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Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

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Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#141

Post by philbarr »

dhimes wrote: post #121
simias wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I share the same experience: I'm mostly a linux user who had to setup a windows machine not long ago. Even when installing legit software from what appeared to be legit sources I had to be very careful at every step in order to avoid all the spyware/toolbars/dubious extensions bundled with the installers. The worst offender was some crapware installer that wanted you to check the components you didn't wan't ins…

I recall that the java yahoo toolbar has been there since Sun.

When I was mainly just a Java developer I always found that kind of embarrassing.

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#142

Post by kbutler »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #62
jbk wrote: post #49

I can speak quite a bit about this "industry": We (VLC) receive 1 of those offers per day. They are liars, shady business, IP violators and are downright dangerous. They have all those great offers for you, but they refuse to give any details as soon as you ask any question. More than half of them are "the biggest in the world" (sic). They lie about download numbers, about download size, about number of software actu…

Exactly this. I'm often advising people to install VLC when they are having problems with Windows Media Player, but whenever I tell them to google for it on their own they end up with some toolbar infested crap. So now I specifically instruct them to go to videolan.org.

Googling for "vlc", "vlc download", or "vlc player", the top 3-4 results are all to videolan.org.

Ads may distort this for some users, though...

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#143

Post by loucal »

api wrote: post #119
jbk wrote: post #49

I can speak quite a bit about this "industry": We (VLC) receive 1 of those offers per day. They are liars, shady business, IP violators and are downright dangerous. They have all those great offers for you, but they refuse to give any details as soon as you ask any question. More than half of them are "the biggest in the world" (sic). They lie about download numbers, about download size, about number of software actu…

A lot of people these days are bashing Apple and Google for creating walled gardens with their app stores, but this is really the primary reason such walled gardens have taken off. They offer a mostly crapware-free experience. If Linux on the desktop were to get popular, I'd hate to imagine what might happen to the open source Fedora and Debian/Ubuntu repositories.

I'm not sure that's a legit fear... Linux on the desktop in 2013 is fairly 'popular' and if it were that simple to infiltrate popular repos with spyware it would have been done years ago.

There are a ton of good people who work to keep those repos clean. Lets not trivialize their contribution by acting like anyone and their mother can make changes to the repo for a popular distro. Sure, a black[/grey] hat can make their own repository, but who in their right mind will use it?

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#144

Post by demetrius »

jahitr wrote: post #117
rrouse wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cool thing about Mac applications is they are self contained. Very rarely do you see an actual installer. Uninstallation is usually just deleting the application from the Applications folder. I wish other operating systems did it that way. It's very convenient.

It isn't. Since every library the application needs is inside the bundle, you load multiple versions of the same lib on memory. Also counting the installer, the bundle and Brew or MacPorts you have a tons of way to install an app.

Well, if I'm not mistaken, Windows linking usually involves re-calculating offsets in the library code, so several versions of libraries are kept in Windows too. The only thing that is theoretically saved is disk space.

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#145

Post by jiggy2011 »

kbutler wrote: post #142
jiggy2011 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. I'm often advising people to install VLC when they are having problems with Windows Media Player, but whenever I tell them to google for it on their own they end up with some toolbar infested crap. So now I specifically instruct them to go to videolan.org.

Googling for "vlc", "vlc download", or "vlc player", the top 3-4 results are all to videolan.org. Ads may distort this for some users, though...

yes, this didn't always used to be the case though.

Hopefully some google algo tweaks are working to help.

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#146

Post by keyboardP »

Aardwolf wrote: post #133

This is the reason why I don't understand that people say that Linux is for "technical" users while Windows is for regular consumers. In Linux it's easier to install something that in Windows. E.g. to install a CD to MP3 rip program, in Archlinux all you do is: # Search for some mp3 ripper program pacman -Ss mp3 | grep rip # Install one of them from the list that looked ok from the description pacman -S ripperx In Wi…

How exactly is a regular customer going to know what to type and where? Many have trouble with a GUI, let alone a CLI. And Archlinux is just one of many distros and has its own idiosyncracies (e.g. "Pacman" isn't going to work on Ubuntu out the box).

Installation of crapware has nothing to do with ease of installation, you've just purposefully made it seem drawn out. You could've just said Google "CD to MP3" and a few results down is a "how to" guide that uses the open-source CDex program - with a step by step guide.

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#147

Post by rogerdpack »

kbutler wrote: post #142
jiggy2011 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. I'm often advising people to install VLC when they are having problems with Windows Media Player, but whenever I tell them to google for it on their own they end up with some toolbar infested crap. So now I specifically instruct them to go to videolan.org.

Googling for "vlc", "vlc download", or "vlc player", the top 3-4 results are all to videolan.org. Ads may distort this for some users, though...

Yes unfortunately unless you have adbock installed the "first" results in a google search for "vlc" are typical for the (adware, spammy) sites.

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#148

Post by jiggy2011 »

dkuntz2 wrote: post #114
h2s wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see the future of apt-get on Ubuntu now... $ sudo apt-get install emacs After this operation, 86.3 MB of additional disk space will be used and AVG Toolbar Pro! GOLD EDITION will be installed to Chromium Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

If that happens, all someone needs to do is repackage Debian's version of aptitude for Ubuntu. Or an older version from Ubuntu. Really, this is a non-issue on Linux, because either 1) someone will just "fix" it an release their alternative, or 2) everyone will just stop using the offender.

Depends on what type of software you are talking about. For copyright protected proprietary software (which Canonical want people to develop for their OS) there may be legal protections which prevent it from being rebundled outside of torrent sites (which have their own risks).

#2 assumes a savvy enough userbase.

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#149

Post by jiggy2011 »

lmm wrote: post #130
api wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people these days are bashing Apple and Google for creating walled gardens with their app stores, but this is really the primary reason such walled gardens have taken off. They offer a mostly crapware-free experience. If Linux on the desktop were to get popular, I'd hate to imagine what might happen to the open source Fedora and Debian/Ubuntu repositories.

Linux would probably do better because few people have any reason to stray outside their distribution's repositories. And these repositories are just as rigorous in their way as the Apple or Google walled gardens; Debian packages have to be signed by the GPG key of a debian maintainer who takes personal responsibility for that package, and whose identify has been verified by having their key signed by another debian…

True, this seems like the most balanced solution. Install everything from repos but allow third party repos and stores.

That way you are not tied to one gatekeeper but it is in your interest to get your app into at least one good repo that has a reputation to uphold.

Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

#150

Post by jiggy2011 »

api wrote: post #119
jbk wrote: post #49

I can speak quite a bit about this "industry": We (VLC) receive 1 of those offers per day. They are liars, shady business, IP violators and are downright dangerous. They have all those great offers for you, but they refuse to give any details as soon as you ask any question. More than half of them are "the biggest in the world" (sic). They lie about download numbers, about download size, about number of software actu…

A lot of people these days are bashing Apple and Google for creating walled gardens with their app stores, but this is really the primary reason such walled gardens have taken off. They offer a mostly crapware-free experience. If Linux on the desktop were to get popular, I'd hate to imagine what might happen to the open source Fedora and Debian/Ubuntu repositories.

Open source repos should be ok, assuming that their admins don't start allowing this crap in. They haven't done so far, with the one exception of the Ubuntu amazon thing.

A risk might be drive-by malware that adds stuff to /etc/apt/sources.list though, however to do this you would need drive-by malware that can bust into the root account, or to get the user to enter the admin password.

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