You Should Avoid Free Software?

Overhype

from the missing-the-point... dept

I’ve complained before about articles from Newsfactor Network, because they don’t seem to do any critical thinking. People tell them something, and they simply assume it’s true. The latest is in this useless article about spyware, saying that you shouldn’t download free software, because that’s how spyware gets on your computer. While it’s true that many spyware products come attached to free software products that doesn’t mean that all (or even most) free software products are bad. It’s the typical logic fallacy: if A, then B, it doesn’t mean that if B, then A. Yet, Newsfactor seems to accept it as fact. For the conspiracy theorists out there, you could almost see how proprietary software companies might encourage free software companies to include spyware – just as the music companies upload bogus music files to file sharing systems. Anything to make the free stuff look worse. Meanwhile, the article claims that it’s going to tell you what the “best spyware stopper” product is, and then only lists one product – which just happens to be the company of the guy they interview throughout the piece. Most people seem to say that Ad-Aware or Spybot are the best apps for removing spyware, and they don’t get mentioned at all.