Nero launches Nero 9 Lite: free but annoying burning software

Posted on 5 Nov 2009 at 14:47

Nero has launched its free image burning suite, Nero 9 Lite. Marketed as a "free entry point to the Nero 9 'Reloaded' suite", it's more a giant advert for the commercial version, rather than a useful free suite.

To begin with the software forces you to install the Ask Toolbar, which will appear in all of your web browsers. The only good news is that you can uninstall this at a later date.

Once installed, instead of a Lite version with some features removed, there's what looks like the full version of Nero SmartStart (the application where you choose what kind of data you want to burn). Selecting many of the features just prompts you to buy the full version of Nero 9.

Even more annoying is that you can only uninstall Nero 9 Lite using the Nero ControlCenter. Unfortunately, there's no direct way to remove ControlCenter when you're done. In fact, the only way to do so is to download and run the Nero General CleanTool and force it to remove all Nero software from your PC.

The result is a massively annoying application that tries its hardest to get money out of you by trying to get you to upgrade to the full version. Our advice is not to go anywhere near Nero 9 Lite and install the free CDBurnerXP instead. This is freeware and will never try and make you upgrade to a paid-for application. It's also way easier to use and you can uninstall it easily when you're done.

Author: David Ludlow

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