I don't want to register before downloading
Okay I just wanted to try the "community edition" of some software. So I clicked on the big download button and then... I had to login. Because I don't have an account yet I had to register first. So I filled in all required field like my email address and a free to choose password without any help message about it's strength and then I got this error message:
Password not strong enough. Please use at least 3 of the following prerequisites:lowercase (a-z), uppercase (A-Z), numbers (0-9), and special characters (!^%#$@*.,)
Come on, I just want to try some software. Just let me download it without creating an account I will probably never use again. When I want to post on your support forum that's the right moment to create an account. I wonder if these companies have ever looked into their website statistics to see at which point people quit.
10 comments
Anonymous said
And thus there's http://www.bugmenot.com/
zak said
It's OK to ask for whatever you want before
letting people download YOUR software.
That
said, it's really bloody stupid. There's a good chance I'm not
sure it's worth the effort to try your software. If you make it
require any more of my effort than absolutely required, I may
decide not to try it at all.
Happy trial
users are more valuable than sales leads.
Carl Seleborg said
Martin,
It is *not* ok
to ask people to create an account before downloading a demo.
There are plenty of reasons, annoyance being the first of
them.
I use Xecrets to store my account
information. Guess how many entries I have? 102. Yep, 102
accounts. That's either 102 passwords, that I could not possibly
remember without the use of an external tool, or that's 102 times
the same password. Now, since you mention security, please
consider the security implications of such a situation.
There is something you have to understand: if
people have to register to try your software and they don't like
it (for whatever reason), there's nothing you can do with that
contact information to change that. On the other hand, if people
can try your software without hassle, and they think it fits their
needs, they will come back to you. At some point or another, you
will see them again.
There is absolutely
*no* difference between what you are doing and asking customers to
fill in a form at the supermarket's cash desk the first time they
come. Would you like that? I doubt it...
Anonymous said
It's policies like this that make people register as "Dave" using mailinator.
Anonymous said
10minutemail.com is your friend.
it generates a fake email which you use for
registration, and lets you monitor that fake email 'account' to
watch for the inbound "click here to download" email. Then the
email account self-destructs after ten minutes.
Igor said
Welcome to Apple's open source software (and you need to pay for a subscription and also be a mac user... NOT COOL!)
L. Mohan Arun said
You are correct, Registration before download must be optional, I guess they are just trying to get you on the list so they can send marketing and follow-up emails
Jasha Joachimsthal said
Hi Martin,
this post
wasn't meant just for your download process. There are a lot of
software vendors wanting some of your personal details before you
can download, like Sun for JDK 5. That's why I didn't explicitly
mention your company.
I know it's better to
choose a strong password but it would be nice if the password
rules would be mentioned before submitting the form.
In the end I did download and install the
software and I got it running in Windows 7 RC. The VM is too slow
to say anything about performance and I didn't spend much time yet
using it.
Jasha
Martin said
Hi Jasha
Thanks for
having the intention to download our Community Edition :-)
You make a comment about our required password
strength, but as a web developer you know that this is very common
on any website with registration. We do a lot more with profiles
on GX Developerweb so it's very normal to have a basic level of
security there.
Somehow I get the feeling
that your real point is to have to login at all before downloading
our software. I can write a very long story about this, but this
is one of those differences between open source and non-open
source. In the open source world it's 'not done'. We think it's
okay to ask some basic information about the people who want to
try our software. For registered users it's easy the post
questions on the forum and for us it's possible to send
questionaires to people who downloaded our software.
I'd be happy to hear about what you think of our
software!
Martin van Mierloo -
martinvm@gx.nl
Heavy Battle Wombat said
Just to make a point for Martin above. Personally, whenever I find that downloading a trial version or free/community edition some software requires me to give out my personal information, I will start looking for alternative software. If I cannot find any, I will fill out fake information with a one time fake email (just to be on the safe side whenever the company goes bankrupt and the client list goes to the highest bidder).
If you want my personal information as payment for your software, say so upfront and don't call it free. And it has nothing to do with software being open or closed source.
I don't think I am the only one to hold such opinions.