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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

#121

Post by JohnTHaller »

cones688 wrote: post #26
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…

Ninite Updater Pro is for SysAdmins, not the normal casual user - it allows for silent and remote install. I would be interested to know how you propose using Adobe flash updater to push out a critical security patch to 10k + enterprise users.

Ninite Updater is a $10 a year service aimed at home users, completely separate from their Ninite Pro offering. Ninite Free does not automatically update. The article was pushing Ninite as an alternative to Flash's built-in updater but omitting the fact that Ninite Updater is paid.

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

#122

Post by JohnTHaller »

tghw wrote: post #79
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…

> Because automatic updating is a feature of CCleaner's business model, too. The paid version of CCleaner has automatic updates. As a user of the free version of CCleaner, I'm almost certain it also has auto updates, unless they removed that in a very recent version.

CCleaner Free offers notifications only of when an update is available. At that point you must click a clink to download the new version from Piriform's website where you are presented with additional offers to upgrade to the paid version and/or ads.

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

#123

Post by JohnTHaller »

oofoe wrote: post #114
shinratdr wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a similar vein, this is why Piriform cut them off from providing CCleaner via Ninite. Because automatic updating is a feature of CCleaner's business model, too. The paid version of CCleaner has automatic updates. Maybe CCleaner should rethink that one, that is an awful business model. I wonder if they do the same thing with their OS X version too, because if so they might want to have a chat with the MacUpdate D…

The big problem for me (and maybe Piriform?) is that now I don't have any of their products on my systems because I can't get them through Ninite. I used to religiously install their CCleaner, their defrag and system information tools. They're all very good, but I'm not going to walk through three separate installers for something that Ninite used to do in seconds. When I bring up a new system, I just go to Ninite, c…

I'd wager they are more concerned with preserving their paid revenue stream than losing a few free users. Any company offering a freemium product has to strike that balance.

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

#124

Post by JohnTHaller »

swies wrote: post #57
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…

First I want to say thanks! We love your work at PortableApps.com and send people there whenever they ask us to add portable software. Our value is keeping the catalog up-to-date and putting a nice interface around the updating process. Not ad-blocking. We actively uncheck toolbars for maybe 5 apps. If those apps removed their toolbar offers people would still use Ninite to track updates and automate work. On profits…

Howdy Patrick. First, let me say thanks as well, as I like your product and have sent people your way when they ask about something like PortableApps.com for local software. I'd also like to make clear that I in no way have a problem with the way Ninite works. I just had a problem with the way this article was written. Looking back at my original post, I definitely wrote a few things incorrectly and I apologize for that.

Regarding profits XOR good, I agree that you can do both and hope it didn't seem like I was implying otherwise. PortableApps.com, though fully open source, is also a for-profit venture that also intends to do good. It just happens to not be turning a profit yet. We're working on a freemium model as well, but we decided against making our updater and app store a paid feature and against bundling in ads as it would negatively impact some of our users.

I was unaware that Adobe had accessibility issues but, considering the interface, it makes sense. So, let me commend you on assisting with that. We did some custom work to ensure accessibility in our products as we have a large contingent of folks it helps as well.

Regarding publishers making updating their software artificially hard, I'm with you on that. We've had more than one publisher refuse to appear in the PortableApps.com App Store and Updater for that very reason: they want to have users to visit their website on each new version to see offers. That's why the portable version of the app that's not on Ninite isn't available on PortableApps.com either, despite offering up possible alternative revenue streams and offering capabilities. So, we're in the same boat there.

We should have a chat sometime and see if there are any ways we could work together.

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

#125

Post by JohnTHaller »

format wrote: post #98
samstave wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ninite is fantastic. There simply should not be any naysayers - the naysayers cannot provide the experience Ninite provides. Ninite's ability to group many products into a singular downloadable installer is heaven. Keep up the awesome work.

Not being able to choose where things get installed killed Ninite for me. Their reasoning is "where an app is installed is an implementation detail that users shouldn't worry about." My SSD can only hold so much, and I don't see the benefit of having a browser or file sharing app on an SSD. That seems like a detail I should care about.

I believe it uses the default Program Files and (x86) directory. Have you tried setting that to your other drive so your Ninite-installed apps default to their, but you can still manually select your SSD for the apps you wish to run more quickly (PhotoShop, etc).

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

#126

Post by greghinch »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #119
greghinch wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ninite isn't just some good Samaritan, they're a for-profit company. It saddens me that we've gotten to a point where operating a service company for profit can't also be seen as doing good. Everyone has to pay the bills (and maybe even be rewarded for their efforts?), even the do-gooders.

A for profit company can also be seen as doing good. My issue with the article is the complete one-sided-ness and the fact that they say that Ninite is an alternative to using the Flash updater but neglect to mention that Ninite costs $10 a year for updates while Flash's built-in automatic updater is free.

I don't think that's any sort of bias; the article's point is that Ninite's update process is much simpler to manage than the Adobe one, particularly if you are managing a network. I will freely admit I haven't used Ninite, but I know that almost anything would be an improvement on the Adobe updater.

The value Ninite creates is worth $10 a year (is the point in the article).

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

#127

Post by minopret »

hga wrote: post #86
minopret wrote: post #82

Ugh, "coalface admins". If I can hope to influence anyone's usage, I'll advise against using "coalface" as an adjective for people. I realize that a coalface is a place where a worker turns a resource into a commodity. But the word "coalface" is too much like "blackface". In fact it is used that way in regard to birds and cats. It risks distracting people with disturbing connotations, particularly here in the United…

Rather than complain about a U.K. publication's possible refusal to play the PC game, or ignorance of how coalface might be stretched to connote blackface (a word that is certainly less freighted over there), why not learn the term as the British use it, e.g.: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=coal%20face "Originally used with reference to miners i.e those who remove coal from the 'face' of the mine, its…

Yet I wouldn't write "(I) have dirty hands" where I mean "(I) get (my) hands dirty".

We'll all choose our own words. Good luck to us all, and may the best of us succeed.

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

#128

Post by noinsight »

m0nty wrote: post #106
l0c0b0x wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(School Sys admin here too)... We don't use Ninite, but at my old job I looked at the implementation and liked the fact that you can have a local-central repository (This saves bandwidth and keeps things in our control).

It depends on the number of users, but I found it was very affordable for my network. I think it's less than $200 for the year. Beats using GPOs via Active Directory, visiting each machine in turn, or relying on users to do it (which is largely impossible anyway). The central repository is handy, but the software expires fairly quickly in some cases so it's most useful when I'm updating many PCs at once. If you can p…

Any larger company should be using SCCM or e.g. Miradore for configuration management anyway, so Ninite doesn't seem that useful.

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

#129

Post by camus »

mratzloff wrote: post #43
kijin wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with being for-profit? People need to put food on their tables after all.

Because all software should be free, of course. They can make money from concert sales and T-shirts. Wait, that's not right...

you made my day lol ...
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