CNET - I don't understand CNET's Linux/Unix position.

I didn't look through all of them; I clicked trough a few and it looks like it is just description context search. For the ones I looked at, the 'Quick Specs' for Operating Systems only list MS products. It's tricky, a lot of the software I looked at is written for linux also or can communicate with linux in some way or accessing linux data.

Again, thanks for probing into the question.

Yea, it just seems weird. Since I've been using linux based OSs and software I realized that the community is a lot larger than 'mainstream' knows. Pushing OS X and Webware is great; I was really surprised to see the web apps category and its great. How is a giant bubbling Unix/Linux community not even hinted upon? What happened? Did Unix/Linux get swept under the carpet for becoming too big and strong, not to mention a great acceleration in support and maturity? not trying to push a conspiracy theory, its just odd with -> Linux has had more public support while it was used by power users and now that the many platforms are in a great state of maturity I am witnessing everywhere the 'entities' are backing away.
Like ADOBE <- brain aneurysm thinking about that circus.

"STOP THE HOME USERS WITH CASH FROM DITCHING THEIR MS PCs"
"THERE IS NO CHOICE FOR YOU!"
haha

I'm sorry.

The big issue is they aren't really pushing OS X and such. Most of the simplified urls direct users into the Windows download pages or news and review oriented pages no matter what the OS, browser, and user agent you are using is.

http://download.cnet.com/3151-20_4-0.html > http://download.cnet.com/windows/3151-20_4-0.html
http://download.cnet.com/3151-20_4-0.html?tag=vtredir > http://download.cnet.com/windows/3151-20_4-0.html
http://download.cnet.com/ > http://download.cnet.com/windows/or http://download.cnet.com/mac/

The following redirects better serve most of us searching for software
http://download.cnet.com/3151-20_4-0.html > http://download.cnet.com/windows/3151-20_4-0.html or http://download.cnet.com/mac/3151-20_4-0.html
http://download.cnet.com/3151-20_4-0.html?tag=vtredir > http://download.cnet.com/windows/3151-20_4-0.html or http://download.cnet.com/mac/3151-20_4-0.html
http://download.cnet.com/ > http://download.cnet.com/windows/3151-20_4-0.html or http://download.cnet.com/mac/3151-20_4-0.html

Editor ratings are often considered sponsored and thus "take with a grain of salt" so users don't like sorting through them to get to an actual download not like the same information couldn't be handled by links reviews page on the product pages and/or to the right of the full recent software index along with the most popular downloads

I fully agree that links such as http://download.cnet.com/3151-20_4-0.html should take the user to the most relevant category, be it Windows, Mac, or Mobile. However, I'm not sure I follow the last part.

Editors review products based on interest, not sponsorship, and rate them based on their own impressions regardless of the company's advertising investments. Thus, sponsorship of a listing affects its positioning on the front page and search results, but not the review itself or the relevance to the category or your search terms. Is there a reason you consider them sponsored and less genuine than another user's review?

Also, I should note that, while Downloads and Reviews both covered software in the past, Reviews will focus on hardware only in the future; I'm not sure if that's what you were referring to by 'reviews page' or not. One of the benefits, though, is that users will no longer need to read an editor's review on Reviews and then follow a link to Downloads to actually download the software.

Let me know if I've misunderstood your thoughts/suggestions.

Regards,
John

"Editors review products based on interest, not sponsorship, and rate them based on their own impressions regardless of the company's advertising investments. Thus, sponsorship of a listing affects its positioning on the front page and search results, but not the review itself or the relevance to the category or your search terms. Is there a reason you consider them sponsored and less genuine than another user's review"

That's good to know, however given many companies do the opposite, you WILL have people convinced that reviews is sponsored even if they are not. While this is apparently not the case here, the perception of a problem is a real thing based largely on the action of others in your industry.

You're right; some sites/reviewers do accept payment in exchange for a product review, often with the expectation that it will be positive regardless of the reviewer's actual opinions. It's usually possible to spot such cases when comparing reviews of a product from several sites--a couple good reviews in a sea of bad is a dead giveaway--and I've stopped vising some sites as a result of such policies. However, I never really considered that some readers may have come to assume the worst as a result; it's a shame that a few can tarnish the reputation of an industry. I typically recommend weighing user reviews heavily given the varied skill levels, experiences with related/competing products, and potential for longer-term use, but at least there are a few good sites to find quality 'expert' reviews. CNET's reviews are often catered to a more generalized audience without getting too deep in the technical aspects, which mitigates their usefulness to some like myself, but their legitimacy is one reason I continue to read them when making a purchase decision.

John