Viewing profile — swies

We should play this up more on our site, but Ninite (I'm a co-founder and we're YC W08) does this stuff right. All our .exes are signed, app config information comes over https, an…

That's so nice to hear. Thank you! I'd love to make a Mac version someday, but the problems are so much worse on Windows so we're focusing there.

PortableApps is great!

Ninite Co-Founder here. Our pro-version SAAS business model works great. Plus we started Ninite because junkware enraged us so much. It's just punching down at non-technical users.…

That's right, we did no redistribution or modification of their software. Ninite just automates things you would do. But, publishers can license their software under whatever terms…

Sorry for the confusion. That copy is about things like Filehippo Updater, not built-in updaters. The aggregation and automation arguments still apply, but it's not intended as a j…

First I want to say thanks! We love your work at PortableApps.com and send people there whenever they ask us to add portable software. Our value is keeping the catalog up-to-date a…

We're good guys, it's OK. :) Seriously though, we'd lose all our Ninite Pro customers if we pulled any crap with our installations. Since the free version is our marketing departme…

If you're talking about those pop-ups users get on new versions our Pro version can turn those off: http://ninite.com/help/features/disableautoupdate.html

Glad to hear you like it. We think about configuration stuff like this from time to time, but I'm pretty sure getting all the details right would take years. So we haven't made the…

We don't modify the apps. We run the installers in a hidden window and simulate the clicks to install them without toolbars. Thanks for using Ninite!

Apps are downloaded from the publishers. We validate files with SHA-1 hashes and digital signatures (where available) before using them.

I needed to post this here because we solve the problem in the article. The problem is deceptive software. That we're funded by YC (or that InstallMonetizer is) is a red herring. B…

http://www.paulgraham.com/good.html

Wow! Defaulting the easy revert option to unchecked is the perfect kicker. It's like a cartoon villain curling his mustache. The wording on that choice is incredible too.

Good point. The relative openness of win32 allows junkware but gives us enough slack to fight it too. It does make for a noisier and more confusing ecosystem though. My mom's still…

Thanks! Edited (hopefully) for clarity.

Y Combinator also funded our solution to crapware. http://ninite.com Basically we automate multiple installers and decline toolbars just like you would. Users range from the nontec…

Remove the text-rendering: optimizelegibility; line from your CSS and that text will render properly again. We ran into this on Windows Chrome too. It was a pain to track down.

Glad to hear you like it. An agent option is something we're thinking about. Right now some people solve this by having a startup script that runs something like: Ninite.exe /silen…

I'll keep an eye on this thread to answer any questions too. Thanks!

This is really smart. Those years of updates and photos on the timeline are data that only Facebook has. It's a unique asset and they're putting it front and center. If people like…