What is the crowd's opinion of CDex?

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You can use CDEX or similar to convert them to MP3s as fast as your computer will go. With online database lookup, they'll even be named by artist and track. You can upload those to Google Music/iTunes.

When looking for free, general purpose software, go for an open source solution when possible. Open Source Software is software whose source code is publicly available for anyone, that mean it makes it unlikely for the software to do shady things because many people can check the source code. These softwares are often developped by several voluntary people that do it as a hobby. These software are less likery to install spywares, ads, additionnal software like toolbars in your browser, etc. Don't mistake with Freeware, that is free softwares but with a proprietary licence, which means that on the contrary, they are likely to find convoluted ways to make profit from their product (so ads, spywares, etc.).

A few examples, you want a PDF reader : Sumatra PDF.

A CD ripper : CDex

Just google what kind of software you want and «open source».

And always download the software from the official website, not a third party website.

If you still have the CD, you could rerip them using another tool, like fre:ac , CDex or TAudioConverter

> so I can chuck out most of my CDs,

I wouldn't throw away music that you legally purchased. If you do that, you technically won't own a legal copy of the music anymore. If you really don't want your CDs, I'd at least donate them to a Goodwill or something so that other people can enjoy them - And then delete any copies you have.

Most of the time I use Windows, but back in the day I saw a Linux ripping program called Grip (or gRip - Gnome Ripper). I'm not sure if that still exists anymore though.. I'm not sure about Mac, as I'm not a Mac user. As a mainly Windows user, I use a free ripper program called CDEx to rip my CDs, and then convert them to FLAC for lossless storage. And from FLAC, I can convert them to MP3 or whatever other format I want. dbPowerAmp also looks like a good ripper and can convert to multiple formats. I don't think it's free though. I know those are Windows and not what you're looking for though..

I've used this for years. It's lightweight, free, open-source, and there's a portable version, too. I just noticed that their website is now registered in Mauritius, hence the .mu. VirusTotal gives a pass to the download. http://cdex.mu/

Hello,

It used to be that download sites existed to provide a centralized "all in one" repository for people to get open source, public domain (freeware) and evaluation (shareware) versions of software, and they were largely supported by running banner advertisements. With the crash of ad revenue from those, most of them have gone to "software wrapping" business models, e.g., taking the software you want, and placing a loader or shell in front of it that installs potentially unwanted applications, adware and other garbage they can get paid to install.

A partial solution to this is go to directly to the author's site, instead of download sites like CBS Interactive's CNet Download.Com, etc. I say partial, because a few software authors monetize directly by bundling PUAs, adware or other "third-party offers" that no wants directly into their installers. Examples of these include Adobe Flash and Sun Java, both of which reportedly make between $20-30M a year (each) from bundling crapware with their frameworks.

Anyways, if you CDex, here's the author's web site:

Author's site: http://cdex.mu/
Author's download page: http://cdex.mu/download

I don't think they bundle anything with their direct downloads, but please check yourself to make sure.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

P.S. The r/Malware subreddit is for technical discussions of malware, not really for end-user reports like yours. Consider using a subdreddit like r/24HourSupport or r/BadApps to report things like this in the future.

I'm an old fart, so I've been using CDex since forever. You specify the minimum and maximum bitrate in the encoding options window. By setting the lowest bit rate in the minimum field and by using v0 for highest quality, you allow the encoder to get to really low bit rates (for silence, et. al.) but it stays high for when it needs to.