Well, who’d have thought it? Mr Mean (me) pays to be able to download free software. What’s more, I didn’t mind.
Today, I’m mostly to be found using my hotter-than-hell MacBookPro on my lap. I don’t want any more children so am not fussed about a little heat in the lap area, but 3rd degree burns are never a good idea. I turn therefore to the highly-recommended Fan Control to crank up the fans and allow me to type without asbestos gloves.
Problem is that their website sucks (b0rken images everywhere) and – when I finally locate the download link from their HTML source – it’s also fubar’d. While it’s sometimes a joy to see 2.5Mb of hex rendered in a browser, I was burning up and needed a fan blast!
A bit of googling gets me to Softonic and they offer three types of download:
- free (linked to the shonky developer’s site)
- £0.59 for a one-off download from their high-availability, virus-scanned mirror
- More money more more premium goodies (which I didn’t look at).
So – for the reasonable micropayment (via paypal) of under a quid I’ve saved masses of time, my laptop’s processor is now down to a frigid 56.2 Centigrade and I have an appreciation of how high-availability download sites can make money other than from advertising.
I’m converted. Oh, and I’m running cooler 
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