When I was first getting acclimated to being online a couple of decades ago, everyone used to say that the place to go for downloading things was CNet. Back in the day, even PC World used to always send you there to download many of the things they found that they thought were great free programs for all of us to use.

mdaniels7 via Compfight

Even though PC World still does this sometimes, they’re a lot less likely to do so these days, and there’s a major reason why. At least from my perspective, it seems like every file one downloads from there is loaded with bloat ware and, dare I say, a lot of malware, to the extent that if you’re not paying attention to what you’re loading onto your computer, the next thing you know you’ve added toolbars, coupon and sales software, and who knows what else.

It’s gotten so bad that I refuse to download anything else from them. Unfortunately, my friends haven’t learned their lessons yet, so who keeps getting the calls because something’s gone wonky with their systems? You guessed it; sigh. Thing is, it’s hard to tell someone not to download things from a site that’s so highly ranked and well known. What happened to CNet?

I’m not the first one to talk about this, and it’s not really all that new. Back in December 2011 the Inquirer talked about it in relation to a forum poster of some significance who was irked with the process. In Early 2013 botcrawl.com confirmed the malware coming through CNet’s new download site, correctly called Download.com (nope, not giving them a link).

What’s funny is many of their bigger accounts put out warnings to their potential customers saying that consumers need to make sure they’re clicking on the correct button when downloading products because it could lead to other problems if you’re not downloading the right thing. You think?

If you can, find another place to download your stuff, paid or free. Otherwise, unless you’re technically savvy, you’ll find yourself awash in ads and unable to get out from under it. That is, unless you have a friend like me who lives close enough to fix it for you.