Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows

istartedsomething.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 468 posts

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

#151

Post by jbk »

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...

Maybe because I spent almost 3 hours per week to clean it.

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

#152

Post by patio11 »

So when earlier it was mentioned, I assumed "They have to have a different angle on this; they're a YC company." And seeing a strong thread title and no evidence for it other than "The industry they're in is ridiculously seedy", I thought maybe HN was in rush to judgement mode.

So I thought I'd try, you know, installing something.

Make your own call:

http://images1.bingocardcreator.com/blog-images/hn/its-not-a...

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

#153

Post by kawsper »

daxelrod wrote: post #91
kawsper wrote: post #84

> Although the company claims it is all “non-personally identifiable data”, according to its website this surprisingly includes not only IP but the globally unique MAC addresses. Enough with the scare tactics. A Mac adress is not, in any way, globally unique.

Isn't a MAC address supposed to be unique, though?

They are supposed to, but talk with any sysadmin or a guy hosting a big lan-party and you will know that, that isn't the case.

I have hosted several 300-400 person lan-parties and there is always two or three machines with the same MAC-address.

A MAC-address is somewhat unique, but it happens that manufactures re-use the address twice or more. I have a feeling that cheaper brands do it more, but I have nothing to back that up.

There is a discussion here that backs up my claim: http://superuser.com/questions/268006/are-mac-addresses-uniq...

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

#155

Post by rdl »

ameen wrote: post #139
fennecfoxen wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and both making MILLIONS ! It's like some shadowy movie villian / arms dealer guy with a conspiracy to sell weapons to both sides!

Or like the Government of United States, which supplies arms to both the Government and the Rebels.

In places like Afghanistan, we actually put our own troops there, pay for PMCs and local national forces, and fund the enemy (Taliban, not AQ) via our supply contracts. That's even worse than just selling guns to everyone; we pay them both and then also sell them guns.

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

#156

Post by makomk »

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...

Probably the ads. For a while, Google helped made this even worse by paying companies like Dell to set the default search on new PCs to specially-customised version of Google with far more prominent ads that were less clearly distinguished from normal search results.

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

#157

Post by herf »

This is also why the "unbundling" of Windows turned out so badly for consumers. Not having a decent mail app or video/photos app by default (like the Mac) means people have to navigate this crap to get the most basic things done.

We (f.lux) have a similar experience to VLC: tons of cloned installers and inbound emails for a free product.

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

#158

Post by scrumper »

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…

Because the assumed knowledge required to understand the procedure under Archlinux is vast compared to that under Windows. Here are the concepts you need to know in order to do the work under Archlinux:

  0. How to load your terminal program
  1. The command line
  2. Permissions/root
  3. Package managers in general
  4. pacman in particular (what, it's not the game?)
  5. Command line switches
  6. Piping
  7. grep
  8. What "looks OK" means in a Linux package description
And that's all assuming you know about MP3s, ripping and what features you need in such a program.

Under Windows, you need to know:

  1. A browser
  2. A search engine
  3. A feel for trustworthiness
In both cases, experience teaches you what you need to know. The necessary experience is much more easily obtained under Windows than Linux, and it's more generally useful in life. So that's why.

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

#159

Post by kawsper »

jakobe wrote: post #98
kawsper wrote: post #84

> Although the company claims it is all “non-personally identifiable data”, according to its website this surprisingly includes not only IP but the globally unique MAC addresses. Enough with the scare tactics. A Mac adress is not, in any way, globally unique.

Yes it is. Every network ethernet adaptor or wifi chip has a unique MAC address.

In a perfect world that is, and on your home network you would not see any issues.

Take 400 computers and 2 of them will have the same MAC-address and you have DHCP-problems.

http://superuser.com/questions/268006/are-mac-addresses-uniq...

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

#160

Post by EvilTerran »

josteink wrote: post #39
btipling wrote: post #6

Winzip and Nero use the Ask Partner Network (I used to work there on the Ask Toolbar) to monetize their free software, so that is probably where that first email came from. http://apn.ask.com/ There's also conduit: http://toolbar.conduit.com/

> Winzip and Nero use the Ask Partner Network Sadly, on Windows even Oracle's Java has the ASK toolbar. Almost nobody has any pride left on the Windows-platform, user-abuse is rampant, almost expected. It's killing the platform and there's nothing Microsoft can do about it.

That really made me boggle when I saw it. "Wait, a massive business owned by the one of the richest guys in the world is whoring itself out for ... pennies from a washed-up search engine? WTF?"

I then sat for a minute, couldn't think of anything I'd done in the last several months that needed Java, and uninstalled it. I haven't missed it.

Post reply on HN