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Comment by moron4hire | Hacker News Reader

I love Paint.NET, but their distribution system is super scummy. I tried to share it with some co-workers and realized you can't just give non-technical people a link to the project site or they are extremely likely to end up downloading some kind of spyware.

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https://github.com/paintdotnet/release/releases/tag/v4.3

Is this still the case? Not going to reiterate my comment upthread here, but I can't reconcile it with what I currently see...

not as bad as described, but still: https://www.dotpdn.com/downloads/pdn.html, the linked site to download if not using the Windows Store, has small text "To download, please click the Free Download Now link to the right." at the top, immediately followed by a google ad slot - which at least for me loads an ad with a big blue "DOWNLOAD" button (well, when I turn adblocking and Firefox' inbuild anti-tracking thing off obviously).

They've cleaned it up even within the last 6 months. There used to be Play Store ads with big "Install" buttons to the top, right, and maybe even bottom of the actual download.

From the link it appears to be available in the Microsoft store. If you're on Windows already, is that a problem?

Store version is $6.99

Exactly. We can support good software for less than the cost of eating out for lunch.

Yep and it auto updates from the windows store. This is one of the few free apps I pay for.

Which is what I gladly payed for.

Developers should be compensated for their work, just like any other professionals.

I don't think I've ever installed it like that. It's on Ninite, as is GIMP and Krita (and Inkscape for Vector).

Use ninite.com!

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