If you are offering a download of any kind, state the terms right up front. I don’t know about you, but I am leery of downloading anything whose status I have to guess at. It makes me concerned that the code or product has the same lack of attention to detail.

There are many kinds of download. Is it free for all time? Just a trial? A Beta? Will clicking “download” kick you without warning to a page where you think users are going to blithely put their credit card numbers and addresses in? Don’t leave your readers wondering. If a user has to go to google to find out this information, you better have a damn good, unique, exceptional product or they probably won’t come back for the download.

Note, this is not related to the SuperPreview post right before this one, though Microsoft could stand to pay attention to this advice with regard to SuperPreview as well.