Sneaky bastards

On my home computer, I use a raft of programs that are free for non-commercial use. When I can, if the program is truly something I can't live without, I make a small donation to the author. One program that I use infrequently, but is on my "essential" list is my FTP browser program. The program I use seems better at staying connected to my particular host than some of the other, better known programs. I think it's because my host has implemented some sort of security to attempt to defeat programs that stay connected to the FTP site. Anyway, as a registered user, I got a legitimate email the other day that an update was available for this program.

Before I rant too much, I want to say up-front that the problems I had with the update may be due to the fact that this program had previously been installed on the old computer before I transferred everything to the new computer - so there's a possibility that something related to the update process was incompatible between Windows Me and Windows XP. Nevertheless, when I attempted the online update, my working program stopped working. Selecting the "repair" option from the Application Installer didn't seem to help.

Finally, I had to completely uninstall the old version before installing the update.

And here's where the "sneaky" part comes in.

The new "update" is a time-limited version of the program. Whether it will stop functioning after 30 days remains to be seen. But I saw nothing in the release notes that indicated that this version was less capable than the version it replaced. If, at the end of 30 days, it stops functioning, I will either have to think about installing a different FTP client, or I will have to rely on the "original" version of the program, which is still installed on my old machine.

Either way, the choices suck.