These guys raised eyebrows a couple years back on Joel Splosky's Business of Software blog: http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?biz.5.837817.1...
Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows
361–370 of 468 posts
Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows
#362The 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…
I'll take this chance to recommend the following linux distributions to those non-sysadmins who are wondering which one they can try out: - Fedora 17 with Gnome. Out of the box it offers all kinds of installation options, like the one I always wanted and only found in Fedora (in my words): "Use all this but only this free space, and also encrypt it". The only downside is that out of the box it lacks some things every…
> Ubuntu 12.04 server edition. I chose server edition because it has an option for disk encryption,
Ubuntu 12.10 has options for disk and home folder encryption in the regular, GUI, desktop installer.
Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows
#363These products exploit/capitalize on computer illiteracy. That's not something I would personally be proud of, but computer illiteracy is the real problem here. Products like this can ultimately accelerate the correction of computer illiteracy.
That correction can come in the form of greater mainstream cultural impetus for computer literacy training, for operating system developerrs to prevent these types of actions (app stores of all platforms are decent at this), or by creating/expanding a market for products that intercept and neutralize this type of exploitation.
The more efficient the means of exploiting computer illiteracy, the sooner the exploit is, in some way, neutralized.
Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows
#364These founders need to be very, very careful. Business-to-business services that are disliked by the public and involve any type of tracking or analytics aren't just class-action-lawsuit bait, they're ambitious-prosecutor bait. All they need is enough bad PR, which it looks like they're in the process of getting, to make the predators aware of the prey. Judging from reactions here, they're not going to get much commu…
Don't worry, ambitious prosecutors are busy enough with innocent activists.
Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows
#365Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't disagree with your overall point but "toolbar" is not in the same class as "HIV". A little perspective please.
It's humor via hyperbole. Compare to the common hacker usage of "evil".
Maybe it's just me but this needs to be a lot funnier to pull out that sort of metaphor.
As it is it's just slightly bad taste.
Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ironically enough, IIRC PG was one of pioneers of spam filtering.
And Peter Detkin coined the term patent troll and now runs a company that's one of the worlds biggest patent trolls. Irony? Or just people being willing to do anything for money. There are worse motivations.
Money in itself is a fairly neutral motivation.
You can perhaps justify doing something immoral for money if you plan to use that money for purposes that are more moral.
I don't think getting rich counts.
Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows
#367Y 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…
Thanks for the clarification. My natural reaction after reading the post was to get worried what Ninite does, which I regularly use.
Could you please elaborate how exactly do you automate the installers? Do you modify the applications being installed?
Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows
#368I 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…
You may be right about the industry as a whole, but I'm betting you're wrong about this particular instance based on what I know about PG and YC. When I was reading the original TC article, I was thinking that there is actually an incredible opportunity here to create a legitimate ad network that would allow desktop developers to monetize similarly to how it's done on the web - to basically become the DoubleClick of…
Goto their site: http://www.installmonetizer.com/AT_advertisers.php and checkout their advertising partners. Babylon and JackpotRewards are hardly the kind of "advertisers" to get excited about. Babylon has several toolbar partnerships (I have worked on these) and I can imagine how their partnership with Install Monetizer will just lead to another toolbar offer being presented to the users during install time.
Here, you are coming off as a sycophant who is blindly supporting PG and YC without checking your facts which could be the reason for your downvotes.
Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows
#369Winzip 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/
Interestingly, the InstallMonetizer overview image [1] shows a dialog containing the text "customizable and will help you search the Internet" - which apparently is from the Ask Toolbar EULA...
Re: Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows
#370I 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…
> They also have deals with download.com/softopedia/softonic to change/rewrap your installer, without your agreement, often violating your license; or they give back money to those websites, so they are ranked higher than normal other downloads. I can confirm this, it's the reason we stopped having a download altogether even though it offered features that were hard to do without a download. Using software I wrote as…
Heck, if it was just downloads I could still somehow steer clear of it but I really hate it when companies like Oracle and Adobe bundle this with their security updates and it is checked on by default[1]!!
Even worse to realize that reputable companies such as Google, Ask and McAfee compensate them for doing it. [2][3]
[1] http://i.imgur.com/3zWPK.jpg
