What examples of freeware do you feel meet or do not meet these aphorisms?
Marion wrote:
What examples of freeware do you feel meet or do not meet these aphorisms?
There is too much free/open ware to do this.
In my world, virtually all of the ware is open source. While I don't
have the skills to examine ANY of that source, the transparency makes it available to the masses who do have the skills.
But much of what you are dealing w/ here is free *services*, which is a significantly different thing than free software, particularly different than free software which is also open source.
Also, the open source world is considerably more complex because of the licensing structure which applies to it.
Marion <marion@facts.com> wrote:
"If you're not paying for the product, you are the product."
If you are paying for a product, you still are just data cattle.
MS, Google, Apple, Tesla, ... and lots of others are known to spy on you despite having paid them.
While aphorisms have truth deeply embedded, more often than not they don't.
"There›s no such thing as a free lunch."
"You get what you pay for."
"Cheap is expensive."
"If you're not paying for the product, you are the product."
"When something is free, ask what it's costing you in privacy."
"Convenience of freeware is just surveillance in disguise."
"Privacy is dead, and free social media holds the smoking gun."
What examples of freeware do you feel meet or do not meet these aphorisms? I'll start.
Irfanview meet my freeware & privacy expectations.
Vpngate.net does not.
While aphorisms have truth deeply embedded, more often than not they don't.
"There›s no such thing as a free lunch."
"You get what you pay for."
"Cheap is expensive."
"If you're not paying for the product, you are the product."
"When something is free, ask what it's costing you in privacy."
"Convenience of freeware is just surveillance in disguise."
"Privacy is dead, and free social media holds the smoking gun."
What examples of freeware do you feel meet or do not meet these aphorisms? I'll start.
Irfanview meet my freeware & privacy expectations.
Vpngate.net does not.
On 01/09/2025 16:04, Marion wrote:
While aphorisms have truth deeply embedded, more often than not they
don't.
ÿ "There›s no such thing as a free lunch."
ÿ "You get what you pay for."
ÿ "Cheap is expensive."
ÿ "If you're not paying for the product, you are the product."
ÿ "When something is free, ask what it's costing you in privacy."
ÿ "Convenience of freeware is just surveillance in disguise."
ÿ "Privacy is dead, and free social media holds the smoking gun."
What examples of freeware do you feel meet or do not meet these
aphorisms?
I'll start.
ÿ Irfanview meet my freeware & privacy expectations.
ÿ Vpngate.net does not.
Free, as in beer, is an idea thought up by those who think they are intellectually superior. In my case they probably are but I'm not dumb enough to fall for their trick.
Free means free to use at no cost.
A free travel pass doesn't entitle you to drive the vehicle.
Irfanview meet my freeware & privacy expectations.
Vpngate.net does not.
Why oh why is alt.privacy included ?????
Windows System Control Centre (WSCC)
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Contains the complete suites of tools from:
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Sysinternals
MiTec (Michael Mutl)
GRC (Gibson research)
Krzysztof Kowalczyk (Sumatra PDF)
Pete Batard (Rufus & more)
Simon Tatham (PuTTy & more)
Void Tools (David Carpenter - Everything)
Sysinternals (Mark Russinovich/Bryce Cogswell, now Microsoft)
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/
Nir Sofer (http://www.nirsoft.net)
Gibson Research Corporation (http://www.grc.com)
Krzysztof Kowalczyk (https://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/index.html)
Simon Tatham (https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham)
David Carpenter (https://voidtools.com)
Pete Batard (https://pete.akeo.ie/)
Michal Mutl (http://mitec.cz)
portable
user controlled update manager
console.
One of my favourite free programmes despite the fact that it only gets
used sporadically.
On Tue, 2 Sep 2025 09:33:02 +0100, wasbit wrote :
Every piece of software on it could be harvesting your activitiesIrfanview meet my freeware & privacy expectations.
Vpngate.net does not.
Why oh why is alt.privacy included ?????
Actually, there is good reason for privacy in terms of freeware because one of the most common, if not most common complaint about freeware is said as
"if you're not paying for the product, then you are the product".
Just to be clear, anyone who "says" that crap is always stupid, as they
think there is some kind of profound science involved - but they say it.
Wouldn't it be a good joke on us, for example, if VLC or Irfanview turned
out to be run by a TLA who was harvesting all our media playing activity.
If that concerns you, the sooner you stop using a computer the better.
Actually, there is good reason for privacy in terms of freeware because one of the most common, if not most common complaint about freeware is said asIf they do, there are going to be a lots of scenery picture I take for reference picture for my artist wife and our vacation. They are going
"if you're not paying for the product, then you are the product".
Just to be clear, anyone who "says" that crap is always stupid, as they
think there is some kind of profound science involved - but they say it.
Wouldn't it be a good joke on us, for example, if VLC or Irfanview turned
out to be run by a TLA who was harvesting all our media playing activity.
To me it would not be the worth the effort to harvest it.
On 2025/9/2 9:33:2, wasbit wrote:
On 01/09/2025 16:04, Marion wrote:(I see it isn't by the time the thread reached here; as it's not a
While aphorisms have truth deeply embedded, more often than not they don't. >>> "There›s no such thing as a free lunch."
"You get what you pay for."
"Cheap is expensive."
"If you're not paying for the product, you are the product."
"When something is free, ask what it's costing you in privacy."
"Convenience of freeware is just surveillance in disguise."
"Privacy is dead, and free social media holds the smoking gun."
What examples of freeware do you feel meet or do not meet these aphorisms? >>> I'll start.
Irfanview meet my freeware & privacy expectations.
Vpngate.net does not.
Why oh why is alt.privacy included ?????
'group I take, I haven't put it back.)
Snip
While aphorisms have truth deeply embedded, more often than not they don't.
"There³ no such thing as a free lunch."
"You get what you pay for."
"Cheap is expensive."
"If you're not paying for the product, you are the product."
"When something is free, ask what it's costing you in privacy."
"Convenience of freeware is just surveillance in disguise."
"Privacy is dead, and free social media holds the smoking gun."
What examples of freeware do you feel meet or do not meet these aphorisms? >I'll start.
Irfanview meet my freeware & privacy expectations.
On Mon, 1 Sep 2025 15:04:37 -0000 (UTC), Marion <marion@facts.com>
wrote:
While aphorisms have truth deeply embedded, more often than not they don't. >> "There³ no such thing as a free lunch."
"You get what you pay for."
"Cheap is expensive."
"If you're not paying for the product, you are the product."
"When something is free, ask what it's costing you in privacy."
"Convenience of freeware is just surveillance in disguise."
"Privacy is dead, and free social media holds the smoking gun."
What examples of freeware do you feel meet or do not meet these aphorisms? >> I'll start.
Irfanview meet my freeware & privacy expectations.
Most distributions of the Linux OS
yWriter novel-writing software
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