On November 5th, 2009, the free flavor of Nero 9 was “kicked up a notch” and officially offered to end users. But users won’t be able to find the updated links to download Nero 9 Lite Build 9.4.12.708 on Softpedia. There’s only an unfriendly message explaining why the download links haven’t been refreshed in accordance with the latest release from Nero. We thought that a more detailed explanation was in order to make our action clear. The short version? It all comes down to user choice.

On the official webpage for Nero 9 Lite, the company boasts: “What’s better than free? Free forever! Nero offers you the chance to enjoy Nero’s world-renowned data disc burning and copying features for an unlimited time, absolutely FREE!”

Absolutely free it’s not! Especially when the actual cost for the software is replaced by a toll on user-choice. Taking choice away from end users starts on the Nero 9 Lite page. In order to gain access to the Nero 9 Lite, advertised as free, download end users must supply an email access. The company does not verify whether the email account provided is legitimate or bogus, so users can enter pretty much whatever they like, as long as it respects the general text structure of a genuine email address. But if the address is legitimate, users automatically “register now to receive the Nero News and stay up to date with the latest tips, special offers, and technology info from Nero.” No choice is given enabling users to refuse content from Nero, but still have access to Nero 9 Lite download.

And it only gets, well, worse. At the top of the page users are informed that Nero 9 Lite: “Includes Nero Ask Toolbar for world-class search technology with one-of-a-kind search tools to help you get what you’re looking for faster. Connect directly to the My Nero community to share your music, photo and video blogs, and to exchange ideas on a variety of community and technology topics.”

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Nero trying to still make a little money off of the free Nero 9 Lite. Other vendors have similar deals with third-party companies, bundling various software with their own products. In this case, Nero 9 Lite comes packaged with the Nero Ask Toolbar. But there’s more in this free package, namely dubious tactics that strip users of their right to choose what to install on their computers.

As you can see from the screenshots included with this article, the Nero 9 Lite installer will install first of all, even ahead of Nero 9 Lite itself, the Nero Ask Toolbar. Users can uncheck the boxes for “Make Ask my browser default search provider” and “Set my home page to Ask.com” but there isn’t a similar box for the toolbar itself. Users that want Nero 9 Lite have no choice but to have Nero Ask Toolbar shoved down their throats, as hitting the Cancel button shuts down the whole installation.

We, here at Softpedia, found ourselves in a position in which we choose to make it a clear point that user choice must be respected even by software released under the marketing stunt banner of “free download.” Otherwise we would have loved nothing more than to provide Softpedia users with links to a free disc burner that is compatible with Windows 7. But alas, inappropriate measures designed to deprive users of control when it comes down to installing programs onto their computers, much like malicious code practices, disqualify Nero 9 Lite from reaching the standards of quality we demand out of products we recommend to Softpedia users.