G-Archiver Is a Scam, Don’t Blame Shareware
Posted on March 10, 2008, under Development, Software, Tools and Services.
Originating from Jeff Attwood’s blog, Coding Horror about G-Archiver being a scam. The application, meant to backup your GMail account apparently emails your username and password to the developers GMail account. You can read more about it at Coding Horror, a great blog I and many follow, but what struck me was the backlash on shareware. It hit me a little personal, being a developer myself and relying on paid software to make a living. And honestly if anyone would have taken two minutes to take a look at the companies site, it would have rubbed them the wrong way and they probably would not have installed the software. Take a minute and research the company, just as you would before you purchase something.
This kind of lash out really rubs me the wrong way, for several reasons:
1) Yes, there are spyware ridden shareware applications out there, just as there is bad everywhere there is good.
2) As a company sometime you do not even list the application on the shareware site yourself, an affiliate does.
3) We have become a society expecting everything free; from ad blockers, movies and music pirating, everyone is looking for the free tool for them to use and in turn make money off with whatever they do for a living.
I am no angel, so please do not take this the wrong way. I am simply saying that there are software developers out there that put a lot of time, money, resources, etc, into making good software. Your purchasing the software helps the development of future versions with better features that make your life easier and more productive.
The same thing can be said about web sites that you turn over a username and password to. The majority of people use the same username and password for most all of their needs. You do not know what, if any, encryption or data storage methods these web sites are using. What kind of security they have on their servers. If any employee can get into the database and look up a username and password. This type of stuff can happen with web sites, you just do not know about it because you can not reverse engineer the source code on the server.
Don’t blacklist everything just because there is one bad egg.
2 Replies to "G-Archiver Is a Scam, Don’t Blame Shareware"
admin on March 10, 2008
True
Ole on March 10, 2008
The later part goes for blogs too, keeping the email “private”. One bad egg is all you need for your information to be widely available without your consent and or control.