61–70 of 395 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ubuntu is bundled with crap-ware , too; it's just more subtle. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ubuntu-spyware.html http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/09/ubuntu-bakes-amazon-...
I wouldn't call it crap-ware. Sure, it's turned on by default but there is an option to turn them off.
Microsoft dropped the ball with lack of App Store. With all app store's drawbacks, that's the place where regular user can pay easily without thinking will someone steal his/her credit car number, the place where applications should be harmless, and the place where (and this is important) the user can compare prices between similar applications. Windows doesn't have the app store. And nobody (read: very, very small p…
App stores are hardly a silver bullet. There's all sorts of quasi-spyware and cloneware in the Play store.
The thing is you don't actually know what these programs are doing behind the scenes. Hijacking browser home page is the most innocent thing.
A colleague managed to get one of thse toolbar things on his computer. It was a nightmare. It installed a second hidden browser plugin to keep re-installign the toolbar and re-setting your default search engine every time the browser restarts. Then there was a startup exe installed to re-install the plugins and toolbar on system restart. Then there was something else rooted in there somewhere that kept downloading an…
The most annoying malware I've removed this way was one that automatically killed any instance of cmd.exe and regedit.exe that you opened.
I had to install the DirectX user runtime recently and was pretty shocked to see Microsoft has loaded it up with lots of crapware. First when you click download from its page at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35 you're prompted to set MSN as your homepage, download the malicious software removal tool, and download IE11 (if you're on Windows). Then after you skip that you get the download and…
> and download IE11 (if you're on Windows) This has my support :)
I really wonder why people prefer some other websites to download the product instead of its own website. When you type "ccleaner", "kmplayer" etc on google, the first one is always the product website. The second and third ones are the websites distributing product with adware/spywares.
Even during installation, you still have to navigate the "Uncheck spyware" minefield.[1]
[1] http://www.jdhodges.com/blog/safe-version-imgburn-without-op...
And this is why Apple created Gatekeeper and made the Mac OS X App Store so ridiculously onerous for developers[1]. The software world is, for all intents and purposes, a thin sheen of gold flecks and diamonds atop a veritable cesspool of shit. You can just imagine the conversation at 1 Infinite Loop: Marketer: The Panic guys are considering pulling out of the App Store. Maybe we should reconsider our App Store strat…
Whose fault exactly is it?
Has anybody in HN worked with a company which does this crapware bundling, let alone creating? Or does anybody know anyone who's "in the business"? Because I, quite honestly, can't understand how or why people would be doing this. Is it really that "Well, I know this shit is going to infect thousands of machines with software which nobody would like to have, but hey, it gives me my salary, fuck yeah!"?
It's just sad that there are people scamming others like this, and people who jump into it because hey, paycheck!
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…
"You will loose precious functionality, your computer will get slower, the locusts will invade your country: Are you SURE to deinstall CrapToolbarAdMakeComputerFaster2000? [NO!] [NOT AT ALL!] (yes) [CONTINUE USING ADWARE]"
I guess it's done that way so that Microsoft would look like to impair a earnest software business' operation, would they choose to include it in their "evil monopolistic" antivirus software.
And this is why Apple created Gatekeeper and made the Mac OS X App Store so ridiculously onerous for developers[1]. The software world is, for all intents and purposes, a thin sheen of gold flecks and diamonds atop a veritable cesspool of shit. You can just imagine the conversation at 1 Infinite Loop: Marketer: The Panic guys are considering pulling out of the App Store. Maybe we should reconsider our App Store strat…
There might be some room for something somewhere in between download.com and Apple's app store.