September 30, 2015
Giveaway of the Day Rebirth
Dear users and developers, we are glad to announce that the design of our website was revamped to make the service more pleasant for those who are familiar with the project and make the idea behind it clearer to the new users. You might have also noticed a couple of new things we added to the interface, like the voting poll, e-mail subscription and giveaway archives. And there are more features coming in the future.
How do you like our new design? What features would you like to add? Feel free to share your opinion and ideas in comments, and don’t forget to download our latest giveaway.
We do hope you will enjoy the upcoming changes and continue contributing to our project with your valuable comments and feedback. Thanks for staying with us!
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Always yours,
GOTD team
Dear Users!
Thanks a lot for your reports. We have successfully fixed the issue with IE9. Please, tell us if you have any other difficulties.
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Always yours,
GOTD team
Dear Users!
At the moment we are working to improve the comments section. The update will be rolling out soon.
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Always yours,
GOTD team
Looks so clean and bright
This new layout does not work in IE9 which is the latest version of IE available for vista, it is gaudy, scrolling is with serious stuttering and stalls, and layers overwrite the main content.
The pages frequently get detected as unresponsive and IE offers recover page button. Looks like incompatible HTML5 and CSS coding.
The excessive use of different styles makes the pages more difficult to read
Not thrilled about the daily w-mail that contains the previous 9 giveaways. How about just the one giveaway for that day?
I love it. An already wonderfully generous website made easier to navigate. I love you guys. I don’t always need what you offer but I visit everyday just in case there is something I can add to my existing programs.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for providing a great service for so many “FREE”.
Dear Giveaway. Thank you for your message and congratulations on the new image portal.
Here we complement our knowledge every day and everyday gifts give us our daily lives.
Congratulations.
Jorge Arturo
Firstly, let me say “thank you” for this site. I have valued it from almost the first day of operation, so I have sort of grown up with the previous page layout. However, I confess I am not greatly impressed by the changes. Yes it is brighter to look at but everything seems to take up so much more room and colour is not a substitute for clarity and ease of use. On this particular page there is a link to the forums at the top, as there used to be with the previous GOTD page layout. However, now we have to scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the links to the forums and blog. As the number of comments increases, so the amount of scrolling required increases. I would like to see these permanent links relocated to where they were before (we could scroll up or down to find them, reducing the effort required).
I also think that the box about commenting only about the software should remain fixed above the comments so that it is a permanent reminder for commenters and it could address my issue about a link to the forums at the top of the page.
Overall I think some usefulness has been sacrificed for the sake of image. I hope this is still a work in progress and that there is still scope for tinkering around the edges to get the best possible site.
Having said all that, thank you for all you do for us.
I haven’t noticed and Linux/Ubuntu GOTD in the downloads. Are there any plans to include them?
Surprise, surprise! I’m going to have to get used to this!
One thing I noticed immediately is that the comments are no longer numbered. I prefer to see numbered comments, as they are easier to track over time, and I hope they can be restored.
I also agree with P. Anderson — no reason to see the past 9 giveaways in the daily email — they are no longer available.
Overall, the new website is very clean, easy to view, and a little more modern. Congrats!
Got anything for us Mac users???
No, I don’t like new design. First of all it doesn’t use screen space rationally. And the other thing is it’s much more difficult to understand which blocks are adds and which are parts of the site.
Hi. Thank you for the wonderful sight. Everyday is like a birthday, one is always excited to find what surprise giveaway is available. The sight is also looking very smart
Hi, glad You’re working on issues concerning IE9! I think TK described below what’s occurring at the moment more eloquently than I did yesterday on the main Giveaway page (30th of Sept) If and when that is fixed regular visitors will at least be able to feel less perplexed by the changes that did not work for them.
As to the new Style?.. Sure, you can’t ‘please em all’, but for someone who does give a proverbial damn – looks like You vacated a stylish Boutique and moved into a common, noisy and gimmicky High Street Store! Ah yes, progress.. Taste and class also make customers (old and new) want to visit and do business? Matter of opinion I guess.
The new look is great. Clean and more readable. Everything is in the right place. Now I dont have to scroll down to see Android giveaways.
Good job, GOTD team.
Hi, Thank you for the wonderful sight. It looks great to me, very clean and very clear…love it…keep going!!!
Hi,first of all, thank you for the website, it’s clean and clear…love it…keep going!!!
Re my earlier comment: “I also agree with P. Anderson — no reason to see the past 9 giveaways in the daily email — they are no longer available.”
Thank you for making the change back to your daily emails of the past, which focus solely on that day’s giveaway.
I really like your program and the software you offer. I do not like the new changes that seems like so much confusion. Keep it simple and intuitive, with straight forward layout. I don’t like it. I doubt that it will have the desired effects you intended.
Numbers would be great, with letters for comments that are a reply. 2. b.for example would be the second reply to comment number 2. I save comments I select in Word 2013 or Microsoft Word Pad or EditPad Lite (like Microsoft’s Notepad but with more useful features). With the new GOTD layout it is difficult to tell what comments are replies to a particular comment. When I edit the comments (after copying them all to Word), none of the GOTD layout is copied to Word. Otherwise, I liked either layout.
For those complaining that the site is now too bright: I use a Firefox extension called Color That Site and just crank down the luminosity. Other mods are available for when a webmaster REALLY gets it wrong. You can tweak to your heart’s content and save your settings too.
Hi, thanks for trying to fix IE9 browser to view GOTD page. Yes, the nasty layer blocking content at the top left of the page is gone now, but back button/refresh page button/proceed to download page click – make a Caption ‘Every day we offer FREE licensed software you’d have to buy otherwise’ still scrambled! Word(s) “you’d'” appears exactly like this: “you’ d”. So that remains not quite fixed yet.
Dear GOTD team
is because in America the stupid DST now comes to an end? I got an hour earlier than usual, the error message that the giveaway is over. Luckily this happened only after my second test. Otherwise the WinUtilities for me would be lost.
The new site is not nice. She was formerly much clearer. In addition, the font unnecessarily large (I only have a Fujitsu-Siemens Stylistic ST5032 Tablet PC with 15 inch diagonal, which the user should say with a large monitor?).
Much more problematic is that I can not download and “View all comments” no longer works. The window will move to the top of the page and continue to do nothing.
When I had written a comment and on the “Comment” button clicked, the error message appeared “405 – Method Not Allowed”. So many times I tried, there was always only the error message.
GOTD is the only of 8 giveaway websites with such problems.
What should the outdated giveaways in the newsletter e-mail? The download link for the current giveaway would be important. Then they would no longer call the site? Nonsense! The comments yet will I read.
Translated with Google
Sincerely
Wurkupumpel
Tell us if you have any other difficulties? The “RSS Comments” feed does not work in other languages, it redirects to the English comments feed that does work. Don’t know if it is supposed to work this way and if this is a policy change.
First off all, thank you for your great service. I have enjoyed this site for many years.
However, I do not like the new site designs at all. The old one was just fine. One could see the game that is given away, whereas now we have to go to that page to check.
No more numbering comments? Not good when one forgets names as soon as they are spoken or read. @ #11 is easy. Having to scroll back up to double check a name is tedious.
The old design was simply more compact, easier to use. The font size is too big as well. I like as much info in the available space as I can get. If I need to zoom, it should be my choice.
I used the Archives search about once a week. It would be great to have it on the first GOTD page, where the daily software is offered. Also, when it got moved to the Blog page, one can no longer search for a specific name of a software which had been offered in the past, such as Win Utilities Pro, by typing the name into a search box under the Archives heading. Often helpful to see old comments at GOTD about software not connected with the daily offering.
RE: comment 23.
I use Windows 7 Ultimate with Chrome with uBlock Origin.
Awesome.
Will you still be giving away games?
Well, this blog page looks rather nice. But the changes to the giveaway page are confusing, distracting and homogeneous. Those are my first impressions.
The new site layout is wonderful when I use a Windows phone or a tablet. It is awful when I use a laptop. The daily giveaway is mostly suited for laptops and desktops. So … you are barking up the wrong tree.
I have enjoyed GAOD for years. Your process and service has been outstanding, worthy and helpful.
I think your new layout is awful. I have been a member of Ancestry.com for years and they have now completely turned me off because they,like you, have modernized with a lousy layout.
Apparently, gone are the days of Ashraf, Giovanni, Karl and Jihad.
So sad. Well, good luck to you.
Please would you explain the purpose of the panel on the giveaway page “Vote to get it as the giveaway”? There is no indication of whether this is a real vote with a finish date and the promise of the “winning” entry being given away or not. The current vote has been running since the advent of the new page layout, and there is no indication that things are progressing in any direction. In fact there is no meaningful information there at all. Why not have a vote counter showing so that we can see a favourite develop? Or a countdown to the close of the vote? At the moment this just seems like either wasted space or a wasted opportunity for visitor involvement. I suggest that this element of the page could be improved, if it is going to serve any useful long-term purpose.
At first I thought the site had gotten hijacked by someone who had a vendetta against clarity and efficiency!
– Too much wasted space. English is read side to side, not up and down, so having less-wide paragraphs makes the pages not only harder to read, but it takes longer to read because more scrolling is necessary to read the same amount of words.
– Referring back to numbered posts is easy and efficient — why take the numbers away?
– With all the white space around and between the responses and replies, everything seems to be disconnected and floating around like balloons. It’s difficult to ascertain which posts the replies are associated with.
– The old design was compact, efficient, and easy to use. This seems like change for change’s sake, and for the worse — not the better.
Hello, been with you for many years now, enjoyed and shared….. I hate the new style, confusing, doesn’t make sense why you changed it. The old saying “If it isn’t broke…Don’t fix it” Were you guys trying to keep up with the other websites or just because everyone else is? Hope you go back to the other {original?} style!!! I don’t like having to figure out which page is next and then it doesn’t work when clicking the download tab…..frustration…..Well, good luck and I will try again but not for very long. And by the way, what happened to the good stuff??? Take Care
Reminds me of Golden Dancer, the beautiful rocking horse that fell apart the first time a kid tried to use it. The new website is shiny and pretty … but the sheen vanishes quickly when you try to use it. Seriously, go to Facebook or Twitter to get the download link?? There are some of us who avoid those traps like the plague. And yeah, I can submit my email and you’ll send me the link … but how awkward it that? What was so bad about just putting the download ling ON THE PAGE???? Oh, year … harder to extort advertising money. Well, pooh. It’s also harder for me to get the download; which means I’m less motivated to TRY the download. Hear that, developers? The shiny new GOTD is reducing your chances at being tried. Feel good about that?
once we delve into previous offerings we lose the ability to navigate earlier or later offerings! We have to return to the home page to get the list of previous offers.
game.giveaway site is far more readable than the main site now.
How are we supposed to browse back further than 1 month of the previous giveaways? You are holding years of archived previous giveaways but only provide direct links to this and last months, no more, bring back the old or equivilent widget, please!
can you add an access point for your Library.
The URL redirect service sur.ly that you use does not work properly in IE9 the X to remove the sur.ly bar does not function neither does the menu home buttom on the left, please fix or remove it as not all websites survive what sur.ly adds to their URLs!
One new feature that has been added to your site is a prompt to enter your email address to get the download link. It keeps prompting me for my email address every time I want to get a giveaway. This is troublesome to me because I need to go into my email to retrieve the link. Why does it not remember that I have already given my email address and allow the download to proceed. I have been visiting this site for many, many years and have really enjoyed the giveaway offers, but this is cumbersome for me to retrieve the giveaways. Is there anything that you can do to make the prompt remember that I have already given you my email address and allow the download to occur?
Normally just mind my own business, but feel compelled to with this “new-improved”site design.
Please don’t BS your regular users, these changes were made to up portal traffic, increase email (data) garnering. While cosmetic changes did take place, they did not make the “new” site better, or easier to navigate than the last one.
I have been using your site since abt. 2004-2005, and these changes greatly inconvenience your users.
Suggestion? Keep it simple, ask or have people register to join your community. Work from there. Good luck guys,
If i want to post on the forum, I have to log in with a user name (coupled to a mail address) and a password. Why can’t you simplify the daily downloading of the Giveaway by enabling logged-in Forum posters without a download link?
Hi, I wanted to add my opinion on ‘Comment Section Update’ only, but was encouraged by amount of voices appearing and growing under ‘Giveaway of the Day Rebirth’, so having something to say about both – decided to place it here, if I may please.
First of all I want to stress I’m not some proverbial ‘luddite’ trying to smash fine new engine simply because I don’t like changes! So, let’s see if I’m that different from those expressing their concerns about this ‘Rebirth’ in hope it’s not too late to point out what doesn’t work in ‘new format’ of GOTD site.
May I mention what attracted me personally to start visiting GOTD on more regular basis? It was a Site that was clever, well balanced (as I said on GGOTD – not too geeky, not too techy, just interesting!), educational and yes, edgy.. Downloading, using, testing, commenting on many a Software, together with recommending certain Developers and GOTD Site itself to others was a natural and common practice of mine. Would I recommend it again to my friends and family (some of them quite Software fluent)?? Not at present ‘state of affairs’. It’s rather sad, but frankly I would be embarrassed!:((
All that ‘gloss, sweetness, cuteness’.. of a new graphic design could perhaps be forgiven if it wasn’t for more drastic and awkward changes that took place making vast number of PC/laptop users (with far larger than smart phones and tablets’ screens) simply lost and tired of scrolling main page downwards to get anywhere straight from the start! Placing Software’s description UNDER the image of Giveaway (and not directly next to it on the right like before) means that by the time one gets to reading it – picture and name of Software both vanish and it’s harder to associate one with another (a lot of people rely on visual impact, especially those with slightly autistic, or dyslexic curve, finding such design annoying or boring..) Oversized ‘Free Today’ Tag on Software image together with that ‘ticking clock’..cannot compensate for a fact that one doesn’t NEED getting something for free in order to add valid and constructive Opinion?.. Let’s not forget that majority of users testing Giveaways do it on PCs and Laptops, regardless of their OS-es, not smart phones!!
And now to Comments. They always played a vital role on main Giveaway page. They were numbered, which only aided to easier reference (who said what and even when..), they spelled quality, urgency, importance! Now they look like a bunch of loose, random ‘thoughts’ one would expect to see under some cosmetic product!! What’s more – bringing fb Comments to main page.. how can THAT help any Developer (or User) when it’s painfully obvious that most of them are mere messenger-like sound bites! Please don’t marry the two on main page! These are entire different ‘shows’, each playing different role in promoting GOTD! My best wishes to both, but the CHOICE where to comment ought to be unspoiled (BTW, what and who people follow on their fb, including myself, is again free and careful choice, although some will follow invitations from every proverbial tin of paint, wallpaper, toilet tissue… fact?)
I still truly care about GOTD and it’s future, hence taking time to write this text, long as it is. Please, please don’t ruin this Site, but repair what’s not working.