About BidBass
Who runs the library, how titles get listed, and what the listings are meant to do.
What this is
BidBass is a software library. Each entry is a page describing one release in full: what the program does, what is in the build, what changed since the last one, what the machine needs to run it, and the order the installation steps have to happen in. The listing is the product. The file behind it is only useful if the page told you the truth about it.
The library started as a small set of pages kept for a handful of people who were tired of downloading the same installer four times before finding one that worked. It grew because people kept asking for titles, and it stayed useful because the pages kept getting written properly rather than being generated from a template with the name swapped out.
How a title gets listed
Every release goes through the same sequence before its page goes up.
- The build is installed on a clean machine, from the archive as it will be distributed, following the exact steps that end up in the installation section.
- The version string is read from the installed application rather than taken from whatever the archive was named.
- The file size and language coverage are recorded from the actual package.
- Anything that goes wrong during the install is written into the release notes, because that is the part people need before they start, not after.
- The page is written from the install, not from a marketing page.
If a build fails that process it does not get listed. There is no value in a page for a release nobody could install.
What we do not do
There is no account. There is nothing to sign up for, no membership tier, no waiting period and no queue you can pay to skip. The library does not track what you looked at and does not build a profile from it.
We do not list anything we have not put on a machine ourselves. We do not pad the library with duplicate entries for the same release under different names to make it look larger than it is. We do not bundle anything into a download that was not part of the original package.
The numbers on each page
The download count on a listing is the lifetime total for that entry. The bar next to it shows that count against the busiest release in the library, which is why almost everything looks small next to the top few titles. That is accurate rather than flattering, and it is more useful than a star rating nobody fills in.
The update timestamp is relative because that is the question people are actually asking: not when it happened, but how long ago. A release refreshed six hours ago and one refreshed three weeks ago are different propositions, and the exact hour is noise.
Getting in touch
Broken listing, wrong version number, a build that will not install, or a title you want added: the contact page reaches us, and the requests page feeds the queue directly. Rights holders should use the DMCA page, which is handled separately and faster.