One blog I read said: “Go to Mackintosh HD/Library/Input Managers/Inquisitor. You will then be able to delete 3.2 & reinstall 3.0. which doesn’t have this problem”
Maybe I’m just useless, but I couldn’t find a way of doing this when I got there.

(Re solutions: I’d rather go back to the innocent ad-free version days than onto an update which poss does all the dodgy things it’s being accused of…)

Can anyone help? Internet’s virtually unusable now so I’m getting desperate.

(Also, how do I ensure no future sci-fi scenario where it sneakily takes over my Mac & updates itself?)

Be grateful for any help/suggestions from experienced users. I’m a Macbaby, barely toddling yet – tho’ I may be hitting that tantrum stage v. soon…

Thanks, Belle

Personally I feel that DW is just badly liked by a small, very vocal minority. I can understand people’s reasons for not wanting to deal with his future products or whatever, but to skew people’s opinions before they’ve had a chance to form their own isn’t fair either.

I agree that it sucks that the original Inquisitor page [Google Cache] made no mention of the associate links… but then I wonder how many dollars it has actually made the guy, and I doubt he’s living like a king off it!

I find the combination of Inquisitor is what has kept me using Safari (not Firefox) all these years, and it’s what will keep me using it.

Each to their own.

The problem is that I had no knowledge about this at all. How has this been public knowledge and no problem for over a year David? Where does it say that results are filtered and altered?

I just checked through all the inquisitor related blog entries on your site, checked the installation files, inquisitor preferences, the inquisitor site and found nothing about this except for the recently added “Search results may be supplemented by Amazon.com and Apple Store links” line of text at the bottom of the page.

If you really want people to calm down about this then just point us to the place where this information has been available to Inquisitor users for over a year.

I’ll keep using this awesome little plug-in.
Thanks DW.

DW states the heart of the problem himself: “Ads are treated like any search result.” My searchbar is set to Google. Google returns search results that include ads. But the ads are not “like any search result;” I can tell the difference. If, in Inquisitor, I cannot easily identify what is and isn’t an ad, and if some ads are placed in my results because of the motives not of the ad purchaser, but of the developer, then two deceptions have occurred.

I like listening to Miles Davis, even though he was personally a bastard, and you don’t have to like a developer to like his software. I like NewsFire, and in any case, I’ve never had any unpleasant interaction with DW, so as far as I know he’s a prince among men. But part of what happens in the shareware market *is personal* – it’s consumers in a niche market interacting with self-employed individuals. In this context, interpersonal interactions count, and over time, they make a reputation that counts. David Watanabe has a reputation, and it’s counting in the way this news about Inquisitor is being interpreted.

I still like NewsFire and liked Inquisitor, but there’s no reason for me to support someone who’s willing to deceive me when I have other equally good options.

If you’re mad at DW over this, do yourself a favor and let it go, because the karma has been swift: in one week, Transmission, a free competitor to XTorrent went 1.0 and got a lot of publicity for it; and today, NetNewsWire, a less-pretty but more functional competitor to NewsFire, was declared freeware. The universe has already responded to whatever retributive impulses you might be feeling.

DW has made some great software that has benefitted many people. This probably wasn’t the best way to go about things, but I don’t think I’d throw him under the bus for it. I certainly wouldn’t resort to name calling…yeesh.