OA and Ask.com

This might already be here somewhere.
Mike Nash and Team OA..hitting the "USP" .. , but, LOL, no Ferrari
http://onlinearmorpersonalfirewall....d-max=2010-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=7

temptation comes in many forms : some of them long low red & fast.
Go on, be happy in the Volvo Mike.

 

To the crew at OA.

 

That was a great read Longboard so thanks for posting the link. There are not many people of integrity out there anymore so, via this post, I salute Mike Nash and his organization.

 

A class act in every respect. Kind of makes me glad I wrote this the other day (ignorant of the existence of the blog):

http://support.tallemu.com/vbforum/showthread.php?t=8492

 

The dealer selling that car must be confused at the high level of interest. I'll probably see him on the news, talking up the economy

 

I think Mike Nash and Bill Pytlovany deserve credit for what they did, each on his own terms. Takes courage to turn down the easy money. The best we can do is support them, whether by buying their products, advertising them, via donations, or just plain good ole recommendation.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/security-ethics.html

Cheers,
Mrk

 

Bravo OA.

 

Ya
Kudos to Mike and OA and BillP of course:
I was having a soft moment and ruminating :-
It's an interesting takeoff point about thinking on the various 'models' of generating $$ from freewares/cutdown utilities.

While I am savagely opposed to the 'no opt out' or "opt-in by default' model for income generating toolbars/addons ( particularly by vendors of security utilities: http://www.calendarofupdates.com/up...lendar&cal_id=1&code=showevent&event_id=44514 ) and obviously with any toolbar that has a "weighty" EULA and high potential for exploits of endusers, I have some sympathy for how developers of freeware may look upon their releases as a loss leader.

For a discussion point: The marketing dept @IAC/Ask is obviously utterly ruthless and extremely well guided and motivated ( and judging by the publicity and growing list of associates ) getting some traction with their $/click approach to anyone who may be vulnerable and might need the sponduliks. I can't comment on their efficacy as a search engine and we all know their dubious history, and -ahem- 'interesting' EULA. Ask now strenously defends their current positioning as a force for good just trying to get into the web $$.

Google of course, despite a not exactly pristine record of behaviour will place a toolbar if able and as we know has a remarkable record of leveraging the search page for $$ returns. Also has an astounding record of carefully crafted tax avoidance structures.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technolo...kes-google-rich/2009/05/27/1243456658563.html
Hey: that's my $$ going OS !! Possibly hundreds of millions of Ozzie dollars.
So much for the 'do no evil' bulsh.
Heh heh: the federal govt here could put google on their banned link list !!

The other toolbars do the same.
Is any toolbar really worse than any other ??

Maybe, FWIW, the CCleaner model of releases with a taskbar free option could be an acceptable approach ( :- even if it is at the bottom of the page behind 2-3 links and in the small print ?? )

Maybe if OA, WP and others offered very clear options ( if IAC et al would allow it ?) for an associated, LOL, "helper" bar for an alternate DL, I might not hold that against them.

I guess resolves to the 'taint' of being party to endusers being potentially exploited and what integrity and trust might boil down to.

There are multiple facets to this particular precipice: is TallEmu doing badly ??
Does BillP have some other income stream?
Are there any real altruists left in commercial software development?
Which is the most or least dangerous or exploitative addon?

While I fully and absolutely support and deeply appreciate the line drawn by Mike and Bill; is there an acceptable model to steer some revenue form the freeware their way other than paying for associated full feature releases ??

Is there any point in even discussing this ??

 

Hats off to TallEmu

 

Obviously not !

More power to Winpatrol and OA

 

Why isn't this thread dominating the forum, as it should be?

Mrkvonic, great write-up on your website.

 

Tall Emu did not do anything evil today is not really a conversation starter.

Had I gone ahead and bundled the bar, this thread would be dominating the forums

 

I agree, this thread would be buzzing then.

But Longboard has a point, hypothetically speaking, are there any toolbars that look 'promising' and don't impact on a user's performance or privacy?

And toolbars aside, are there any 'safe' programs you can offer as an additional install to earn revenue?

I might be off-topic, but I've seen the 'trialpay' method offered to get a security program for free, that is, offering other products to receive the security program. May it work for a company such as Tall Emu?

http://www.trialpay.com/

Case studies:
Lavasoft
http://info.trialpay.com/marketing_collateral/merchants/case_studies/lavasoft.pdf
Foxit
http://info.trialpay.com/marketing_collateral/merchants/case_studies/foxit.pdf