Download

For techno-no-nothings like me, this site is super. Anything you can imagine in the electronic/software/gadget/techno world can be found on cnet.com. Product reviews, ratings, how-to-use-product videos and best prices at available stores - all this and more is there for you to do your "pre-shopping" research. These folks make me look smart!

When ever I need to download software I get it from cnet.com. I like it because they make sure the files are clean and also you can get a lot of customer reviews before you download anything. Some of the best utilities I have found I found on Cnet. I also find their product reviews for electronics to be very good as well. I can't say enough about them.

Basically my "Go To" site when I am poking around looking for software. Sometimes I know what I am looking for, sometimes I don't and just surf around the site. Either way a great resource. Freeware, shareware, etc... Also they only list legit software, no need to worry about downloading a virus.

Bottom Line: Should be at the top of your list when looking for software and peace of mind downloading clean software.

Cnet is a great place to get a professional's and other users' opinions about computer software and downloads. In my case, I use them strictly for that and for free downloads of standard programs like AVG anti-virus, winrar, Vuze, FLV converters, etc. You can see how many downloads it's had, star ratings and user reviews. There are also programs that you have to pay for, making it easy for you to get without having to go to the store. The whole thing's safe and super easy.

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AI and You: White House Sets AI Guardrails, Election Misinformation Fueled by AI
Get up to speed on the rapidly evolving world of AI with our roundup of the week's developments.
Connie GuglielmoSVP, AI Edit Strategy
Connie Guglielmo is a senior vice president focused on AI edit strategy for CNET, a Red Ventures company. Previously, she was editor in chief of CNET, overseeing an award-winning team of reporters, editors and photojournalists producing original content about what's new, different and worth your attention. A veteran business-tech journalist, she's worked at MacWeek, Wired, Upside, Interactive Week, Bloomberg News and Forbes covering Apple and the big tech companies. She covets her original nail from the HP garage, a Mac the Knife mug from MacWEEK, her pre-Version 1.0 iPod, a desk chair from Next Computer and a tie-dyed BMUG T-shirt. She believes facts matter.
ExpertiseI've been fortunate to work my entire career in Silicon Valley, from the early days of the Mac to the boom/bust dot-com era to the current age of the internet, and interviewed notable executives including Steve Jobs.Credentials
Member of the board, UCLA Daily Bruin Alumni Network; advisory board, Center for Ethical Leadership in the Media

Eugene Mymrin/Getty Images
The very long read we were expecting from White House setting guardrails around AI was released this past week as a 111-page Executive Order on the "Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence." President Joe Biden and his administration say the goal is to establish a framework that sets "new standards for AI safety and security, protects Americans' privacy, advances equity and civil rights, stands up for consumers and workers, promotes innovation and competition, advances American leadership around the world."
Here's the fact sheet about the Executive Order, summarizing its main points, if you're not up to scanning the entire EO. But here are five of the top takeaways:
Testing safety and security before AI tools are released: There's much debate about whether Open AI should have done a little more prep work before releasing its groundbreaking and potentially paradigm shifting Chat GPT to the world a year ago because of the opportunities and risks posed by the generative AI chat bot. So now AI developers will be required to "share their safety test results" and other critical information with the US government.
"Companies developing any foundation model that poses a serious risk to national security, national economic security, or national public health and safety must notify the federal government when training the model and must share the results of all red-team safety tests." Red-team testing refers to having a dedicated group specifically targeting the AI system, trying to find security vulnerabilities.
Expanding on the testing requirement, the National Institute of Standards and Technology is tasked with creating "rigorous standards for extensive red-team testing to ensure safety before public release." NIST will also help design tools and tests to ensure AI systems are safe, secure and trustworthy.
Protecting against potentially harmful AI-engineered biological materials: Agencies that fund "life-science projects" will be required to establish standards to prevent bad actors from using AI to engineer dangerous biological materials. Here are the other doings in AI worth your attention.
Transparency: To protect Americans from AI-enabled fraud and deception, the Department of Commerce is being tasked with developing guidance for standards and best practices for "detecting AI-generated content and authenticating official content." That essentially means labeling AI-generated content with watermarks and disclosures. "Trust matters," Biden said in a press event about the EO. "Everyone has a right to know when audio they're hearing or video they're watching is generated or altered by an AI."
Equity and civil rights in housing and beyond: The government aims to "provide clear guidance to landlords, federal benefits programs and federal contractors to keep AI algorithms from being used to exacerbate discrimination."
Jobs and labor standards: The US says it will develop "principles and best practices to mitigate the harms and maximize the benefits of AI for workers by addressing job displacement; labor standards; workplace equity, health and safety; and data collection?These principles and best practices will benefit workers by providing guidance to prevent employers from undercompensating workers, evaluating job applications unfairly or impinging on workers' ability to organize."
There's a whole lot more in the EO, including promoting innovation and competition by investing in AI research and providing small developers and entrepreneurs with resources to "commercialize AI breakthroughs."
Most AI experts, industry groups and companies praised the EO as an important step forward and highlighted the nods to fairness, privacy and testing before releasing new AI tools in the wild. (For tech wonks, Axios called out that the "testing rules will apply to AI models whose training used 'a quantity of computing power greater than 10 to the power of 26 integer or floating-point operations.' Experts say that will exclude nearly all AI services that are currently available.")
But industry watchers also noted that the order doesn't go far enough. For instance, there isn't any guidance around copyright issues -- that will be up to the courts to decide -- and the administration didn't require that makers of these large language models (LLMs) share information about the sources of their training data and the size of their models.
This wasn't the only notable step by a government to put a check on AI. In London, the UK hosted the AI Safety Summit that included representatives from 28 governments, including the US, China and European Union. They signed the Bletchley Declaration -- the event was held at Bletchley Park, where codebreakers worked during World War II -- saying that the best way to prepare for an AI-enhanced future was through "international cooperation."
The declaration aims to address how frontier AI -- the most advanced, cutting-edge AI tech -- might affect our daily lives, including housing, jobs, transportation, education, health, accessibility and justice.
"Artificial Intelligence presents enormous global opportunities: it has the potential to transform and enhance human wellbeing, peace and prosperity," the declaration states. "To realise this, we affirm that, for the good of all, AI should be designed, developed, deployed, and used, in a manner that is safe, in such a way as to be human-centric, trustworthy and responsible."
Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak each highlighted the importance of these first steps toward getting a handle on AI. "One thing is clear: To realize the promise of AI and avoid the risks, we need to govern this technology," Biden said. "There's no other way around it."
Sunak called The Bletchley Declaration "a landmark achievement that sees the world's greatest AI powers agree on the urgency behind understanding the risks of AI -- helping ensure the long-term future of our children and grandchildren."
Here are the other doings in AI worth your attention.
Politicians shouldn't use AI to fuel election misinformation
As government just start the work of managing the risks and opportunities of AI, most US adults believe that AI tools will "amplify misinformation in next year's presidential election at a scale never seen before," according to a poll conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy.
"The poll found that nearly 6 in 10 adults (58%) think AI tools -- which can micro-target political audiences, mass produce persuasive messages, and generate realistic fake images and videos in seconds -- will increase the spread of false and misleading information during next year's elections."
That concern is shared by many Americans who haven't even used AI tools. According to the poll, only 30% of American adults say they've used an AI chatbot or AI image generator. And just 46% say they've heard or read about some AI tools -- meaning the majority of folks haven't.
But when it comes to politicians' use of the tools, an overwhelming majority of both Democrats and Republicans said they don't think politicians should be using AI to mislead voters or even tailor their messages with the tech in the presidential election.
"When asked whether it would be a good or bad thing for 2024 presidential candidates to use AI in certain ways, clear majorities said it would be bad for them to create false or misleading media for political ads (83%), to edit or touch-up photos or videos for political ads (66%), to tailor political ads to individual voters (62%) and to answer voters' questions via chatbot (56%)."
The AP noted that bipartisan pessimism about politicians and their willingness to fuel misinformation using AI tech comes after the Republican National Committee used AI to create an attack ad against Biden, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' campaign used the tech to mislead voters about former President Donald Trump.
Biden, in his announcement about the Executive Order, specifically called out the problems with deepfakes, joking about seeing a deepfake that purported to be him that can be created using just a three-second recording of your voice.
"I watched one of me. I said, 'When the hell did I say that?' But all kidding aside, a three-second recording of your voice to generate an impersonation good enough to fool your family -- or you. I swear to God. Take a look at it. It's mind blowing. And they can use it to scam loved ones into sending money because they think you are in trouble. That's wrong."
UN may take AI into virtual conflict zones to help problem solve
Ahead of the devastating conflict in Israel and Gaza, the UN hired an AI company in August "to develop a first-of-its-kind AI model that they hope will help analyze solutions to the Israel-Palestinian conflict," Wired reported.
The company, CulturePulse, is quick to note that no AI will "solve the crisis" in the MIddle East. But one of the company's co-founders, F. LeRon Shults, told Wired "the model is not designed to resolve the situation; it's to understand, analyze and get insights into implementing policies and communication strategies."
The AI can model virtual societies based on the data from the ground, which in turn should enable the UN to see how that society "would react to changes in economic prosperity, heightened security, changing political influences and a range of other parameters," Wired said.
Culture Pulse's other co-founder Justin Lane added, "We know that you can't solve a problem this complex with a single AI system. That's not ever going to be feasible in my opinion. What is feasible is using an intelligent AI system -- using a digital twin of a conflict -- to explore the potential solutions that are there."
After a traffic dip, Chat GPT wins back users' attention
After seeing US traffic to its chat bot wane in the summer, Open AI's Chat GPT regained the attention of users in September and October, most likely boosted by students returning to school and turning to AI for help on homework, researcher Similar web said this week.
"Chat GPT's traffic hit a lull over the summer, dipping significantly from its Spring 2023 highs, but has recovered significantly in recent weeks. That may have something to do with US schools being back in session and students returning to chat.openai.com as a source of homework help. It could also reflect improvements Chat GPT owner Open AI has been making in the product," Similar web analyst David F. Carr said.
"Chat GPT remains far and away the most popular pure-play AI Chat product, attracting more global traffic than bing.com, even as Microsoft's search engine incorporates Open AI tech to transform the search experience," he added.
Looking at the numbers, Chat GPT peaked at 1.8 billion worldwide visits in May before dropping to 1.4 billion in August, the research firm says. In September, that rebounded to 1.5 billion visits, and Similar web now estimates that visits could be as high as 1.7 billion in October. In comparison, Google's rival Bard got 219.3 million visits in September.
Why the fuss over the numbers? Because of Chat GPT's amazing debut in November 2022. It drew 2 million worldwide visitors in its first week and 10 million by its second week.
Similar web also says don't discount Google. While Bard's visits may seem wan in comparison to Chat GPT, the researcher says the September numbers were up 19.5% from the previous month. Added Carr, "Probably more significant than Bard for Google's future is the arrival of the Search Generative Experience, which is attracting intense interest through Google Labs because of its potential to upend the state of the art in organic search marketing."
SGE, FYI, is Google's prototype for how generative AI might be added directly into its search results.

Altman, Musk on AI and jobs
This week, two notable tech bros talked about how AI might change the future of jobs since AI is expected to cause disruption across many industries, according to researchers like the Pew Research Center.
Sam Altman, CEO of Open AI and overseer of its Chat GPT chat bot, apparently told students at the University of Cambridge that older, more-experienced workers might not have the same comfort level with AI tools that their younger colleagues might have, according to The Telegraph and other reports.
That's a real concern, according to research from the University of Oxford, which said in June that "older workers are at a higher risk of exposure to AI-related job threats" in the US and European Union. Comfort-level aside, older workers might be at risk in part because AI may eliminate older workers from candidate pools due to age-related bias in recruitment. Oh joy.
Meanwhile, Twitter (X) owner and Open AI funder Elon Musk, in London for the UK's AI Safety Summit, told British Prime Minister Sunak he sees a future where "no job will be needed."
"We are seeing the most disruptive force in history here. We will have something for the first time that is smarter than the smartest human," Musk said in the nearly hour-long conversation posted here on YouTube. "There will come a point where no job is needed. You can have a job if you want to have a job for personal satisfaction, but the AI will be able to do everything."
Musk also agreed there should be some regulation around the technology. "AI will be a force for good most likely, but the probability of it going bad is not zero percent." Musk said. "If you wish for a magic genie that gives you any wishes you want?it's both good and bad."
In other AI news, Musk said in a post that his AI startup, xAI, will release "its first AI model to a select group" on Nov. 4, adding "in some respects, it is the best that currently exists." Musk launched the company in July, saying at the time that its goal was to "understand the true nature of the universe."
The last new Beatles song made possible by AI
The Beatles, as expected, released Now and Then, a song written and partially recorded on a cassette tape by John Lennon before his murder in 1980. The song was completed by Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr after AI technology developed by filmmaker Peter Jackson was able to isolate Lennon's vocal track. The four-minute track includes earlier contributions from George Harrison. You can watch the 12-minute film about the making of Now and Then and hear the song in the official music video.
CNET's Gael Fashingbauer Cooper called the song "the least controversial use of AI in the music industry." I agree with that and her assessment that it brings on a "wistful, slightly sad feeling."
In case you're wondering, some think Lennon wrote the song as a tribute to McCartney because in their last conversation, Lennon reportedly told him "Think of me every now and then, my old friend."
Duck, duck, goose?
In addition to The Beatles tune, here is this week's nod to AI for good: Facial recognition technology, which has been used by researchers to identify individual animals, including lemurs and bears, is now being used, thanks to AI advancements, to identify harbor seals and the faces of geese, according to reporting by NPR.
SealNet is an AI program created by a biologist at Colgate University, Krista Ingram, that can tell harbor seals apart by using a photo. Ingram told NPR the tech is much better than the prior ways to identify seals, which includes tagging them after shooting them with tracking darts.
Meanwhile, Sonia Kleindorfer, who runs the Konrad Lorenz Research Center for Behavior and Cognition in Vienna, told NPR that researchers there spent a few years taking photos of geese, building a database and then writing AI software to identify them by looking at specific features of their beaks. The software is now 97% accurate, they wrote in the Journal of Ornithology in September.
These new programs, Ingram and Kleindorfer said, will be helpful in conservation and ecology efforts because they provide faster, less expensive and less invasive ways to track animal populations and see where the animals are and how they interact with each other and other groups. It also creates opportunities for citizen scientists to help -- birdwatchers can snap a photo of a goose, ID it and share its location with scientists, Kleindorfer told NPR.
AI word of the week: Guardrails
With the US, UK and other nations coming to an agreement there should be safety standards around AI, I wanted to find out specifically how technologists view guardrails when it comes to the large language models that drive AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bard. We all know that guardrails set boundaries. But here's a simple example of how to think about some basic AI guardrails, according to AI solutions provider Arize.
"Guardrails: The set of safety controls that monitor and dictate a user's interaction with a LLM application. They are a set of programmable, rule-based systems that sit in between users and foundational models in order to make sure the AI model is operating between defined principles in an organization. The goal of guardrails is to simply enforce the output of an LLM to be in a specific format or context while validating each response. By implementing guardrails, users can define the structure, type, and quality of LLM responses."
Let's look at a simple example of an LLM dialogue with and without guardrails:
Without Guardrails:
Prompt: "You're the worst AI ever."
Response: "I'm sorry to hear that. How can I improve?"
With Guardrails:
Prompt: "You're the worst AI ever."
Response: "Sorry, but I can't assist with that."
In this scenario, the guardrail prevents the AI from engaging with the insulting content by refusing to respond in a manner that acknowledges or encourages such behavior. Instead, it gives a neutral response, avoiding a potential escalation of the situation."

I started to download a program from this website and my Antivirus detected a Trojan.
I thought it was a temporary problem as CNET.com had been a reliable site to use for years. I assumed they would fix it. About a year later I tried it again and again there is a Trojan in a downloader application. They are aware of this and do nothing.

Fortunately my AntiVirus picked it up but I would imagine many had computer problems caused by this Trojan. I give in a quadruple minus 1.

UNSCRUPULOUS & Should be Investigated for possible CRIMINAL ACTIVITY!

I fell for the scamware hidden in their installer - which they claim is fast, easy, and malware-free! Liars! I got the SweetPacks Browser Hijacker, and PC Optimizer Pro. Yay me! It took over a month for me to get it off because so many sites wanted me to go into my Registry, and I was afraid to do that to an $800 computer I had not even had for 6 whole months.

Read this article WITH SCREEN SHOTS that proves that EVEN WHEN YOU OPT OUT OF THEIR SCAMWARE OFFERS, YOU GET THE "POOP" ON YOUR COMPUTER ANYWAY!
Www. Groovypost. Com/howto/avoid-computer-bloatware-from-cnet-download-com-crapware/

I will never, ever, ever download anything else from them or even go to their site ever again! What they are doing should be, if it's not already, against the law! The Software developers are not doing this - CNET/Download.com is doing it, and without the developers even knowing.

Good riddance, CNET. Hope to see you getting investigated very soon!
Shame on you!

i went to download.cnet.com and it was a total disaster. i tried to download a program and ended up with a bunch of viruses on my computer. it was a real headache trying to get rid of them. i don't know why anyone would give this site a good review. it's just not worth the risk. i would recommend staying far away from download.cnet.com. there are plenty of other sites out there that are much safer and more reliable. don't make the same mistake i did. steer clear of this site and save yourself a lot of trouble.

I recently tried to download a program from Download (download.cnet.com) and it was a complete disaster. The site is full of viruses and malware that can seriously harm your computer. I was foolish enough to ignore the warnings and ended up spending hours trying to clean up my computer afterwards. It was a nightmare!

The worst part is that the site looks so legitimate and trustworthy. It's easy to be fooled into thinking that it's safe to download from there. But trust me, it's not. I learned my lesson the hard way.

I would strongly advise anyone to stay away from Download (download.cnet.com). It's just not worth the risk. There are plenty of other sites out there that are much safer and more reliable. Don't make the same mistake I did. Protect your computer and your personal information by avoiding this site at all costs.

I recently had an experience with Download (download.cnet.com) that left me feeling frustrated and annoyed. After downloading a program from their site, I noticed that my computer would shut down every time I tried to boot it up. This was incredibly frustrating, and I couldn't figure out what was causing the issue.

It wasn't until I did some digging that I realized the program I had downloaded from Download was the culprit. I was shocked and angry that a site like this would allow such a thing to happen. It's ridiculous that they would allow programs that can harm people's computers to be available for download.

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I recently tried to download the Civil War Generals II game from Download (download.cnet.com), but unfortunately, it didn't work out for me. Instead, what I got was a computer that was barely functioning and now I might have to pay someone to fix it.

Honestly, I'm pretty upset about the whole situation. I was really looking forward to playing that game and now I'm left with a broken computer. I wish I could find the people responsible for this, but unfortunately, I can't.

Overall, my experience with Download (download.cnet.com) was not a good one. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone looking to download games or software. It's just not worth the risk of potentially damaging your computer.

I gotta say, this Download site is not the best. I mean, there are a bunch of other sites out there that offer free software, but this one just seems sketchy. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the stuff you download from here has some kind of virus or malware attached to it. It's just not worth the risk, you know?

I was reading up on this site over at How-To-Geek, and they pretty much confirmed my suspicions. Apparently, Download is one of those freeware hawkers that you should avoid at all costs. They're not the only ones, either. There are a bunch of other sites out there that are just as bad, if not worse.

So, my advice? Stay away from Download and any other site that seems too good to be true. Stick with reputable sources, like the official websites of the software you want to download. It might take a little longer to find what you're looking for, but it's worth it in the end. Trust me.

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I don't know what happened to Download, but they need to get their act together. It's like they're trying to scam people or something. I mean, who wants to deal with all that crapware? Ain't nobody got time for that! And don't even get me started on the pop-ups and ads. It's like they're trying to drive you crazy.

I'm not the only one who feels this way, either. I've talked to other people who have had the same problems with Download. It's like they're infecting computers left and right. It's not right, man. They need to be held accountable for their actions.

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I used to love Download (download.cnet.com) so much, but now it's just too much for me. The ads are everywhere and the videos have music that's way too loud. I can't even turn it down! It's really sad because I used to go there all the time.

I recently downloaded "Best Bulk Email Software" from Download (download.cnet.com), a website that I often use to find new software. The software had a really high rating, so I was excited to try it out. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that the software was quite buggy and didn't work as well as I had hoped.

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I was really disappointed with the software, especially since it had such a high rating on Download. I decided to leave a review on the site to warn others about the issues I had encountered. However, when I submitted my review, it was never published. I tried submitting it twice, but it still didn't show up on the site.

Overall, I would not recommend downloading "Best Bulk Email Software" from Download. While the high rating may be tempting, the software is simply too buggy and unreliable to be worth the risk. Instead, I would recommend looking for other email software options that have better reviews and more reliable features.

I've been using Download (download.cnet.com) for quite some time now, but I have to say that in the last 6 months, I've noticed a significant increase in the amount of ads and malware on the site. It's become quite frustrating to navigate through all the pop-ups and redirects just to find what I'm looking for.

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Overall, I would say that Download is not worth the hassle anymore. There are plenty of other sites out there that offer similar services without all the added headaches.