How exquisitely much better for freeware it would be if ...
the program came built-in with a search link for getting its
needed data from .. wherever, CNN, WeatherChannel, etc,
It is.
*instead* of phoning home.
The two seem to perform separate functions...the phoning home seems
to be solely related to updates, whereas everything to do with the
actual weather is done completely independent of the author's
website.
The program does NOT work unless you permit it to phone home.
Not entirely correct. You can use your hosts file to direct
www.cyberark.net to some other IP...it doesn't matter which IP, as
long as there is a web server. Also, you can go to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\MyWeather\cnn
in the registry and change the URL key to something else as well.
Setting it to
http://www.google.com will try to download the file
http://www.google.com/data/ver.txt (which doesn't exist) at startup,
and when that fails the program will still retrieve and update the
weather.
It could have been authored to do the same thing by its standalone
self.
It does. The only thing it appears to contact cyberark.net for is
update info.
Also, it must make registry or other data files, since it
remembers where you wanted data for.
It appears to store the info in
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\MyWeather\cnn
All that's stored is the primary city (the city which you choose),
secondary cities (other cities you choose, but which are only listed
when you move your mouse over the current conditions or towards the
upper left of the window) and the URL key, which I mentioned before.
All-in-all, it has some promise, and nothing malicious or personal
seems to be done, but automatic update and replace does make me a
little weary. Also, the lack of ability to show the temperature in
the tray (like Weather Watcher, Weather Bug, Weather Pulse, etc do) is
a fairly big thing for me as well. Also, I'm not a big fan of cutesy,
non-native-looking programs, and that animated bird, or insect, or
whatever is very annoying. For now, I think I'll stick with Weather
Watcher...
(