The various awards, ratings, stars and other accolades bestowed upon freeware and software by download websites cannot be trusted, according to the results of an experiment by developer Andy Brice. Brice had a non-operational program submitted to over 1,000 shareware distribution websites, and the results he got back were quite astounding.
Brice’s program was designed to be completely useless. In fact, it’s only contents were the words “this program does nothing at all”. Of the 1,000+ sites to which Brice had his “program” submitted, 21% accepted his listing into their databases. 7% of those sites bestowed him with various “5 Star” and “Editor’s Pick” awards.
When researching new software and deciding whose opinion to trust, consider the incentives for each party to offer praise. It is in the best interest of software distribution sites to give out awards to sub-par software developers — those developers will turn around and post those awards online, thereby sending more traffic back to the download site. Their advertisements then gain exposure, and their software offerings receive more downloads.
If you would like to know more about a software package before making a decision, start with third parties. Instead of trusting the awards, descriptions and testimonials on the same site offering the download, try turning to the rest of the web. Use search engines such as Google to track down message board discussions and blog posts discussing the software. Find out what others who have legitimately used the package have to say.
Source: “Buyer beware: pointless text file wins 16 software awards” by WatchGuard Wire, via [Geeks Are Sexy].
