Good day everyone!
I am in a bit of a conundrum.
On one hand, I heard following site is good to download necessary software:
gimp-print.sourceforge.net/p_Download.php
On other hand, I also heard sourceforge site is bundled with malicious software.
So, is that place safe? Their download links are also in sourceforge.net.
I would appreciate any advice.
OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)
There was a disclaimer somewhere that sourceforge was not to be trusted.
https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-developer-list/2015-May/msg00144.html
maybe this is an alternative
Not really malicious, but it has been known to bundle in adware with some downloads. Adware can be highly annoying, but is not considered dangerous. If it's bad enough, it can slow a computer down as the adware spends as much system time as you do to pull down ads from remote servers.
SourceForge really is the only good place to get the Gutenprint drivers. I went to this page and downloaded both the 5.2.11 and 5.2.12 pre-release installers. Examining them with Suspicious Package, I saw no adware as part of either installer.
So Gutenprint itself is safe then?
Thank you for advice.
Yes, lot's of folks use them for printers not directly supported by OS X.
I see, so downloading and installing Gutenprint from
gimp-print.sourceforge.net/p_Download.php
will be safe?
Thank you!
Yes. The drivers themselves are safe. And from what I can see in the current installer, they do not put adware on your system.
But before you do that, what type of printer are you using these for? OS X doesn't always automatically recognize all printers and install drivers for you. For instance, only one of the three printers I use does what I would want the Mac OS to do.
1. Epson Stylus Pro 4900. OS X doesn't see it at all until after I install the drivers available from Epson. And even then, every time I print to it, the queue tells me to install drivers so the printer will work. This while it's already printing and working perfectly fine.
2. Xerox Phaser 7500. Also not recognized until I install the drivers from Xerox. Then OS X will download updates for it.
3. Lexmark MX410de. At least OS X recognizes this one right off the bat, downloads and installs drivers for it. But the functions are limited that way. I still have to get and install the drivers from Lexmark in order to get a full feature set.
So, what type of printer do you have? Make and model. It's entirely possible the manufacturer has their own drivers you can use rather than resorting to the generic Guten drivers.
My own two cents - Etrecheck should be able to detect adware (at least what I heard) if something does slip in through download. And more serious things should be detected by Malwarebytes. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
That is quite correct. MalwareBytes catches more variants and obscure stuff, but EtreCheck recognizes quite a bit, too.
Is this safe place to download?
