I was on Softpedia.com, a software download website, to get an ISO image burner so I could burn a Linux (Ubuntu for those interested) DVD. When I went to download this program I was completely amazed by the awful ads surrounding the download pages. They all seemed to decide to also have a big “Download” button within them to fool you into clicking them instead of your actual download.

My question is – why wouldn’t Softpedia control what advertisements appear on these pages? Wouldn’t these ads negatively affect the user experience on the site? I clicked on one at first while not really paying much attention. I didn’t start the download because I saw the filename and knew it wasn’t right but other less careful or less tech savvy users would be totally confused by this.

Nice and confusingly, the advertisement's download button is bigger than Softpedia's actual download button

Even more confusingly, there are now two download buttons which aren't related to Softpedia at all surrounding the text links the user is supposed to click on.

Surely as a download website, you’d ensure these sorts of advertisements aren’t on your site. I just felt like I had to rant about that. Rant finished