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

What Happens When You Install the Top Download.com Apps

howtogeek.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 395 posts

Re: What Happens When You Install the Top Download.com Apps

#11

Post by weavie »

I regularly get called by people complaining that their computer no longer works. Pretty much every time it turns out that their machine is loaded with crapware. It amazes me how people just put up with random browser windows popping up and having to search via some random search engine that has been imposed on them.

At the minute I just have to put up with spending a few hours removing the worst offenders and then running several different adware removers. It generally keeps them running well for a few months.

I would love to set up a VM so whenever things start going wrong they could just delete the VM and start fresh. Currently VMs are a bit too heavy weight, a lot of people struggle with the concept of working in multiple Windows let alone knowing which machine they are actually working in. I am looking forward to Microsoft implementing containers ala Docker. It will be interesting to see what possibilities will be available for making it seamless and quick enough for a computerphobe to browse within a container.

Re: What Happens When You Install the Top Download.com Apps

#12

Post by TeMPOraL »

weavie wrote: post #11

I regularly get called by people complaining that their computer no longer works. Pretty much every time it turns out that their machine is loaded with crapware. It amazes me how people just put up with random browser windows popping up and having to search via some random search engine that has been imposed on them. At the minute I just have to put up with spending a few hours removing the worst offenders and then r…

It amazes me how people just put up with random browser windows popping up and having to search via some random search engine that has been imposed on them.

I believe they just feel helpless, they don't know to do - but they are annoyed, because from my experience they'll ask for help the first computer-savvy person they see, even if they don't know them well.

Funnily, situation is actually a perfect dating opportunity for introvert geeks like me. I get a ton of requests for help from pretty much every student of non-CS field I talk to for longer thant 5 minutes. Removing their crapware can be a good start of a closer relationship ;).

Re: What Happens When You Install the Top Download.com Apps

#14

Post by Renaud »

Instead of dowloading from Sourceforge (loaded with ads and its own devious 'installer'), CNET, Download, etc, there are no-crapware alternatives that offer more management tools as well (remembering your list of apps across machines, automated updates, discoverability):

Ninite: nice, simple, installer: just select apps and let the installer do it all for you.

AllMyApps: all the apps, no crapware (at least for now).

chocolatey: a command-line package manager for Windows

https://chocolatey.org/

https://ninite.com/

http://allmyapps.com/

Ninite is clean and great for managing deployment on multiple machines, although it offers a limited number of curated apps (but they tend to be very common).

AllMyApps has tons of apps and the most user-friendly. I could give that to my mum. Only had some minor issues sometimes when it fails to recognise versions to update. It will even recognise and update apps that were not installed through its manager.

Chocolatey has lots of packages and you can create your setup to make it easy to deploy across machines. It's getting more secure and the authors are putting a review process in place to guarantee quality.

I've used all three and they all offer something useful. All allow you to manage your own deployment across machines.

Re: What Happens When You Install the Top Download.com Apps

#15

Post by TeMPOraL »

Renaud wrote: post #14

Instead of dowloading from Sourceforge (loaded with ads and its own devious 'installer'), CNET, Download, etc, there are no-crapware alternatives that offer more management tools as well (remembering your list of apps across machines, automated updates, discoverability): Ninite: nice, simple, installer: just select apps and let the installer do it all for you. AllMyApps: all the apps, no crapware (at least for now).…

A nice list. How long they're all around?

I still can't shake the feeling that it's only a matter of time before Moloch gets to them and they'll start serving crapware like any others. I'd love to be wrong on that.

Re: What Happens When You Install the Top Download.com Apps

#16

Post by lucaspiller »

weavie wrote: post #11

I regularly get called by people complaining that their computer no longer works. Pretty much every time it turns out that their machine is loaded with crapware. It amazes me how people just put up with random browser windows popping up and having to search via some random search engine that has been imposed on them. At the minute I just have to put up with spending a few hours removing the worst offenders and then r…

I feel your pain. Whenever family ask me to look at their computer I spent an hour deleting spyware and such. The worst bit is they do have antivirus and Windows defender, but they do nothing to stop it :/

The common advice to stop it before was "don't use IE". Everyone uses Chrome now, and so that's now where everything installs itself (check the extensions and there is usually something dubious). Google even have a tool to remove this stuff: https://www.google.co.uk/chrome/srt/

Re: What Happens When You Install the Top Download.com Apps

#17

Post by jamespo »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #8

> Because when the product is free the real product is YOU. I disagree with this conclusion. Also, I have a related issue with some of the opinions I hear e.g. on HN that confuse me. Many a person says in defense of ads - "but surely authors have to support themselves, otherwise there'd be no site/software", "TANSTAAFL", etc. But this seems to me to be in disagreement with observable reality. What I see is a strong a…

Quite often type 1 goes to ad-supported later

Re: What Happens When You Install the Top Download.com Apps

#19

Post by seanp2k2 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #15
Renaud wrote: post #14

Instead of dowloading from Sourceforge (loaded with ads and its own devious 'installer'), CNET, Download, etc, there are no-crapware alternatives that offer more management tools as well (remembering your list of apps across machines, automated updates, discoverability): Ninite: nice, simple, installer: just select apps and let the installer do it all for you. AllMyApps: all the apps, no crapware (at least for now).…

A nice list. How long they're all around? I still can't shake the feeling that it's only a matter of time before Moloch gets to them and they'll start serving crapware like any others. I'd love to be wrong on that.

I know ninite has been around for at least a few years. I've used it and it was an excellent UX. One installer, go through the wizard, then sit and watch it install a dozen useful things for you without having to hunt down all their installers and carefully click through, unchecking, canceling, backing through, and skipping around the horrible installers most of them have.

Re: What Happens When You Install the Top Download.com Apps

#20

Post by celticninja »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #15
Renaud wrote: post #14

Instead of dowloading from Sourceforge (loaded with ads and its own devious 'installer'), CNET, Download, etc, there are no-crapware alternatives that offer more management tools as well (remembering your list of apps across machines, automated updates, discoverability): Ninite: nice, simple, installer: just select apps and let the installer do it all for you. AllMyApps: all the apps, no crapware (at least for now).…

A nice list. How long they're all around? I still can't shake the feeling that it's only a matter of time before Moloch gets to them and they'll start serving crapware like any others. I'd love to be wrong on that.

ninite is at least 4 years old if not older and it has always stayed the same AFAIK.
Post reply on HN