SourceForge takes over SF accounts; releases gold-laced installers of questioned monetary value
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If you haven't had a new release in the past year and a half, SourceForge staff may take over your SourceForge project and create a new installer that contains adware.
Since they've changed the project ownership, the original owners can no longer make changes.
Here are a list of high-profile SourceForge accounts that SourceForge staff have taken over.
- GIMP for Windows
- Mozilla Firefox
- VLC
- Apache HTTP Server
- Apache Hadoop
- Drupal
- WordPress
- Eclipse
- MonoDevelop
You should never, EVER download
theseany products from SourceForge.Incidentally, any guesses as to how long until one of these parties sues?
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I'll say what I said in the other thread; they've been pulling that shit for ages
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Incidentally, any guesses as to how long until one of these parties sues?
if they havent in over a year and a half.... not likely that they'll sue directly.
i found it hilarious when they took over my sole project there.
it was a linux based replacement for deep freeze
it was shite honestly, and buggy as hell.
had a total of i think 12 downloads ever
i only released it because i needed a code sample for a job interview and i din't know any better at the time.
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Me reading this topic:
"Oh, they're taking over accounts. Glorious. Probably some weird whackball software nobody uses..."*looks at list*
"wut"
*reads article*
"WUT"
WTF, seriously SourceForge?
You should never, EVER download these products from SourceForge.
QFFT.Also,
Incidentally, any guesses as to how long until
oneall of these parties sues?
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You should never, EVER download theseany products from SourceForge.
I didn't realise most of those are even on SourceForge.
I have never downloaded any of these from SF, they all seem to self-host or have their own set of mirrors.
GIMP for Windows
Mozilla Firefox
VLC
Apache HTTP Server
Eclipse
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FWIW, I just set up a Chrome extension called "Link tweak" to automatically download the unbundled installer for anything on SourceForge should I accidentally go there. I've also told adblock to completely block anything ad related on their site. Not getting any ad revenue from me cause of this belgiumness
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FileZilla has a crapware installer and then in really tiny text it has a non-crapware installer later on the page.
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FileZilla is actually pretty terrible and they probably deserve their own thread here...
Here's an example from the main dev:
Nothing is forced upon you. While the SourceForge Installer may present third-party offers, they are clearly labeled as such. All third-party offers can easily be declined via the big Decline button.
If you do not wish to use the SourceForge installer, have a look at the additional download options listed on the FileZilla website.
That's a copypasta he's been spamming all over his forum...
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I know about it because I actually tried to install it and when it popped up with "do you want these craps?" I immediately cancelled out of the installer and deleted it, but not before it had already installed "optimizer pro" or whatever. I removed that from the filesystem and registry manually because I didn't trust the uninstaller.
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FileZilla is actually pretty terrible
Got a recommendation for a better client? A coworker has to use it in a regular basis, and when he got a new PC last year I ran into the crapware issue, although we eventually found the clean link.
But if there's something that's a better app in general, doesn't have the ads, and is (preferably) free, I might be able to talk him into switching.
(I'm old school. On the rare occasions I have to upload or download from our web site, I use the command-line FTP program or the IE FTP view.
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IIRC, WinSCP does a decent job with FTP.
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But if there's something that's a better app in general, doesn't have the ads, and is (preferably) free, I might be able to talk him into switching.
I'd also love to hear about an FTP client recommendation.
However, my requirements are probably a bit stricter... I need a client that supports both SFTP and FTPS. The first is SSH's "pretend" FTP. The second is FTP over TLS. And yes, these are different protocols.
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WinSCP is pretty nice, yup.
Switched to it after FileZilla decided to refuse to work for me one day.(Also, download from their homepage - not source forge, of course)
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Yeah... I think the dev borrowed the RDF from apple or something.
Here's a thread about it for lolz: https://forum.filezilla-project.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=30240
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I need a client that supports both SFTP and FTPS. The first is SSH's "pretend" FTP. The second is FTP over TLS. And yes, these are different protocols.
WinSCP apparently supports FTPS, and certainly supports SFTP...
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FileZilla decided to refuse to work for me one day
I still have an old version of FileZilla installed and keep the installer for that version. They updated to a new minor version and it now refuses to connect to practically any FTP server. I think every version in the 3.10.* range had an issue when I tried.
When I install the damn thing anywhere, I have to jump through hoops to disable the auto-update and then clear the settings file since they store that there is an update and prompt it every time.
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I also support the use of WinSCP over filezilla.
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I just saw something disturbing on the WinSCP Wikipedia page. Specifically, this end of this sentence:
Since July 16, 2003, it is licensed under the GNU GPL and hosted on SourceForge.net.
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i found it hilarious when they took over my sole project there.
it was a linux based replacement for deep freeze
it was shite honestly, and buggy as hell.
had a total of i think 12 downloads ever
i only released it because i needed a code sample for a job interview and i din't know any better at the time.
I suppose they've probably taken over my project, too. I never made any releases; it's still alpha. What's there works, but some major features are not yet implemented (and at this point probably never will be) — including writing some of the data you worked so hard to create to the save file. :)
I suppose if I ever pick up that project again, it will move to github.
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A lie.
They migrated away from it.
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The Alternative Download link from the WinSCP site still goes to a prdownloads.sourceforge.net address.
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I believe you can still enter FTP URLs into windows explorer? Haven't used it in ages though.
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I believe you can still enter FTP URLs into windows explorer? Haven't used it in ages though.
Yeah, I mentioned that. For my coworker, a full-featured application would work better.
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Yup. I use WinSCP.
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My projects are all still there. But then, pretty much all of my releases were either .zips or .tgzs, with a few .debs, so not a lot of opportunity for Windows installer shenanigans.
Most haven't been updated by me in years, though from my profile they all claim to have been updated within the last month. I couldn't figure out what the update was, and once I drill into the project, the update date I expect was there.
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Yup. I use WinSCP.
i use cygwin, and i only use that because i can't install linux on my work machine.
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Appreciate the recommendation, but then I'd have FF on me.
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They can't break Reactive Drop without actually putting viruses into the program - the installer is just an embedded SVN client that downloads from a SourceForge project.
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Incidentally, any guesses as to how long until one of these parties sues?
I don't think they'd be successful unless there was a violation of the particular open source license. Open source licenses pretty much allow anyone to do anything they want with the source code, as long as they release the code for any changes they make. It doesn't sound like SourceForge even made any changes to the actual code.
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That doesn't mean you can use the trademarked names.
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I don't think they'd be successful unless there was a violation of the particular open source license. Open source licenses pretty much allow anyone to do anything they want with the source code, as long as they release the code for any changes they make. It doesn't sound like SourceForge even made any changes to the actual code.
No, I don't think they could successfully sue for copyright violations, but they may be able to sue for trademark violations and related matters (e.g., passing off). Debian rebranded Firefox for similar reasons:
Filed under: IANAL, Not all laws may be applicable in all countries, etc.
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No, I don't think they could successfully sue for copyright violations, but they may be able to sue for trademark violations and related matters (e.g., passing off). Debian rebranded Firefox for similar reasons:
Still doubtful. In the Mozilla-Debian case (which never made it to court), Debian was changing the code and still calling it Firefox. That does not seem to be the case here.
Filed under: IANAL, Not all laws may be applicable in all countries, etc.
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Still doubtful. In the Mozilla-Debian case (which never made it to court), Debian was changing the code and still calling it Firefox. That does not seem to be the case here.
From the Mozilla Trademark Policy:
@Mozilla said:In addition, if you are distributing Mozilla binaries yourself, and wish to use the Mozilla Mark(s), you may not (a) disable, modify or otherwise interfere with any installation mechanism contained in a Mozilla product; (b) use any such installation mechanism to install any plug-ins, themes, extensions, software, or items other than the Mozilla product; or (c) use or provide any program, mechanism or process (other than an installation mechanism contained in the Mozilla product) to install such product. Any use of a meta-installer would require our prior written permission.
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Any use of a meta-installer would require our prior written permission.
With some of the things going on at Mozilla, it's not entirely unlikely that they might just let sourceforge do their thing, though ...
Filed under: [Unicorns on your new tab page](#tag)
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I'd also love to hear about an FTP client recommendation.
I used to use SmartFTP, which supports both, but apparently it's paid now. Or maybe it always was and did the WinRAR nagware thing...
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With some of the things going on at Mozilla
Like what? I don't keep up much with Mozilla development, since they still1 haven't made their browser 64-bit, which means I run into OOMs way too frequent for my liking (and yes, I'm a tab hoarder). These days I mostly use it just when I need/want to use a particular add-on.
Filed under: Unicorns on your new tab page
See, this is what happens when you let @Remy work on the interface. It's all unicorns and rainbow farts.
1: Last I checked, anyway. Let's see:[quote=" Mozilla Firefox, post:1/../../19130/41cd05cb4073da2f.html, topic:1000/../../../uploads/default/"]
Please note that while the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7 can be used to run Firefox, only 32-bit builds of Firefox are supported at this time.
[/quote]Nope, still not supported.
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since they still haven't made their browser 64-bit
Official Linux x64 builds are official, though. And I think the OSX ones are x64, too.
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Like what?
Paid new tab tiles. There's a speech bubble with an unicorn that explains it to you when you first open a new tab in a build with that feature.
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Official Linux x64 builds are official, though. And I think the OSX ones are x64, too.
True, I should have specified I meant on Windows. I haven't used either of those OSs for my primary computer in a while, so that hasn't really been relevant to me. Which reminds me, I need to update or rebuild that linux VM..
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Paid new tab tiles. There's a speech bubble with an unicorn that explains it to you when you first open a new tab in a build with that feature.
Wonderful. It seems like they're trying to get rid of their users. Not unlike SourceForge. I think I now understand what you meant.
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It seems like they're trying to get rid of their users.
(Somewhat possibly relevant-ish song?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYIAy4uF3UI
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They still have users? I'm mostly amazed that what's left on SF hasn't already started a migration to GitHub in all honesty.
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(Somewhat possibly relevant-ish song?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYIAy4uF3UIElysion Someplace Better – 03:08
— Bubba Chunk
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They still have users? I'm mostly amazed that what's left on SF hasn't already started a migration to GitHub in all honesty.
Given the number of projects with downloads in the millions for just the last week, yes.
On the other side, there's a rather steep drop-off in recently updated projects..
Filed Under: Calling that a bug is a to poking fun at them., Oh look, I broke the emoji
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You can turn on "Electrolysis", which causes Firefox to start metastasizing into multiple processes like Chrome does. But you really shouldn't be hitting the 4GB limit even as a tab hoarder as only tabs you've actually looked at since restarting are charged against you -- the remainder have tabs but aren't loaded at all. Take a trip down •about:memory• way and see what's up.
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You can turn on "Electrolysis", which causes Firefox to start metastasizing into multiple processes like Chrome does.
Is that a proper feature, or a beta one? Either way, I might look into it. Beats submitting crash reports with hand-crafted Oompa Loompa snippets.
Take a trip down •about:memory• way and see what's up.
4,095.94 MB (100.0%) -- address-space ├──2,430.93 MB (59.35%) -- commit
That's with a small (for me) amount of tabs and not having done much beyond starting it and leaving it open a while. Now add on a nice
shortlong trip to TV Tropes, and it's going to have a short, painful life.
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But how much of that commit is explicit, and how much of that is heap-unclassified? I'm at 2.5GB right now, but I can directly attribute 1GB of that to in-proc DLLs (mostly stupid nVidia garbage) and 1GB of that to a tab with a I'm working on. Actual, normal browsing is only hitting 500ish MB.