SourceForge

The article I read is: Why big open-source projects are fleeing SourceForge's free software hub.

For the past few years or so since I've been trying to migrate the programs I use to open-source (preferably also multi-platform), SourceForge has been one of the places I visit often (or have been directed to). I'm not sure when they began wrapping junkware into some of the software that they host, but I don't recall ever seeing it in any of the things I have downloaded from SourceForge.

I believe it was FreeFileSync that I was first introduced to FossHub, and I liked it better than downloading it from FossHub instead of SourceForge, as it was much easier to do, along with it being quite easy to grab the checksum to make sure the download is fine (via DownThemAll Firefox extension).

I don't remember when I was introduced to GitHub, but I do remember going there a few times to try to download something and ending up horribly confused (I think?). I don't want to say I don't like it, but I will say I really ought to spend some time so that I can become more familiar with it.

Back in the early 2000's, CNET used to be my main source of shareware/freeware, and I do occasionally end up there when searching for software. I'm not sure when they began to push their own download manager, but when I did download some things from CNET, I found that I had downloaded their download manager installer instead of whatever I was wanting. Though a "proprietary" download manager is fairly different from injecting junkware into open-source software installers, it's still the same sort of annoyance.

The only thing with FossHub I haven't figured out yet (as I haven't been on it too much, beside to update FreeFileSync) is where the older downloads are kept (if they are even kept) in the (very) rare occasion that I need an older version of a software for whatever reason.

I, obviously, will join this "boycott" because I believe that people should be able to download the software they want in an unadulterated form directly.