Infringement of Software Informer copyrights

15 years ago

It is with sincere regret that we have recently discovered that Brothersoft, a once respectable company that has been long known for its web resources and software applications, including Orbit Downloader, has resorted to unfair forms of competition by cloning our Software Informer Client program and positioning it as their own product under a different title ("ProgSense") and stealing our copyrighted software reviews to place them at their Recipester site without any attribution. Their program lacks some of the features of SI Client (e.g. it doesn't discriminate between releases and beta versions, and features no proxy support), and introduces several cosmetic changes to the interface - which nevertheless remains easily recognizable. We are including the following screenshots to illustrate the obvious similarity of the products. We consider this behavior absolutely inappropriate and are going to start legal actions against Brothersoft and their partners shortly. The main window comprises the same two tabs, both providing basically the same functionality. The number of questions and comments (called "Reviews") can only be seen after clicking on a program's entry. There is also no menu that would allow the user to customize notifications or run/uninstall a program. The "Settings" window lacks additional tabs related to proxy settings and application launcher, as the program itself doesn't offer either. The main settings are basically the same, with the only exception of beta version notifications being substituted with automatic updates of ProgSense itself. The pop-up message of the "Refresh" button remains unchanged for the most part. The updates notification message hasn't been altered at all. The tray balloon notification retains a similar design, up to the choice of colors. The main entries of the tray icon's context menu are the same. The error message is the same, albeit shorter. The pages of programs themselves contain descriptions written by our staff members, but these descriptions feature no attribution whatsoever. The personal page retains the message about hiding the list of installed software.

William Arthur Lovelace Jr 2 years ago

I 'm a victim to a similar situation my entire bio my life story has been chopped up broken into pieces by overseas Asian and Japanese creators script writers that work for the anime companies, they are making millions while I sit here having to struggle to get by on $8,000 a year on my Social Security and Food Stamps. Not even a mention of me as an inspiration it feels like my memories and dreams are no longer mine like they have taken my soul. and soon I will read what I'm saying here now but it will be the creation of someone else. Mark my words

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giantsloar

Same thing has happened a while back when someone copied FileHippo's website and Update software.

MamaWollff

Well,it's clear that Progsense isn't as good as software informer so they tried to copy yours but theirs is so bad you have nothing to worry about and all they did was hurt themselves cause noboby can trust a theif (as we all know) and I personally will not do any business with a theif.... Blush

But you keep up the good work!! Yahoo

Guest

Very simple, i will now uninstall progsense from my computer and stop visiting the site.

bibliofeelyak

Brothersoft has been at best dubious for MANY years. There are other sites to get the same things from, who haven't violated trust & permissions so many times. I've been looking for a reason to drop them entirely. Thanks for that!

I find your program to be thorough and elegantly easy to use. That means a lot of time and work went into making it this good.

(Have often wondered about utilities & apps that are virtually identical except for the name.

It does seem that eventually the mimics drop off or are marginalised, and the original creator prevails. I hope that happens for you!)

Chichi

can u believe such efontry... i wonder when the world started to accept duplicity... please sue them for their money's worth

Robin L. Orenbuch

Give 'em hell. There are few things worse than those who imagine they have the right to expropriate the time, the energy, the effort, the property, indeed, the very lives of others.

bonie batavia

ASAP to clear this problem..so we can move to new dimension abaout a true software...

Timothy M Bemis

Wow, they didn't even have the "sense" to change the colors and re-word the descriptions. Amateurs lol.

Muhumuza Allan

what losers!!!! Crazy

they shud be sued!!!!

deepak patade

stop them now, legally

thanx for d information

karl

Thanks for the information. That is unfair. I think I should review all my Brothersoft applications

zoy

Too bad these guys just want to steal your hardwork. sorry SI Angel

This was your brilliant idea so just come up with some more absolutely fantastic one to compliment this one which will make thier copy fade in the comparison. Unoriginal people never come up with anything outstanding so they wont be able to follow suit...
Don't waist your energy focusing on people that behave in such a poor manner. Rather use your energy by focusing on your gift of achieving brilliance which you are meant to share with the world. They will fall by the way side because the universe has away of dealing with negative energy.

Very discouraging... It is like living with somebody's wife thinking as his own... go get sued to Brothersoft... put them on behind bars .. so show the cyberworld this is the punishment they will get ,,, Put a function to check whether it is copied or not in th source code. or make it gama protected.

this sounds like brothersoft wants in on the big bucks.. however, there is a cluse in the copyright. ( can't remember which one) that says if someting isn't exactly the same it can't be said as a copy right infrigment. so if i was SI. i'd download brothersoft's program and bust open the code on it.. see if any of the code is the same.. for each programer has "a touch" of personality in the code sure menus and such are simuler.. but "is the code the same"? dig deel SI dig deep.. get all the goodies on em.. THEN GO BUST THEIR TAILS in court. since i got SI off www.giveawayoftheday.com it's helped me tremiously. i had programs installed i didn't even KNOW ABOUT! rofl. this software is great.. runs quitly in the background without useing system resources or hogging CPU cycles.... I S keep up the good work.

ernesto nolasco

I was able to download both progsense and SI client. But when I installed progsense and tried it, I said it is like SI client, but the color of highlighted programs for updating is different. All along I thought that if CNET has tech tracker, filehippo has update checker and SI has SI client, maybe this is for brothersoft. But the similarity is obvious. I have been downloading software from Bothersoft for a time now but this time onwards I will dig deeper for any software I see online. thanks a lot for the information. you have been a great help for me and my family because SI client is very valuable when in comes to updating software in our pc. God bless and keep you.

steve iosefo

It's good to hear about it since most of us here in remote Samoa depends on the internet for about 75% of our downloaded needs/wants in terms of software programs, since... the prices here on island are ridiculous and the services aren't that many...so you can imagine the market value down here. Dirol

So it is good news to know that Bothersoft is an untrustworthy developer/company cause they might be selling a product that is defective or full of damaging components!! Dirol

Thanks SI for the heads-up!!! Crazy

i am sorry for this.....
your programe is so great and very useful, i thank you very much ..keep going

Claire Lewis

go get 'em. you worked hard to develop this!

They are thieves. Stealing your work in no different than them coming into your house and stealing its contents.

thanks for inform us, but we are with you, and we cannot go with them..their are dangerous, maybe have spyware...

WAAAAAAAAH WAAAAAAAAAAAAH! You sound like a bunch of cry babies. Take them to court and quit wasting our time!

Mariana

WOW. I've never ever expected to hear something like that. I hope you can resolve this situation.

Louise Beveridge

I believe that this company hood winked me with some phoney clean up product and took my money.I guess the wickedly people will always be with us

Good to know, Thanks SI Crew!

How about you deal with this in court instead of sending out elementary playground notifications and not waste my business time on your business problems.

Randy Wood

They have been on FFMpeg's Hall of Shame for stealing their codecs and using it in Format Factory unattributed for years. Since they've been thieves for so long, it should not surprise anyone that they'd reverse engineer and sell their own version of anyone else's program. The site hides behind GoDaddy's privacy hosting, so they won't even give anyone their location or contact information, just a web form (and that alone generally tells you about the company).

Michael

DESTROY THEM! Smile

what's next????

Losers!!!!! And they don't care they're losers!!!!!
So sorry bout your hard work gettin so blatently displayed. Sad

These are the ones that should be made accountable for their actions.
On the flip side, I can see why they copied you. Your product works great. Yahoo

Never once has given me any grief..... Thank-you.

Joshua Bowden

How are we going to deal with this?

Another sign of the times? It makes me mad when people do this, it is a sad reminder of the kind of people we must watch for everyday. We are so busy watching out for them that we dont have time left to stop and smell the roses anymore. ( although something does smell )

Arrgh

That's sad. And highly disrespectful towards other people's hard work.

They also keep claiming that the latest version of 'Opera' is 14.0. This is ridiculous. They'd better quit right now rather than keep wasting their (and our) time on this disgrace of a service.

Infringement of Software Informer copyrights

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