Audacity Download Woes

This has been an issue for years: People intending to download Audacity and instead end up paying $39 for AVS Audio Editor.

Audacity is free and open source software for Linux, Macintosh, and Windows. You should never have to pay for it. Audacity is used by lots of podcasters because of its cost, and because it is great for recording voices. Audacity supports multiple tracks, so podcasters can import music and sound effects to add to their voice recording. There are a variety of effects that can be applied to the audio, and Audacity gives total control of the volume of each track.

So, how are potential podcasters being duped into installing AVS Audio Editor?

They are being mislead into clicking on an ad. SourceForge.net, the official download site for Audacity, asks for you to wait several seconds for the download to start. While you wait, there is an ad for AVS Audio Editor, which is software not associated with Audacity. The thing is the advertisement has a large Download Now button. Since Audacity hasn't begun to download, glancing a the page can make you think that you need to click the download button. When clicked, your download of Audacity is canceled, and you are whisked away to avs4you.com where you are prompted to download their commercial software.

AVS Audio Editor is Windows-only software so Linux and Mac users probably won't see the ad when they download Audacity. But is AVS Audio Editor any good? I have no idea. Audacity does what I need it to do and is free. To learn more about using Audacity download Podcasting for Teachers & Administrators or watch my screencast at the Arizona K12 Center Blog.