OK. Point taken. We have done some A/B tests and see that download rate is the same as from our website. The benefit of redirecting to download.com is that with increased rankings we get more users who visit download.com. I know these issues you said and I saw the articles on HN before. However, you can tell download.com to stop injecting offers into the installer which we did and there are no issues.
Well my point wasn't about the installer (although it is too a good point). I'm mostly talking about the UI and UX benefits of having a streamlined experience of downloading a product.
