Products · Product
SourceForge
Raised as a usability problem by 98 people on Hacker News over 19 years (2008–2026), in 58 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
- 1
- 2Ad-laden, slow site is hard to useUnreviewed
Every issue, all time, most people first
Ad-laden, slow site is hard to useUnreviewed
20082026- Site was always awful to navigate, with download links buried among ad space2024-09-09
- Slow, ad-filled site where users can't find what they need to download2024-08-04
- Each page load took about five seconds and the site was hard to use2024-03-30
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Commenter says GitHub forces git CLI use and dislikes its UI, so they avoid it2026-04-30
- Too many clicks needed to do anything on the site2026-04-29
- Website is full of ads and dark patterns2026-04-28
- Hard to use, and at one point pushed malware to downloaders2026-04-08
- Fake download buttons among ads lead to malware instead of the real download2026-03-31
- Download buttons don't look like buttons, so people can't tell they are clickable2025-07-03
- Fake download links disguised as ads confuse people trying to get software2025-01-19
- Site was always awful to navigate, with download links buried among ad space2024-09-09
- Old releases get deleted, so finding which revisions made a version is very hard2024-09-09
- Users found SourceForge's interface terrible to use compared with GitHub2024-09-09
- Slow, ad-filled site where users can't find what they need to download2024-08-04
- Each page load took about five seconds and the site was hard to use2024-03-30
- Web interface became so ad-ridden it was effectively unusable2024-03-30
- Hard to figure out how to download source code, especially CVS on Windows2024-03-30
- Opt-out for bundled Chrome install is hidden, nearly invisible, so users install it accidentally2023-05-03
- Fake download buttons trick users into clicking ads that install adware2022-04-21
- Confusing, unpleasant download UI; site is cluttered even with an adblocker2022-04-21
- Download was nearly impossible due to redirects and click hijacking2022-04-21
- Terrible UI, especially in its earlier days2021-10-08
- Empty wiki and git links clutter the project page with unused options2021-05-31
- Downloads blocked with 'downloads aren't possible on this device' message on a phone2021-05-10
- SourceForge's interface is confusing compared to GitHub or GitLab2021-03-28
- Code repository sites have horrible UX, hiding code rather than making it easy to explore2020-03-01
- Sticky banner leaves blank white stripe; sidebar can't scroll fully; nav leads to nested categories2019-12-23
- Project page is cluttered with ads, links and unrelated content, hard to focus on2019-11-03
- Described as atrocious to use, without a specific problem named2018-09-20
- Site is awful to use and got worse under each owner2018-07-23
- Download URLs save with unreadable names unless wget's content-disposition flag is used2018-06-11
- Site is ad-laden and slow to load, making it hard to use2018-06-02
- Page loads too many scripts, making it slow to interact with, especially on slow connections2018-01-10
- Signup requires employment-related fields that shouldn't be mandatory2018-01-10
- Top menu items are confusing and change when scrolling, making navigation hard to understand2018-01-10
- Page makes over 100 requests, mostly JavaScript, so it loads slowly2018-01-09
- Fixed top banner covers about 20% of screen height, obstructing daily use2018-01-09
- UI is ridiculously unintuitive, hard to navigate2017-10-21
- Download link is hard to find among misleading buttons and ads2017-09-18
- Ads disguised as site UI tricking people into clicking fake download buttons2017-07-17
- Confusing pages, ads, and software repackaged with adware2017-05-20
- Web interface for browsing source code was unintuitive and unhelpful2017-05-20
- Hard to find the Browse button needed to reach the code2016-12-20
- Misleading Download buttons that get users to click ads instead of files2016-10-17
- Commenter finds the site's UI/UX so poor they avoid interacting with it2016-08-08
- Setting up a full SourceForge project takes more steps and complexity than creating a GitHub or GitLab repo2016-06-08
- Developer side of projects is hidden, making contribution hard and adding clicks2016-02-13
- Its web interface is described as terrible2016-02-13
- Logged-in users cannot find how to submit a patch or comment on bugs2016-02-13
- Interface is overly complicated and cluttered, with little improvement over time2016-02-13
- Ad buttons look like download buttons, so users click the wrong thing2016-02-13
- Fake green Start Download ads look like the real download button2015-06-15
- Opaque installer flow gives little choice about secondary software and is hard to uninstall2015-06-15