22 replies to this topic

[marko]

It would appear we have more innapropriate use of the word "free" and "freeware" in our midst!!.

Kingsoft very kindly offered their Office Suite "Free" 2012 as freeware, yet when we rolled our system clock forward a year, what d'ya know ...



That stinks major to me, it's a blatent innapropriate use of the word "freeware" when it's quite clearly NOT the case.

When you open their office suite after 1 year you also get ...



Well, let's hope others do leave some feedback and show this company up for what they are, a complete and utter scam!.

[PCRacer]

I guess it was free after all, free trialware.    

Not cool, it gives us real freeware developers a bad name.

[James (Jim) Hillier]

Marko - Did you try this yourself, first hand or is this information which has been gathered from other sources?

The reason I ask; I checked this out quite thoroughly and yes, there were some reports of this happening, but there were even more reports of people checking this by turning their system clocks forward and not experiencing any such issues. At the time the software had only just been released as "freeware" and I put it down to the timing; figured some had downloaded and installed during the crossover period.

[marko]

Those screenshots are from my own PC Jim, I forwarded my PC clock to Oct 1st 2012

The version I tried was the version on offer at the time it was claimed as freeware, in other words, the date it was added to FBB after it was brought to my attention.

[marko]

Just to be certain, I'm going to download a fresh copy of this and try again

[marko]

Yep, confirmed, created a vid demonstrating it too ... (I did produce text to go with it but it would appear my editor has crapped out for some reason so it's just plain ole video I'm afraid!) - but do note at the end of the video nothing actually seems to happen when we press the "enter serial number", and note the spelling mistake in "serial nummber" - not exactly the most professional developer in the world to make such a sloppy spelling mistake!.

[FreeWareFan]

As I was a requester of this submission now I'm very disappointed by this situation.
But I think they have own distribution model as I understand - they update own trial every year.
This can be named as Partly Free. Kidding.

[James (Jim) Hillier]

Marko - This is indeed extremely disappointing, and maddening. If they did something like that in Australia, it would be in direct contravention of the Trade Practices Act and the resulting fines would be so heavy it would likely put them out of business...where they belong!!

Nice background for the video by the way!!

Cheers...Jim

[marko]

Little screenshot of it advertised on their website ...



The theme I'm using is the Aus one Jim (I know I didn't need to tell you that though!!) - I've had it on since I found the hidden themes in the last tip I posted, brightens up my day when we live in Scotland ....