Trial / shareware is in the store, and other issues. It's annoying

Hallo everyone.

Today I tried the snap “Ktube-media-downloader” from the snapstore.

I tried it on two different ubuntu 18.04 amd64 machines. After installation it doesn’t run on any of them.
After installing the .deb package (same software) from here. This was working.

This little GUI Program is to watch and download youtube videos.
However, after downloading two videos it says that i can’t download/add more than two videos per day to the queue.

It says i should buy the pro version for $ 5.99
Ktube_001

It is very anoying that the snapstore doesn’t say a word about trial/shareware (or similar).
Also it seems that no one even tried whether the package is installable.
Is there any quality assurance at all for ubuntu?

It seems that ubuntu more and more becomes the the new android of linux distributions.

I Like ubuntu very much and also make donations for different software projects, hoping to see really good linux distributions one day. Is it that difficult to not annoy the crap out customers?

Thanks For Listening

Elion

snapcraft

Should be in store or snap category

After installation it doesn’t run on any of them.

It’s publisher’s responsibility to ensure that the application works.

It is very anoying that the snapstore doesn’t say a word about trial/shareware (or similar).

Because it is allowed in the first place?

-> moved to store category

Of course its it is. What I am talking about is:
There should be some certain tests to make sure that not every crap lands in the snapstore.
There are several options to make that sure. I know that this takes some serious effort, but it is an absolute nescessity if canonical wants ubuntu wants to create a flawless user experience.

Well, I think this kind of Trial/shareware is not an very nice experience for anyone. Users just want to get their stuff done. However, if it IS ok from besides of Canonical/the snapstore team, then at least they should make such software detectable and make a filter on the snapstore, so that someone can avoid such kind of software.

There are indeed many applications in the store which require some kind of payment to fully use. For example Spotify requires a subscription for many features, and Slack requires a payment to use enable logging beyond a certain number of lines, and add lots of integrations.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable for a developer to expect to get paid in some way for their work. Whether that’s an up-front payment, in-app upgrade or some other subscription system, that’s up to them.

I do agree we should probably it more obvious when an application requires a subscription or IAP to enable it. Perhaps something our design team will consider in a future update.

/cc @mpt @pheurton

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The link you posted (https://keshavbhatt.github.io/Ktube-media-downloader/) clearly states that the application requires payment for unlocking more than two downloads per day. Ideally this should also be stated in the snap store’s description field but the developer has chosen not to do so.

The developer is @keshavnrj, who I just pinged so they might notice this topic and reply themselves.

The snap store is not “Ubuntu”, and Ubuntu policies and procedures do not apply. The snap store’s contents are published by individual developers, not the Ubuntu community, according to their own processes, desires and policies. (There is a snap store agreement that each developer must comply with, which you may read at https://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/developer-terms-and-conditions .)

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Ok thanks you for your feedback guys.

I think it is alright if someone wants to get paid for his work.
The thing with the mentioned app is, that it doesnt’t do a thing anymore after two downloads. Only the next day it works again. This means that the app functionality (free version) for most of the users is zero. I realy hope that the design team will do something about this.
I also hope that they will add some functionality and security tests. Otherwise the situation soon will be similar as in google’s play store.

Btw: I already mailed to the developer that the app isn’t starting.

Worth mentioning the recent post we have covering the security and trust model of the snap store:

I don’t mind trial/shareware if it’s clearly marked as such. What bothers me more is the billion or so “hello world” apps that clutter the store.

Hellow guys sorry for the delay in joining the thread here, ktube was free brfore it got the subscription model. I agree that i should describe this in store’s description as i updated the app which i will soon.
I recently got a mail about the app that it is not running on 18.04 which is strange cause its been running fine since i uploaded it there. Now i can not be checking all of my apps on different versions of ubuntu that if they are still working or not cause there are changes being made to snap and snapcraft which in this case has made my app to not work somehow.

My app is a simple qt5 desktop gui application which was running fine before. Calling it a crap cause you don’t like to pay and support is annoying !! I wrote thousands of lines of code to build a feature rich media downloader with parallel downloading functionality which is unique and very awful to cause i made it available only for linux desktop like all my other applications.

I will repackage my application and will make the required changes to app description.

Thanks

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I have updated the application and now it is using strict confinement :slight_smile: https://snapcraft.io/ktube-media-downloader I think classic confinement was causing the issue before, I used clasic confinement before cause my app was not playing flash player videos due to the flashplugin unavailability and issue with snapcraft and flashplugin ( i was never able to use flashplugin in my snap packed applications)

The size of snap is due to gstreamer plugins which are required by my app to play some HTML5 Youtube videos. And the unwanted locales inside it. (Both of these should be provided by host Operating system but snap is not yet capable to do this.)

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I am sorry about calling your software crap. I was just annoyed that it didn’t say a word about trial, and that it just didn’t work on both of my fresh standard ubuntu installations (Ubuntu mate 18.04 amd64 and Kubuntu 18.04 amd64). Please don’t take it personal. As mentioned before, i am not the guy which just expects everything to be free.
Don’t u think the Free version has nearly no usecase for most users? Who wants to download just two videos per day? It possibly would be a better option to just sell the pro version.

By the way: can you add simple CC payment method? Paypal is not an option for me (and neither for many other users).

Thank you.

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