EULAs are important! [rev0]

matthewsoft — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 17:59:00 GMT

From $5 to $1000, EULAs [or end user license agreement] are starting to offer cold hard cash! Most people dread reading all this legal mumbo-jumbo and simply click yes when installing software. I actually do scan through them if they're not that long or I simply just read the titles of the different paragraphs [unless I'm in a hurry].

Anyway, the $5 refers to a clause in Microsoft's AntiSpyware *cough* AntiAdware */cough* Beta in case Microsoft makes a mistake and the software's definitions start erasing personal files. Of course Microsoft has to actually find and admit the error themselves, which they recently did. I think that's a little generous since the software is free and will remain free. I have GIANT's software myself since it has more features, but Microsoft recently released an update that increased performance among other things, which was true when I uninstalled GIANT on a slow machine and installed the new Microsoft build. I compared the boot times and there was a decrease in 10-15 seconds on a 2:30 boot time [yeah, it's a slow machine]. Anyway, it kind of makes me angry that Microsoft isn't updating the GIANT build, they're only updating the definitions for it.

The $1000 check was cut by PC Pitstop when Doug Heckman was the first of over 3000 downloads to actually read the EULA and e-mail the company for compensation. If only I used their software... Interesting to note that this article was first on Slashdot.org and then News.com used it.

@Matthew

Matthew@MSN : Other IT

EULAs are important! [rev0]