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My .02
Before I start off with this suggestion/complaint, let me say that I've been a big fan of DT for years and years, and have recommended it to a lot of my friends and customers who hire me to build them top-notch gaming/design systems.
With that said, I am getting increasingly frustrated at the attempt to commercialize DT. I realize you have to "pay the bills", but it has started to creep further and further ever since the decision was made to embed adware as an option in DT. There used to be two versions - a commercial and a free version. Now, there are three versions, and all of them say "buy now" on the download page. Yes, I do realize that the "lite" version is not time-limited and free for personal use, but it does not clearly say that on the download page, and a new user completely unfamiliar with your software might think you only offer commercial versions. I recently encountered this when I recommended your software to a friend, and they reported back that they could not find a free version on your site.
Your software was not popularized by the commercial version - rather, it was readily adopted by the community because you offered an excellent "FREE" product that you were proud of. Now, it seems like you're abandoning that in favor of trying to deceive new users into thinking they must pay to use your software. I think this will end up backfiring for you - let's keep in mind here that, no matter how much we defend DT as being a legit tool, many people are using it to avoid paying for software, and they can easily download a pirated copy of the "Pro Advanced" version from the same sites they're ripping the images that DT mounts for them. So in the end, you lose... wouldn't it be better to go back to proudly advertising your free product, rather than have people go to The Primary source for Beating software protections on the 'net and grab an illegal commercial version of your software?
Once again, this is just a humble suggestion. I imagine you'll probably ignore it... but one thing's for sure - until you make a few changes, I am not going to recommend to anyone that they visit your site to obtain Daemon Tools, and will just redirect them to a mirror copy of the "Lite" version being hosted somewhere else.
With that said, I am getting increasingly frustrated at the attempt to commercialize DT. I realize you have to "pay the bills", but it has started to creep further and further ever since the decision was made to embed adware as an option in DT. There used to be two versions - a commercial and a free version. Now, there are three versions, and all of them say "buy now" on the download page. Yes, I do realize that the "lite" version is not time-limited and free for personal use, but it does not clearly say that on the download page, and a new user completely unfamiliar with your software might think you only offer commercial versions. I recently encountered this when I recommended your software to a friend, and they reported back that they could not find a free version on your site.
Your software was not popularized by the commercial version - rather, it was readily adopted by the community because you offered an excellent "FREE" product that you were proud of. Now, it seems like you're abandoning that in favor of trying to deceive new users into thinking they must pay to use your software. I think this will end up backfiring for you - let's keep in mind here that, no matter how much we defend DT as being a legit tool, many people are using it to avoid paying for software, and they can easily download a pirated copy of the "Pro Advanced" version from the same sites they're ripping the images that DT mounts for them. So in the end, you lose... wouldn't it be better to go back to proudly advertising your free product, rather than have people go to The Primary source for Beating software protections on the 'net and grab an illegal commercial version of your software?
Once again, this is just a humble suggestion. I imagine you'll probably ignore it... but one thing's for sure - until you make a few changes, I am not going to recommend to anyone that they visit your site to obtain Daemon Tools, and will just redirect them to a mirror copy of the "Lite" version being hosted somewhere else.
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