out there charge $30+ US for their cd/dvd emulators and DT only asks $15.95. The other companies that offer a "free" cd/dvd emulator FORCE spyware/adware.... DT on the other hand ASKS us for support and gives us a handy dandy little checkbox.

Seems to me that there are bunch of script kiddie newbs out there that have NO idea about DT and how hard they work and persevere. I for one thank the DT team and bow to their many accomplishments.

grrr..... i hate when idiots get me on a rant....
i will just put my main points out there
1) complainers - STFU, you have NO idea how much these guys have done for us
2) install the adware and help out (if you hate adware as much as i do then....)
3) DONATE SOME MONEY. $2, $3, $10 or hell... all you children just give $16 of your allowance money/paper route/grass cutting to your daddies and ask them to buy it for you!
i am done

[acetken]

Frankly, I'm impressed that someone from WhenU bothered to do this for the DT guys. Very cool of them.

I've got no problem with the decision, and I'll be helping the DT guys out with the bar until I donate. (IE: The second I get wind about Pro being out)

[desmasic]

OK, I just logged in to say that I have just started using DT again (3.x version) and used to use Virtual Drive only so far (still do with DT). Now I read all this Adware crap people are talking about DT on other sites as well, but knowing AdWare and DT specifically mentioning that it is optional, I installed v4, ran 2 anti spywares to check system and even anti virus just to be sure.

So in the end, everything was fine. I didn't install toolbar during installation, and nothing was installed. So all you noobs who have don't like to read or just can't understand a simple thing as 'optional install' don't bother even posting. Honestly, that's just annoying not only for developers but for users like us who visit specific site not to read retarded comments.

Anyways, good software, nice updates, I can actually start some of my CD's without any protection issues with v4.

[vik]

@: cyt0plas

WhenU practices changed drastically after they were under heavy fire from privacy advocates about a year ago.

@ cyt0plas:
Can you please clarify WHEN and HOW their software abused your website?

We would appreciate your comment.

[DarthTyranus]

WhenU practices changed drastically after they were under heavy fire from privacy advocates about a year ago.

@ cyt0plas:
Can you please clarify WHEN and HOW their software abused your website?

We would appreciate your comment.

He already kinda said about the HOW. He's saying that whenU puts up competitors ads when you visit a site. He's saying that to get his revenue he wants people who visit his site only to click on his ads that he gets revenue from while at his site. If they clicked on a whenU ad while at his site, only whenU would get the revenue, not him.

A similar situation might be, if you visit dell.com whenU might put up ads for hp.com or something like that. If the person followed the ad to hp, it would take away the revenue from dell.

He also described another situation. Where if an affiliate (lets say newegg.com for example) advertises say a particular NEC model of dvd burner for $39.99 on a web page of his, then whenU might pop up a ad covering the page saying its $39.50 elsewhere, say on buy.com

If the user had been about to buy the dvd, that sale wouldn't have gone through his affiliate, and he would not get the money from it, instead whenU would.

I dont know about the WHEN, but I'm sure that whenu still puts up competitors ads when you visit various sites, I dont know if they do the product/price comparions currently though.

[vik]

@DarthTyranus

Well, I understand that everybody wants to sell their own product but if competitor sells for less than it might be better for consumer.
I guess it is up to the consumer finally to decide who's product is best.

I agree, that some kind tricks:
redirecting or hijacking URL or changing websites content, etc. are unacceptable!
But I do believe that such WhenU practices are in the past.

If not, please report them here more detailed and we will look into it!

[DarthTyranus]

@DarthTyranus

Well, I understand that everybody wants to sell their own product but if competitor sells for less than it might be better for consumer.
I guess it is up to the consumer finally to decide who's product is best.

I agree, that some kind tricks:
redirecting or hijacking URL or changing websites content, etc. are unacceptable!
But I do believe that such WhenU practices are in the past.

If not, please report them here more detailed and we will look into it!

I agree. To me (since I'm not really a webmaster), showing pop ups isn't so bad. To me as a personal computer user, I hate adware so I'd never install it in the first place. But to the webmaster who makes his money off of it its more like stealing to him.

A more extreme example would be like how the TV broadcasters say that its stealing to not watch thier commercials.