DonationCoder.com (Tech Sites We Love)
DonationCoder.com is a long standing community site of software authors and users that is entirely donation based.
This is the third part of a series in which we review tech sites that we have a lot of respect for. The first two parts covered the download portal Majorgeeks.com and Nirsoft.net.
We have a long standing history with the guys that run DonationCoder.com. Our first mention of the site dates back to the year 2006; we reviewed Screenshot Captor, an excellent screen capturing tool for Windows back then.
What followed were plenty of reviews of programs developed by DonationCoder members, as well as coverage of the site's annual NANY challenge.
DonationCoder.com
DonationCoder.com is as clean as a site as it gets. The site does not have any advertisement, most of the software comes without installer, and all programs are free of adware, spyware, third-party offers, and other unwanted additions.
DonationCoder.com Software
The site's two main parts are the user forum, and the software section. There are other parts, a reviews and features section, or a blog for instance.
The main entry point as far as software is concerned is the Software hub. There you find listed links to the site's three most prolific authors Mouser, SKWire and Skrommel, as well as links to the Coding Snacks download page, and other links.
It would go too far to list all of the programs, but here is a short selection of awesome software:
- Clipboard Help and Spell -- A clipboard manager for Windows that features all kinds of nice to have features such as a history, hotkeys, organization features, spellchecking, powerful search, and more. (see Quick Action feature review)
- DimScreen -- A lightweight program to change the screen brightness.
- Find and Run Robot -- A keyboard launcher that you can customize to your liking, that supports plugins, is fully portable, and lightweight at the same time. (our review of Find and Run Robot)
- Screenshot Captor -- A powerful screen capturing program for Windows that supports capturing, editing, annotating, and sharing of screenshots. (our review of Screenshot Captor)
- Toddler Trap -- locks the keyboard and mouse actions. (our review of Toddler Trap)
There is a lot to explore when it comes to software, and one of the issues that you may run into is that there is no central index. While you do get some starting pages, the Coding Snacks page for instance that lists applications, you will spend time on dozens of pages to get an overview of all programs available on the site.
DonationCoder.com Forum
The forum is the heart of the community. It brings developers and interested users together. While that is something that many forums on the Internet do, DonationCoder is special as it offers more than just friendly interaction between developers and non-developers.
One of the coolest features of the site is the Coding Snacks section. Anyone may request the creation of programs in the forum. While it is up to developers to pick up the project and deliver, Coding Snacks was the birthplace of a lot of programs.
There is more to the forum than that place. You find forums dedicated to particular programs for instance where you can get support, reviews by members, or discussion about general software topics.
The community is very friendly, which is not always the case when you interact with others on the Internet.
What is up with the donation part of DonationCoder?
I mentioned earlier that the DonationCoder site is maintained solely by donations. You are free to donate at any time, and there is a donation drive as well sometimes.
Users who donate receive a number of beneits including exclusive software access, guaranteed lifetime access to site content, opportunities to enter monthly shareware giveaways, and more. You can find out more about the benefits here. You may donate to specific authors as well on the site.
Verdict
DonationCoder.com is an excellent software resource, and community. Its approach to things has been unique since the beginning, and it seems to work well for them so far.
Now You: What's your take on the DonationCoder site, community and concept?
Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?
Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.
I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
http://www.google.com/saved
@Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!
@Martin
The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/
Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.
Omg a badge!!!
Some tangible reward lmao.
It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.
With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.
This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)
Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.
And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.
First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[
Yes. Please. Fix the comments.
With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.
Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.
The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.
If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.
And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.
When will you put an end to the mess in the comments?
Ghacks comments have been broken for too long. What article did you see this comment on? Reply below. If we get to 20 different articles we should all stop using the site in protest.
I posted this on [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/] so please reply if you see it on a different article.
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Article Title: Reddit enforces user activity tracking on site to push advertising revenue
Article URL: https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
No surprises here. This is just the beginning really. I cannot see a valid reason as to why anyone would continue to use the platform anymore when there are enough alternatives fill that void.
I’m not sure if there is a point in commenting given that comments seem to appear under random posts now, but I’ll try… this comment is for https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
My temporary “solution”, if you can call it that, is to use a VPN (Mullvad in my case) to sign up for and access Reddit via a European connection. I’m doing that with pretty much everything now, at least until the rest of the world catches up with GDPR. I don’t think GDPR is a magical privacy solution but it’s at least a first step.