DonEdrington@gmail.com
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Problems Downloading Irfanview
& Other Free Programs
For years I’ve recommend-ed an easy-to-use free image-editing program called Irfanview from Irfanview.com; but Mel Butcher told me he was sent to Download.com, where things were so confusing he finally gave up on the download. This, sadly, is happening more and more often nowadays. Here’s the problem:
A developer who creates a popular free program often finds his website over-whelmed with more download requests than his site can handle. So he gives some commercial sites permission to assume the job of letting visitors download his program.
However, such sites are in business to make money, and giving up bandwidth so visitors can download free stuff doesn’t earn them any. So what do they do? They try to trick visitors into down-loading other stuff along with what they actually want.
And many of these other "free" programs contain "adware," "scareware," and "nagware" that you’re better off without. Many will suggest you download a "free scan" which will look for problems on your computer.
Not surprisingly, you will be told many errors exist and that they can be repaired for about $50.
Yet another ruse is to have your request handled by a "download manager," which will place "cookies" on your PC and make changes to your registry that you also don’t need.
It’s also common to have several Download buttons scattered among a variety of items, laid out in a delib-erately confusing way. Again, this is to trick you into down-loading things you really don’t want or need.
To its credit, Irfanview.com lists two alternative download sites: Tucows.com and Software.com. Mel said he was able to get the free image-editor from
www.tucows.com
with no problems.
No matter which download site you choose, be sure that the name of the file to be downloaded is: iview428_setup.exe
If the file has any other name, back out and try again – or go to a different site.
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Yellow Stickies Program
Irfanview Image Editor
