281–290 of 468 posts
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"They have to have a different angle on this; they're a YC company." Why do you think they would have a different angle if they are a YC company?
http://www.paulgraham.com/good.html
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.
They should simply ban any adware on Windows that is opt-out rather than opt-in. If anyone breaks that rule, they should put it in the anti-virus signature database for Microsoft Security Essentials, so it cannot be installed without the user going through hoops.
They should then go to the DOJ or the EU, say, "We want to clean up the user experience," back it up with articles from Mac-lovers like Walt Mossberg talking about how bad the crapware experience is on Windows, printouts of forums like this one showing nearly-universal hatred of these practices, etc.
And if the DOJ or EU say "No, we'll slap antitrust fines on you if you do that," then they should publish all of the correspondence publicly, and harness the waves of Internet fury to compel the regulators to back down. Even if the regulators don't back down, they'll get good publicity from actually taking responsibility for their platform and trying to clean it up.
P.S. The Bing toolbar doesn't help Microsoft's case. They should "take one for the user" and voluntarily eliminate the Bing toolbar. If they succeed in getting rid of all toolbars, then maybe they'll actually get more traffic to Bing, because users won't have their search engines hijacked.
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> 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.
> It's killing the platform and there's nothing Microsoft can do about it. They could have made a real Windows Store instead of a WinRT-only store.
And they didn't have to wait for Windows 8 to do it, either. Roll it out with Windows 7 SP2.
Microsoft is way too wedded to their multi-year release cycles.
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Seriously. Take a look at the official site for the excellent open-source Windows graphics editor Paint.NET, for instance: http://www.getpaint.net/ Now tell me where you are supposed to click to download the actual application. It confuses me, and I'm an experienced user who knows to look out for these sorts of things. I have no idea how normal people ever find the damn thing. My question is: whose fault is this? Is…
The blame belongs to both. Google should not allow ANY ads that contain a Download button, when the page has a link containing the text "Download." These ads can have no other purpose but to confuse users who are looking to download software. The problem is that Google makes money from these ads, and these ads have fantastic clickthrough rates. If they banned these types of ads, they'd make less money. The author of…
This is how industries get regulated -- when they refuse to regulate themselves. I hope Google realizes that and takes action on their own initiative...
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.
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Agreed, a lot of the reasons that non technical users dislike Windows seem to be the result of these. It really takes control out of the users hands. We can see the origins of this becoming a problem on Ubuntu with Canonical adding stuff like the Amazon search and seemingly having no issue with bundleware as a means of monetisation. On the other hand I'm surprised this isn't more of an issue on the Mac, since Mac (es…
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]?
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 nontechnical to NASA. We even have a huge blind user base because these installers are frequently hell to navigate with a screenreader. We make money selling a Pro version with extra features to businesses and school IT departments. It works well…
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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.
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May be the case on iOS but with Android I've had apps that stick extra shortcuts on my homescreen and spam notifications every few hours. This makes battery life and usability a lot worse throughout the phone until you can find and kill the offending app.
If that happens again, use one or more of these apps to find the offender: Ad Network Detector Addons Detector AirPush Detector
The crapware situation on Windows is horrible. I'm a Mac/Linux user but from time to time I have to power up my Windows VM. A few days ago I wanted to install the Partition Magic trial on my Win XP VM. Having left Windows around 2005 I figured that typing "Partition Magic Win XP download" in Google would be helpful. I got a handful of "reputable" download sources like CNet and the like. I went there and was bombarded…
My experience recently was similar. A simple open source installer landed me a like of toolbars, preformance tools, and other assorted crapware. Incredibly obnoxious, and instantly removed any respect I had for the developer.