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Adobe wants Ninite to stop rolling out crapware-free Flash

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Adobe wants Ninite to stop rolling out crapware-free Flash

#11

Post by beedogs »

digitalengineer wrote: post #8
Svip wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is common on Windows. When you are on their website to install Flash, there is a tick box you need to untick to avoid installing McAfee Anti-Virus with it. It is basically like the Ask toolbar bundled with Java. If you are not paying attention - which most people don't - you'll be installing unwanted software, because so much relies on basically crappy software (Flash and Java). Actually, that makes them crap…

Checkboxes are not allowed to already be 'selected' with Direct Mailings in Germany or the Netherlands, see http://www.fedma.org . Perhaps this should apply for other webservices as well.

Consumer protection in the United States is basically nonexistent, so you'll unfortunately never see Adobe reprimanded for this sort of behavior. (I guess we can wait for the 'free market' to take care of it. Feh.)

Re: Adobe wants Ninite to stop rolling out crapware-free Flash

#12

Post by mschuster91 »

I wonder how the "toolbar providers" actually make money. I mean, I work as a freelance IT guy, and on nearly every customer PC I find ~6-10 toolbars, 2-3 "free virus scanners" and >10 different youtube downloaders (which mostly brought the toolbars). With such an infestation (and given this, the competition between the toolbars), how do the individual toolbar providers get back the money they paid to the trojan horse software?

Re: Adobe wants Ninite to stop rolling out crapware-free Flash

#13

Post by makomk »

artmageddon wrote: post #4
digitalengineer wrote: post #2

Never had this problem of Adobe installing unwanted Anti-Virus stuff. Is this common for Window-users? For Mac I would suggest Pacifist if you want to install selective parts of an installer: http://www.charlessoft.com/

During the installer the user will be asked if they want to install McAfee anti-virus. There is a checkbox on the page in the setup that is already set to true by the time they get to it, so most users will probably think that having "more protection" is a good thing and that Adobe is really looking out for them.

At one point, there wasn't even a checkbox in the installer as I recall - there was some kind of checkbox on the page to download the installer, and if you didn't notice and uncheck it you got a download that installed whatever crap they were pushing silently and automatically along with Flash.

Re: Adobe wants Ninite to stop rolling out crapware-free Flash

#14

Post by Already__Taken »

giulianob wrote: post #6
artmageddon wrote: post #3

It's a real shame that Adobe is making this kind of mandate of Ninite. The Ninite catalog is a little limited for me given that I'm a developer, but when it comes to setting up a new PC(or a reformatted one)for friends and family, Ninite is the first place I go to for all programs and utilities they need, and most likely the last as well. On the one hand I can see why Adobe wants total control over their installers,…

http://chocolatey.org/ is starting to gain some traction for dev tools.

I would expect powershell access to the windows store might just kill this project over night. I kind of hope so actually, nice official repository system native from MS.

Re: Adobe wants Ninite to stop rolling out crapware-free Flash

#15

Post by amargulies »

beedogs wrote: post #11
digitalengineer wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Checkboxes are not allowed to already be 'selected' with Direct Mailings in Germany or the Netherlands, see http://www.fedma.org . Perhaps this should apply for other webservices as well.

Consumer protection in the United States is basically nonexistent, so you'll unfortunately never see Adobe reprimanded for this sort of behavior. (I guess we can wait for the 'free market' to take care of it. Feh.)

As far as I'm concerned, Ninite is the free market taking care of it.

Re: Adobe wants Ninite to stop rolling out crapware-free Flash

#17

Post by danielweber »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #10

This article is a bit... lacking. First off, the Flash updater on Windows works quite well on modern Windows systems. Second off, Ninite isn't just some good Samaritan, they're a for-profit company. Third, and related to the second, Ninite's updater costs $10 a year while Adobe Flash's built-in updater is free. They also have a Ninite Pro version that supports remote updates and installs and costs $240 to $2,220 per…

I will complain that Adobe wants to be updated what feels like every time my Windows machine restarts, but it never asks to install any adware as it does so.

Re: Adobe wants Ninite to stop rolling out crapware-free Flash

#18

Post by digitalengineer »

beedogs wrote: post #11
digitalengineer wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Checkboxes are not allowed to already be 'selected' with Direct Mailings in Germany or the Netherlands, see http://www.fedma.org . Perhaps this should apply for other webservices as well.

Consumer protection in the United States is basically nonexistent, so you'll unfortunately never see Adobe reprimanded for this sort of behavior. (I guess we can wait for the 'free market' to take care of it. Feh.)

A free market? I've heared whispers of those magical places, but I am yet to encounter one in real life. Seems everything and anything worth something in this world has already been regulated to "no-real-competition".

Re: Adobe wants Ninite to stop rolling out crapware-free Flash

#19

Post by FreezerburnV »

Svip wrote: post #5
digitalengineer wrote: post #2

Never had this problem of Adobe installing unwanted Anti-Virus stuff. Is this common for Window-users? For Mac I would suggest Pacifist if you want to install selective parts of an installer: http://www.charlessoft.com/

Yes, it is common on Windows. When you are on their website to install Flash, there is a tick box you need to untick to avoid installing McAfee Anti-Virus with it. It is basically like the Ask toolbar bundled with Java. If you are not paying attention - which most people don't - you'll be installing unwanted software, because so much relies on basically crappy software (Flash and Java). Actually, that makes them crap…

As a developer, I kind of take offense to the allegations of Java (and Flash as well, I suppose, it's supposed to be pretty good) being "crappy software". The JVM is actually a rather awesome piece of software which offers good performance and good garbage collection. And interesting new languages have been created and flourished on top of the JVM. (Scala, Clojure)

Please know the difference between bad/customer unfriendly handling of installers/updaters, and actually bad software.

Re: Adobe wants Ninite to stop rolling out crapware-free Flash

#20

Post by bluedino »

mschuster91 wrote: post #12

I wonder how the "toolbar providers" actually make money. I mean, I work as a freelance IT guy, and on nearly every customer PC I find ~6-10 toolbars, 2-3 "free virus scanners" and >10 different youtube downloaders (which mostly brought the toolbars). With such an infestation (and given this, the competition between the toolbars), how do the individual toolbar providers get back the money they paid to the trojan hors…

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