I think what you're missing Warren is the manipulative nature of this operation. By whatever mechanism, the outcome of Zeobit's campaign is a bunch of uniformly glowing comments that contradict the ratings average existing before the campaign, and also at the app store for their "911 Bundle". (currently the consensus there is in pretty negative territory -- does the app store perhaps have a policy against such a campaign??) These positive comments, while maybe reflecting satisfaction by these particular users, are being culled from thousands and logically are not representative of the whole. In fact, normally I believe software naturally gets a lower rating than it deserves due to the fact that more people tend to express dissatisfaction than satisfaction. But in this case it's the opposite, and it's UN-natural.

Whereas probably most of us have depended on the comments and the overall rating of a product to make informed decisions on whether to inject certain software into our systems, suddenly, at least in this case, that methodology is rendered useless and invalid.

If nothing is done to stop this practice, I guess we're just going to have to rely on our ability to detect manipulation by virtue of a commenter's history and the generally generic tone of the comment. Seems a shame we have to play detective all the time, because IMHO it wouldn't be wrong or difficult to simply put in your TOS that compensating customers to write reviews will result in being delisted. (can't believe something like that doesn’t already exist) Seems to me it'd be a very common sense move that would serve to preserve MacUpdate's reputation and reinforce its reliability.

I've come to regard MacUpdate as the best place to learn about software, and updates, what's new and what's been improved --- and spontaneous comments and ratings are a big (main) part of it. Please .... nip this in the bud.

Better yet go here:

http://tinyurl.com/slimy-tale

..... and read the article and the comments. I think I'm starting to get this now. It's due to all the myriad of "affiliate" sites and the ability of thousands of disparate people to make a slice off a sale referral. It's in their interest to go to places like MacUpdate and burnish the reputation of the software. Hard to detect and put a finger on, because indeed the (fake IMHO) reviews will be coming from all over the world.

Appears to me to be an obvious comment scam going on here. None of these Abcd1234 supposed users with their 5 star vague recommendations have any comment history whatsoever. Sure, everyone has to start sometime, but about a dozen in a row? Right.

What I actually came here for was to complain about all the pop-up windows I keep getting from MacKeeper, even though I have pop-ups blocked. They've apparently found a way around that. How very considerate of the Mac community.

No, I haven't tried this app, but from all the planted comments and the pop-ups, my instincts tell me to avoid it. And ..... 40 dollars? No way.

May have to wait a while ..... developer's support page says (Feb 18) they found a bug that needed to be fixed and they had to resubmit to Apple for approval.

I've got version 1.1 and was thinking upgrade, but I can't remember if it even cost anything back then because I can't find any transaction record/correspondence on it. I guess with all the improvements it's well worth another 6 bucks regardless.

I"d like to try this, and quite possibly buy this, but it's got to be in that order. Perhaps offer a demo version?

I'm experiencing a problem with Cosmopod and 10.5.8. Certainly not a big deal in the whole scheme of things, but annoying in that it conflicts with years of learned behavior.

The problem is that with Cosmopod installed, (paid and registered) when you hit the Safari icon in the dock or elsewhere, (with Safari already running but windows closed) a new window does not pop up, contrary to normal behavior. Uninstalling Cosmopod fixes the problem.

Unless I'm missing some setting or something, I assume this is a bug easily fixed, and that the next revision will address it. Otherwise, I love the application, as it makes it pathetically easy to download and convert video.