RANT: Register-to-get-files type websites
I don't know if I told you this, but one of the things about the internet that really bothers me are those stubborn websites that force you to register an account for their services just to download one little file off their servers.
To those who own such sites: No thanks, I'm not registering an account for your site just to get one measly little file which would probably be the only thing I'd ever download from you. As if we don't have more than enough passwords to memorize already.
I especially hate it when such sites mirror files that didn't even require registration to download from the original owner's site, this practice IMHO is rude and needs to stop.
I'd much rather have such sites make me register to download say more than 5 things rather than make you register to download one fucking thing that'd more than likely be the last thing you'd ever download from them.
"Register-to-get-files" sites need to be banned from the internet IMO (or, at the very least, consider lessening the requirement as stated above). Does anyone else agree with me?
I'm sorry if this seems like a stupid post, but I just had to get this off my chest.
Comments
Could be worse. At least you don't have to run through ad-link shorteners that redirect to another about 10 times before you get to the download.
All while running the risk of silent malware.
Reminds me of some sites wanting you to "subscribe" just to read one measly article in it. It's as if sites these days are hungry for user accounts, with like 90% of them going to waste.
Yeah, today's internet is stupid, but unfortunately we have to live with it.
Yeah, data mining of users. Also increases vulnerability to data breaches as people are effectively forced (stupid teachers always telling people to sign up for this and that to submit work, which need Chinese chromium forks and/or advanced DLL hacks to work on win2k/XP) to supply information to an even greater array of web services.
Usually those clickbait sites don't have valuable, true information anyway so that really isn't a big loss.
I try to obfuscate as much as possible. My tertiary OS is my gender.
I find those sites irritating as well. Which is why I love http://bugmenot.com it's the perfect solution as long as the site isn't blocked. Which, unfortunately, there are quite a few sites that are blocked on there and also unfortunately, a lot of the logins don't work. You just have to keep trying one until it works.
To be perfectly honest, I was under the impression that WinWorld needed an account to download files... I guess it doesn't, but since I have an account anyway for the forums, it wouldn't have bothered me if it did.
As far as remembering passwords or data breaches, use a password manager. You shouldn't be memorizing passwords for sites anyway. You should only memorize one master password for the password manager and everything else uses a long random string as a password.
If you're worried about giving them your email to create an account, there's also plenty of temporary mail services like https://10minutemail.com/ but again, you do run into the issue of some sites blocking those. Which is why it's always good practice to have a throw away email account you don't care about to use for sign ups.
Yeah I still have my "burner" email from when hotmail wasn't picky about the name you put in. So it's a bunch of gibberish for the personal stuff.
I only check it when I'm expecting something on or I get overloaded with some nasty, yes nasty in all its definitions, spam.