![]() It’s safe to assume that the revenue it would generate from including even one bundled offer would be a lot higher. uTorrent, for comparison, has around 150 million users. According to a blog post in March 2012 (about nine months before this email exchange occurred), MetroTwit had about 8000 active users per day, or about 240,000 per month. Of course, MetroTwit doesn’t have near the userbase that WinZip, Nero or even uTorrent has. We launched similar cooperation with WinZip, Nero, TuneUp, Yahoo, and dozens of other reputable brands so this it’s a shame we can’t work together….īased on our estimation this type of cooperation, will add a new revenue channel, estimated at $90,000 - $120,000 each year for your company.Įmphasis added. In one email exchange, a company (whose name was redacted) offered to pay a handsome sum for including an opt-in installer (not to be confused with the more common, more lucrative opt-out installers): More importantly, we saw how lucrative they can be. ![]() In 2013, Long Zheng, the developer of Twitter client MetroTwit, gave us a glimpse into how these deals work. ![]() Third-party companies will approach apps like uTorrent asking that they include an offer for their junk software during install. If you’re a developer and you can’t get users to pay for your software, this can be an attractive option. In case it wasn’t obvious, bundled crapware makes money for developers. So why would a program that’s so popular feel the need to trick its users and risk its reputation? Because those offers pay the developers’ bills when we won’t. It’s deceptive, it’s annoying, and in some cases, it’s actually harmful. Of course, it’s easy to be mad at developers for this. Worse yet, these offers are opt-out, which means that if you’re not careful to explicitly say no, you could end up with tons of junk on your system. While on some rare occasions these bundles could be for apps users might genuinely like - for example, Avast includes an opt-out offer for Dropbox - most of the time they’re toolbars or crappy “system cleaners” that only serve to clog up a user’s system. When you install uTorrent, you get a fantastic BitTorrent client, along with offers for bundled software you don’t want. Unfortunately, it’s also quite controversial for its crapware and advertising. The dominant choice was the same one we think is the best: uTorrent. This week, we updated our Hive Five for best Bittorrent clients. Illustration by Sam Woolley, comic by Doghouse Diaries
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