This marks my last visit to GOTD as the trojan that came with this offer is absolutely unacceptable. I unchecked toolbar installation, it installed FreeOnlineRadioPlayerRecorder anyway. It dropped the uninvited toolbar into both Google Chrome and Firefox. The toolbar wil not uninstall from Chrome. It will not uninstall using the add/remove programs. It has caused Firefox to become inoperable, it locks up completely on initialization and must be closed with a 3finger salute, and hence can't be removed from it either. Never again.

Downloaded the "all free dvd ripper" that is also offered here today on GOTD. It also attempts to install the default online radio player websearch. I'd guess that all of the other "giveaways" (free sound recorder,all free video converter,all free disc burner,and all free ringtone maker)that are offered from this company for free are also carrying that toolbar payload.
Seems that is how they pay the bills.

Re #44

While the instructions could be clearer during the install, it does say, if you decline, the install will continue without installing the radio record toolbar.

(You probably assumed that decline would exit the install! This is after accepting the license, and on the same page as unchecking the home page change etc!)

**************WARNING*************

John #47 is indeed right. There is a conflict w Advanced Audio Recorder !!
If anybody cares to go to this page
hxxp://www.giveawayoftheday.com/advanced-audio-recorder-602/
See comments #11, 20, 75, 85 on that page
You will see there has been a lot of problems between this program and Advanced Audio Recorder. This has been going on for at least 2 years now!!
The 2 can not coexist, as Cool Record Edit invalidates the license of the other
Of course it's your choice of which program you'd like to keep...

I agree with previous posters, this program exhibits malware behavior by "fooling" people into installing the 3rd toolbar, by presenting people with a "decline" button, which they know people will be hesitant to press as they think it will abort the install.

Negative points for GotD for featuring this type of software developer...

This program will install a toolbar even when you tell it not to and it corrupts your chrome settings. All of your extensions will be lost. It is a d@mn shame that they placed this trojan on this website.

@43 PilsnerPanther: Since you need NR on 78s, I assume that you do use Diamond Cut, right? It is far and away the best program for that particular specialist purpose (or for 'cleaning up' vinyl).

Thanks for all the warnings. I will not download the program.

What is truly sad is that the author of a decent program chose join up with the Conduit Engine. I really like this program, it has a lot of features that I know will be very useful to me. And now someone who is authored a very capable audio editor will suffer from all the hatred that the Conduit Engine has caused throughout the Internet, ulterior motives or not...

In light of the several comments that it would install the toolbars even when told not to, I carefully installed the program into Windows Vista home premium 32-bit on my desktop PC, taking extra care not to authorize the toolbars.

I did some testing on my own...

After install and before running the program I went to the system registry to check and see if there is any evidence of the conduit engine having been installed. I could not find any. I DID FIND an entry labeled Conduit (not "conduit engine") but with no association to toolbar of any sort, just a couple of blank keys and to the recording program itself. (Note: Accessing the Windows registry is for expert-level users only.) After running the editing program for a while, and deliberately browsing around the net, I don't see any evidence of the toolbars.

I then carefully checked each of the browsers installed on my system, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Firefox and found no Conduit related toolbars attached to any of them. Since this is different than the experience of several other people who have commented previously, apparently they have either updated the version that were downloading right now, or something else went wrong during the installation that resulted in installing the toolbars. I suspect the former.

To sum up: nice program, very capable, a lot of features I never expected to have available to me. Set a restore point before installing, so that you don't end up with any unwanted baggage if you wish to uninstall it and be careful.

Whiterabbit: thanks, you saved me an installation. I have mamutu too.
Nosy and meddling software is too expensive, even if it is [one day] for free.

Many, many thanks to all of the posters for listing their experiences and concerns about Cool Record Edit Pro.

Not being able to visit the website is worrisome. The fact that the developer does not try to answer any of the concerns posted is telling. The WHOIS record being protected by WhoisGuard is scary. Trying to install an unwanted toolbar, especially Conduit, is an abomination.

Any one of the above statements is enough for me to not download and evaluate the program.

Thanks again, all of you posters!

adds 12 files (~8 MB), into E:/windows/system32/
(that i suppose it "registers").

otherwise another dozen files in the install dir.

it DOES have this toolbar crap, but if installed
correctly, none of that gets installed. assume
it's purposely laid out to make it complicate, to
deceive.

installation key entry is simple.

that's about the extent of it that i can tell you.

i load jethro tull, thick as a brick (mp3), ~43 MB
& on my E4300 w/2GB RAM it took a fair amount of
time to load & then adding an effect took time for
it to apply. (undo was quicker.)

i have no knowledge of audio editors, so have no
idea what the majority of these features are or do,
though it appears there are a lot features available.

program layout is clean & works efficiently. menus
i suppose are what they call a "ribbon". works very
nicely, automatically adjust to screen/window size.
program layout/UI is very nice IMO. (i'm impressed
by that :-).)

mouseovers on the various functions/buttons.

adding some "reverb" (i think it was) to the MP3,
when i went to exit/save it, got an 'Access violation
at address 01d86890 in module NCTAudioInformation2.dll.
read of address 0000000c.'. (the program did not quit
at that point, probably a good thing.) i was then
able to go back & Save As MP3, successfully. & this
too took some time as it "processed audio data". during
this time CPU was at 50%, 1 of 2 cores. Mem usage was
insignificant ~21 MB. Save as WAV was much quicker.
once you initiate a Save, no way to abort it until it
has finished. OGG is progressing painfully slowly.

The UI on this has won me over.

(i have no A/V or the like, so can't comment on that.)

Even though I unchecked the toolbar & website options it still installed them. I am uninstalling it.

Trial version of this program from their site doesn`t contain any Conduit toolbars and so on. The size of the file is also significantly different.
Looks like all these unwanted "add-ons" are only part of deceptive GOTD version; But the name of the offered program is the same as of the truly commercial and clean version from their site. It`s too bad.

#36: "... On the negative side... the tape noise reduction preset appears to be decidedly aggressive... It’s a shame about the lack of FLAC. Sliders on some of the controls, e.g. for speed adjustment, would be better than numerical input... Overall, like other paid for progs it has several features that Audacity doesn’t (yet)..."

If it helps, if you're after something, need something a bit more pro, it might not hurt you to look at plug-ins, which is where many audio apps [including Audacity] get down to doing stuff that's really interesting. Google/Bing "Free vst". Since a lot of audio apps have their own style & feel to them, not to mention the way so many work differently, it also might be helpful to check out some of the trials for home versions from bigger name brands -- if you're patient you can find great deals on sale, but you have to know what apps you're after & which ones to avoid.

Noise reduction usually takes 3 forms... 1 takes a snapshot of silence, then removes anything it finds everywhere else. Another type just blocks certain levels, while a 3rd goes after certain frequencies. Nice features to look for are the ability to play just detected noise [the stuff that's going to be removed], realtime preview, and the capability to use bus routing -- that way you might do something like partly isolate the frequencies you want to filter, work with them, & then feed them back into the overall mix.

Hit decline when you click off the two checks and the program will NOT add any tool bars or search bars. Some people complained, but they just did not read what was written.

Cool Record Edit Pro isn't a bad app, but it's basically a front end or GUI for the 6 year old NCT media handling code libraries that are installed & registered in Windows system folder. If you already have all or most of those NCT libraries installed <em.[other apps also include them] adding today's GOTD is no big deal -- if you don't, I'm not sure why you'd bother. Cool Record Edit Pro does have a lot of FX & tools (though it can't use plug-ins), but so do a lot of other apps without the toolbar & NCT file baggage. If you can't record playing audio now, as with the other recent GOTD, Cool Record Edit Pro won't help you. I did do a bit more playing with alternatives along those lines, trying out, settling on for the moment something called Freecorder [applian.com/freecorder4/]. It isn't an ideal solution to the DRM, no-record problem, but you may find it to be a least bad, free alternative, with no drivers & such installed to potentially muck up your system. [I hope to keep working with it more later, seeing if there's a little or no impact way to have it work with a portable browser]

Installing Cool Record Edit Pro to the XP Mode VM [that lets me use just the USB audio device, + has no pre-existing NCT stuff], I recorded 5677 new registry entries, with 14 files at ~14 MB in the "Cool Record Edit Pro" program folder. A 2nd folder with the same name was added to User\ Application Data\, & there were 12 files installed to Windows' system folder... 10 of those were NCT dll files, 1 .prx [NCT wmedia profiles], & msvcr70.dll. A 2nd install with the optional Conduit toolbar added another 375 new registry entries. Removing the Conduit Toolbar if installed [as monitored in the XP Mode VM]... After uninstall via Add/Remove apps in Control Panel, folders Conduit, ConduitEngine, & FreeOnlineRadioPlayerRecorder remain in both User\ Local\ Application Data\ & Program Files. Several registry keys are left over also -- searching in Regedit for "conduit", "freeonlineradio", & "Toolbar.CT2737658" should lead you to all of them. Uninstalling Cool Record Edit Pro does remove the added NCT files, but try to remember that you may not want to remove them if you have other software that relies on either those files or the job they do.

This is a great little program.
installed on windows 7 with no issues

Pro's:
-It's a lot like Cool Edit (which I was a registered user of and great fan)
-It has a lot of built in effects.
-The interface is a little difficult at first but after using it once or twice, It's pretty intuitive
-I like the different options for saving files sample rate and bit's
-the program is dirt cheap compared to Adobe Audition

Con's
The installation programs attempt to install a toolbar. This is WAY to cheesy for such a great program. By the way to not install the tool bar you have to press the cancel button (It say's so in very fine print)... very cheesy.. That alone will drive people away from what is otherwise a great little program
It would be nice to see a multitrack version. At this price point, It would become an instant closet favorite as was Cool Edit.

Otherwise there were no issues. I've used it several times today with no real issues.

*** GET RID OF THE TOOLBAR CRAP *** it spoils a great product.

To MARAUDER #22:

I cannot THANK YOU ENOUGH for recommending Web of Trust! I cannot believe that I was not aware of WOT. What a blessing to have a great site available. Nowadays we simply cannot be as trusting of people as most of us were raised to be trusting of others. The internet has made all of us become so much more aware and we always need to check & double-check!

I LOVE coming to GOTD... they often have GREAT programs & then all of the great contributors who make recommendations & offer so many great ideas & suggestions.

Thanks to everyone!

Wow @Whiterabbit-uk,

Did a step by step trace of this programs installation needless to say I'm with White on this one...Way too many things going on to trust this program to do only it's job.

P.S: I'd add a 4th thing in the GAOTD Clause something in the terms of nigeria prince with money transfers on this one... :D cause seriously any program that adds a extra software without my knowledge should be wiped off the face of the net.

ConcernedUser

I have a version of Gold Wave Editor Pro (version: 10.2.2) that I got from GAOTD in 2009 . I guess it doesn't come up to often but it has been a giveaway here before.

I use Avira and Mamutu and neither found anything or gave me any warnings. Installation went very well. I did however read the fine print when installing, and there is it is OPTIONAL to install their toolbar. You do NOT have to install it. Just click "Decline" and it will go on with the software install without the toolbar. They either changed the install since earlier today or some people did not bother to read the instructions.

I had this from an earlier giveaway on my old computer and it is a good tool to have available. I had no problems with it.

continuation of #40

THE BAD: Install went smoothly, but unchecking the Conduit Engine and FreeOnlineRadio Toolbar did NOT prevent their installations.
Conduit easily removed with Revo. But even Revo only made it LOOK like it handled the uninstall of the noxious Toolbar, which had to be uninstalled separately through Chrome, FF and IE -- all of which were infected by its sneakiness -- outsmarting WinPatrol which normally stops this kind of behavior dead in its tracks. This install skulduggery alone would be unacceptable, if it weren't for

THE GOOD: The app itself works beautifully. Did NOT get picked up by Avast as any kind of problem. Did NOT change my browser homepage in IE, FF or Chrome. Without reading any of the abundant tutorials, was able to record a beautifully sounding wav file from anything coming through my soundcard, which it found automatically. But you have to both KEEP and then SAVE the resulting file to play it. This may be time-consuming for large files, but for a 9-minute wav file, it was only a few seconds. However with so many setting options, even with the excellent tutorials, it will take time to tweak.

BOTTOM LINE: You have to decide whether or not it's worth uninstalling Conduit (with Revo) and the Toolbar (via your browser itself). And whether you want to use a great app with ulterior motives. I don't think GAOTD should sully its rep by failing to check for and alerting us to unwanted piggy-back programs and toolbars that install regardless of user settings during installation. If I hadn't created a System Restore point and didn't have Revo, I probably would not return to this website....All in all, NOT for beginners or the impatient.

GoldWave is a fairly inexpensive audio editor ($49.95 per single user license) that resembles the old Cool Edit, before Adobe took over the company and jacked the price right through the ceiling... the usual Adobe practice with everything they sell, and it's not hard to find cheaper alternatives to Adobe products that work just as well as the Adobe version. Which goes for graphics software, too. Freebies are okay, but if you have specialized needs (with me, it's noise reduction on ancient 78-rpm records), you might need something that's more sophisticated.

Thanks to everyone that posted a headsup on the toolbars especiallyInas.
In the instalation it says this:
"By clicking "I Accept", you agree to install the official Free online radio player recorder toolbar for Windows Internet Explorer, FireFox 
and Google Chrome browser and agree to the End User License
Agreement Privacy Policy and Content Policy
By clicking "Decline", The Free online radio player recorder toolbar will not be installed and you will continue the installation of this 
application."
I already had v.5.2 from GAOTD I haven't used it much but installed this newer version too . Not much difference between the two.

Thanks GAOTD, I think.

There's an identically-named app rated on CNET....average rating is 4 stars. Most recent version listed on CNET was released last July, so version 7.9.3 is a year old. But the CNET download is 17 MB and the one offered here is 10MB. Could be an improved or stripped version. After an install, I will compare the version numbers.

Assuming the CNET listing matches this app, its website is
http://coolrecordedit.com/
and it's got a lot of info.

But based on the negative comments above and the file sze differences, just in case it's not the same app, I plan to create a System Restore point prior to my install. I also have Revo Uninstaller at the ready. I will report back whether I needed to use either, both or none of them, based on my install experience,

I agree with #5. Any software that behaves in this way should be avoided at all costs. It's time developers learned that they will not be successful if they in any way abuse their customers' trust.

The program installed without any problems on both Windows XP3 and Vista. However, even though I unchecked the boxes for installing the toolbar it was "successfully installed" when I ran Internet Explorer. That is unacceptable. So I'll give the program thumbs down for that reason.

@21 Inas - read his post if you want a clean install with no toolbars



cheers

Whiterabbit I got the same warnings as you with the similar programs also Kaspersky Internet went nuts when trying to install even after you unchecked all the tool-bars it still tried to install and change the home page . Also i know they are not an authority for some people but even Safe Site Adviser flagged their web site . Funny also how you cannot find out any info from WHOIS Thanks for the heads up on this software its good to have knowledgeable people here

Leaping past the installation annoyances etc, the prog is generally fun in use (on Win 7 64). Lots of options but the interface manages these quite nicely and it is +/- customiseable.

It's a cinch playing about with reverb and echo, echo, echo or spotting satanic messages on your fave rave mp3s using the handy reverse feature. You can do the same text converted to audio too or make your computer say rude and/or interesting words if you really want.

On the wish list front, being able to save settings (additional to the presets) and combine operations in macros (a la Audition) would be useful for batch processing. You can do the former with the favourites feature in the command bar, however.

On the negative side, there are various oddities: the tape noise reduction preset appears to be decidedly aggressive; some of the effects via the command bar are not consistent with the menu bar icons, e.g. noise reduction is fixed not adjustable. It's a shame about the lack of FLAC. Sliders on some of the controls, e.g. for speed adjustment, would be better than numerical input.

Whilst you might expect the Import from Video and Get from YouTube commands to take you to the download page for the additional, external software the first time, the program doesn't recognise (on my system) when they are installed(no, not even after reboot), so taking you to these web pages is all these buttons ever do! Odd. Not that I can get files downloaded from YouTube using the software, in any case.

Nice to see the inclusion of ID3 tagging - until you realise how limited it is. I'd want to be able to give my grasshopper recordings track numbers for example.

Overall, like other paid for progs it has several features that Audacity doesn't (yet) but what it does have aren't implemented well enough to make it stand out over the competition. As a freebie tho, thanks very much GOTD.

@29: Your Question:
"Why would the developer install a virus or trojan on his software???"
Answer: Money!!!!
It is not a trojan or virus anyway. It's a very difficult to remove toolbar/search engine that is easy to be tricked into installing.
The reason people are complaining is that it should be more than enough to merely uncheck an installation offering if you don't want it.
Also, google "uninstall Conduit Engine" to see the complaints about difficulty of removal.

Yes Cool Edit Pro is now known as Adobe Audition ...but for those who can't afford that..this program would be good to use. It doesn't compare to Adobe at all but this is a free version. DUH

Before installing, be sure to check out the hardware requirements (as reported on the company's website).

Hardware Requirements
Minimum - CPU: Intel® Pentium® 4 (2GHz) or AMD AthlonTM XP 2800+ (2.2GHz); RAM: 512MB
Recommended - CPU: Intel® 2 Duo E6300 (1.86GHz) or AMD AthlonTM 64 X2 3800+ (2GHz); RAM: 1GB+ (2GB if running Windows® Vista/7)

Installed fine on W7 64. Unchecked both checkboxes and clicked Declined button to avoid the junk that comes with it. The program itself seems to work very well, including the Text to Speech feature. Much more intuitive UX than Audacity. This one is a keeper for me.

#5 i used to use Mamutu but it gave me warnings every time i down loaded sum-ut and installed anything so i got rid of the crap, Cool Record Edit Pro do'es what it says on the tin and good

Post 21 Commented by Inas, he is right most people here are just following the leader and not doing reading carefully during installation. There is an option to decline the installation of the toolbar which most people here are not doing and they come here to complain about it saying there was warning and all kind of stuff to scare people not to even try the software for them selves. PEOPLE think for a moment... why would the developer install a virus or trojan on his software??? Any ways it's your call!!!

@21:
Having to do anything but uncheck the boxes for toolbar installation is sneaky. Having to click "decline" AS WELL AS unchecking the boxes is a very sneaky way to cause a toolbar installation even if someone thinks they are denying the install. This is known as "sharp practice" and should not be in a GAOTD software offer IMHO....

I am starting to question the truthfulness of the "thumbs up - Thumbs down". The majority of comments show concerns about the software, yet the "thumbs up" show a large majority like it.

Something seems wrong here.

Perhaps the Board should be set so that only those who comment can leave a "Thumbs" rating??

@ #16 peter
Conduit is a tricky little thing because it can both be good or bad, yes you may disable it from your toolbar but conduit can turn out to be a virus. The reason I say it's good is because some brand name companies will use it the reason why it's bad is because it functions a a Trojan, spyware, Ad-ware. Basically A pesty virus, which could be the reason why some peoples Anti-virus is going off.

I haven't tried it myself and don't intend to any time soon, though people who do and will a word of caution, make sure you do a virus/malware/Ad-ware-Spyware scan.

Re: Comment 21: Inas is correct. Read and follow the directions and the install does NOT try to add toolbars or change home page. Used my own name to register just fine. No warnings from ESET security (and I scanned again to make sure). Install went easily with no problems at all and the program starts perfectly. Vista-32. Also, I got to their home page by clicking the link.

Are there any good alternatives? I would like decent sound quality.

What is Conduit Engine?

Conduit sells search engines to sites that install the engine to hijack home pages. I purchased a product from Ahampoo, and rejected the option to install the Bing Ashampoo search bar, yet it was installed. The code of my hijacked home page is http://search.conduit.com/?ctid=CT2475029&SearchSource=13. Conduit evidently is in some partnership of revenue sharing of the hijacked home pages. A Web of Trust search will show many complaints from users. Conduit Engine shows up in my add/remove programs, but failed to uninstall, and the "uninstall" was preceded by some direct script code that quickly popped up and then disappeared, I assume so that the search bar cannot truly be uninstalled.

A Google search of Conduit Engine will result in complaints by users who want to uninstall the search engine, but are having problems.

This spyware 'search engine' that refers unwilling users to advertisers deserves a better answer than what is below sooner, rather than later.

Smooth download, installation, activation on Vista 64-bit. Yes, the program allows users to put their own names in the registration field.

I did not receive any warnings about this program, and I'm using Norton Internet Security Suite and Constant Guard programs.

Also, you must read the instructions carefully in order to ensure the toolbars do not install on your computer.

More specifically, in addition to unchecking the boxes (and opting out of the toolbar installations) you must also click the "decline" button to signal to the program that you are rejecting the toolbar installation agreement. I believe the confusion about these toolbar installtions is happening because users are NOT clicking the "decline" button. This is critical, and it worked well for me.

Lastly, the best part about this program is that it did not mess up my computer's sound/audio device settings like some other programs do.

Thanks, GOTD & CoolMedia, for this nice offer.

#5 Whiterabbit - Code gets reused all the time, these warning could be from code that is used to connect as "directly" to the internet as possible to be able to record more sources successfully. Then again it could also be used for more nasty things also. The default of changing you home page, etc. makes it that bit more worrying.

The developers need to address these concerns and state WHY their code appears to be doing these things and/or remove the default of changing your homepage, etc. to increase trust. If they were a big well-known and respected company, then we could trust their reputation, but them being relatively unknown does not inspire much confidence after the warnings you posted. Although both McAfee's "Site Advisor" and even "WOT" (Web of Trust) stay green (WOTs ratings are around 90% - McAfee is completely green).

The toolbar is unforgiveable - There is no justification for that and thank you very much for warning us. I will not try it if it is going to attempt things like that. Thank you very much for that warning Whiterabbit.

Great comments and the suggestions convinced me I can pass on this one! Good to know before you go.

The website won't load, so I can't check, but does anyone know if this can record streaming audio? If not, any recommendations?
Thanks,

The only problem with this software (like all of its type) is that it wants to record via the mixer which most PC sound cards dont have.
It records just fine from a mic input, but thats not realy acceptable. Some PCs allow for patching the headphone output into the mic input which may give a clean signal.

Also install the Conduit Engine toolbar into Internet Explorer, even though i cleared both the checkboxes during install.

The toolbar can be disabled in IE and Cool Record Edit Pro also still works after running
%programfiles%\ConduitEngine\ConduitEngineUninstall.exe

I'm really glad i installed this into a sandbox.....

To Copy Cat, I got the warnings. One I can ignore, especially when no one else is reporting it, two, from different softwares is a little suspicious. so IMO warning the community about a possible security problem is better than ignoring it.

It may be and probably is a false positive, but it's better to be safe than sorry. Just bcause it didn't show up on your security scanners doesn't mean it's not there.