Gizmo’s Freeware Says Farewell | Hacker News Reader

Gizmo’s Freeware Says Farewell

techsupportalert.com

23 pointspomian14 comments

Oh no

This site has been an invaluable source of actual reviews of free software, with info and vetting that you do not get- anywhere else

If I was after some sort of reader , editor, or generic software, I would always go to Gizmo's- they would warn you if something was bundled if OpenCandy(and if it installed it anyway even after you declined it), how products compared, etc-

And were trustworthy.

With their loss, there's nothing the public can use that pre-vets software, across as many broad categories.

And, knowing what to look for is important. As asking every single one of the masses to grab vmware /virtualbox + sandboxie, and then the tools to see if a program does stuff it shouldn't be anyway, while checking out every single competitor to something to see what best serves a purpose....

No, this is a very large loss for the community, and will hurt some very badly going forward...

I believe the submitted link should point to this page:

https://www.techsupportalert.com/content/time-say-farewell.h...

Yeah, the submitted-link seems to be that URL... with the full text of the "goodbye" blog post appended to it.

I'm kind of surprised that HN lets you store such a large URL. (Obviously URLs can be very long, technically. But.)

I'm more surprised that it lets you submit a 404 honestly (or that it gets upvoted)

Gizmo Richards, the site creator, retired some time ago ( Jan this year ). He was 75 when he retired.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210708015622if_/https://www.te... OR https://www.techsupportalert.com/content/gizmo-retiring-gizm...

Thanks for that link. The original site seems to be no longer valid. I wonder if there is a copy of the operating site somewhere, with all that hard work resulting in some great software lists, reviews and summaries.

I've never heard of this. I mostly use alternativeto for that kind of thing. Was this a predecessor?

For those who don't know, Gizmos freeware, via techsupportalert was a software test and review site, running for about(at least?) 10 years. Volunteers tested and compared hundreds of programs, on the major three platforms; Mac, Windows, Linux and submitted their reviews. It was a first class site to find software that solved complex or mundane tasks. Movie editors, web design, graphics, text or hex editors, and so on. It was a very well organized catalogue for open source software. Test results and reviews were mostly useful and helped you decide whether complexity or quick first use were more important criteria for the user. Rankings also listed whether programs were freeware, shareware, demos, or had portable install options. (And yes, in the last year, it suffered from the same fate as most of the internet, overloaded with 'extra' information. But the core was still there.) It was a goto site for many of us in the community, and will be missed.

I wasn't familiar with the site, and when I clicked the Back button, or tried to go to the homepage to see what was there, I got redirected to scammy "update your Flash plugin" malware pages, so ... I'm ok with this.

Well it was one of the main freeware recommendation sites for windows

Which means it has to be a malware site by definition? ;-)

Whatever it once may have been, it's now apparently a malware site.

I don't know whether it always was or if it was sabotaged (by its owners or by others) over the past few months, but in its current state it has negative value.

If you are having trouble visiting the site, or it's after July 15th 2021 then you can visit https://web.archive.org/web/20210712022605if_/https://www.te... or https://archive.ph/pLYU7 to read a copy of the farewell notice.

Browsed around briefly, and apparently the best free social network apps include Google+ and FourSquare (out of 5 or 6 total)... seems like it may have been inactive for a while prior to this.

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