Shortly before the move, I had to do an format and restore on one of the computers. I was surprised that programs that had not, in the past, been bundled with questionable software had suddenly been bundled with questionable software. And not just that, but the same sort of software. CG Hill had noticed it as well, with OpenOffice and Divx. It turns out, there was a reason for it:

SourceForge, once a mighty force for the good of Open Source, has fallen far from its previous lofty heights.

Dice, the new owners, bribe strongly encourage the top projects to use a new (closed source only) installer that pushes spyware / adware / malware.

Developers using SourceForge should migrate away from it if they want to keep their integrity. End users using projects hosted on SourceForge should immediately find an alternative.

I was quite agitated at first. Though, to be perfectly honest, I decided it wasn’t such a bad thing after that. It seems to have standardized the methodology with which they sneak unwanted software on your computer, thereby actually making it easier to avoid.

I will be downloading OpenOffice and installing OpenOffice 4 soon. I will report anything that transpires.