Ah I understand now. True, if you installed iTunes or QT and it installed it as extra, yeah, you probably have an older browser installed (but I think there's not that many people that still use it)
I think you are still missing the complete context of the original comment. Once a browser is set as default, for a significant portion of people that won't change unless they are somehow prompted or forced to change it again at a later date. To many people, the browser is just another part of the OS that allows viewing webpages, and they just call it "The internet".
It seems if they were that clueless, they would have had many more opportunities to change default browsers without realizing it.
Addendum: I save a ninite.com installer to their desktops, renaming it to `Run this every Wednesday`. If they see any `You need to update Flash Player` dialogues, I advise them to close them and only run the desktop icon - this in and of itself saves most people from reinfection. Edit: typo and formatting.
Adobe forced ninite to remove the Flash installer, so that won't help. You can set Flash to auto-update in Control Panel > Flash Player > Advanced > Automatic Updates. (I've heard it's more complex in Win8 though.)
Yep. This ruined my Apple for me for about half a decade. I refused to use any of their products because my only interaction with them was with their shitty Windows software, so I assumed all their software was shit. It wasn't until I worked with a Mac fan who let me use his 2005 MBP that I realized that they can actually make decent software. Microsoft seemed to do the exact opposite in this time period. Their Offic…
Unpopular opinion time: I've had a Mac Mini for 3 years, and I still haven't found any Apple-made desktop software I would call "decent". I've had only iPhones since the 3G came out, too, so I'm not just an anti-fanboy.
That's not an unpopular opinion -- I know a fair number of Mac users and I don't think I know any of them who are devoted fans of Apple's application (rather than system) software. I've been using Macs more or less full time since 1999; over those 15 years some of their applications have been pretty good, subjectively speaking, but in general Apple is pretty frustrating in this regard. They'll come up with a neat application, let it languish way too long, then go into a fit and rewrite large swaths of it in strange and occasionally compatibility-breaking ways. Every time I look at iPhoto (admittedly not often) it seems to be an entirely different program. The current version of Pages can now almost do everything that the previous version of Pages could, but not quite. Aperture started life as a pretty brilliant program then sat around drooling on its shoes while Lightroom raced past it. And as we head into 2015, iTunes still has blocking dialogue boxes, which makes things a wee bit inconvenient if you're trying to use it as a media server. (Which you really shouldn't. I'm a masochist, I guess.)
"I don't understand how only allowing signed execution would help avoid this problem. Like you said, anyone could pay to get their company listed as a 'trusted' entity." The purpose of signing isn't to guarantee that an entity is anything, but to allow the user to absolutely and decisively rule what code is allowed to execute. If the Russian Mob sneaks some code from "G0ogle, Ink." onto my machine by tricking me into…
We're going around in circles I think. The entire problem is that the users have no idea prior to installing the software, whether its legit or malware. I don't see anything in what you've proposed that solves the root problem. Yes, we can look at peripheral problems like cleanup and revoking certificates but those only affect users AFTER they've already made the choice of installing a particular piece of software.
The idea isn't to solve that problem, but to limit the damage significantly.
I should be able to give a Russian mob hacker on crack access to my machine without worrying too much about them doing anything I don't give them permission to do.
"I don't understand how only allowing signed execution would help avoid this problem. Like you said, anyone could pay to get their company listed as a 'trusted' entity." The purpose of signing isn't to guarantee that an entity is anything, but to allow the user to absolutely and decisively rule what code is allowed to execute. If the Russian Mob sneaks some code from "G0ogle, Ink." onto my machine by tricking me into…
We're going around in circles I think. The entire problem is that the users have no idea prior to installing the software, whether its legit or malware. I don't see anything in what you've proposed that solves the root problem. Yes, we can look at peripheral problems like cleanup and revoking certificates but those only affect users AFTER they've already made the choice of installing a particular piece of software.
> We're going around in circles I think.
Just you, my friend. If you recall, here is the point you were challenging:
> this is a band-aid over the fact that OSes have terrible permission separation and application isolation. If OSes were better architected from a security point of view, it would be substantially less of a problem.
We have much the same functionality at http://PortableApps.com/ You get an app store, an automatic app updater, an app manager, and hundreds of freeware and open source apps. All free of malware and bundleware. As a bonus, all the apps run from a single directory each, making it easy as pie to uninstall and remove all the apps settings at the same time (as opposed to bits left behind in AppData, Local AppData, the Re…
I love the functionality of portableapps.com! The web design does need some work though... :/ It's really way too visually cluttered. Somehow my brain has been trained to think "be careful" when I see clutter like this on a web page.
It's cluttered and dated, sadly. We have a new design about ready as part of our Drupal 8 upgrade but had some issues upgrading to it. I'll be making another attempt soon.
Apple tricked quite a few Windows users into installing Safari and setting it as the default. Then Apple discontinued Safari for Windows without making an announcement or notifying uses (same as they do with older OS X versions... they just stop updating them). So there are quite a few people out there using Safari on Windows with no clue about the fact that they're using a completely insecure browser.
If someone went to the trouble of installing Safari they know And by the way, I never managed to make it work in Windows...
No, they really didn't. I've fixed quite a few friends' computers and asked 'why do you have Safari and Quicktime installed?' and the answer is always 'I have no idea, maybe iTunes did it'.
iTunes for Windows is a monster that drains the life out of the PC. Microsoft Office for Mac OSX was coded with the same evil spirit. This behavior is unethical but pervasive, and should be outlawed somehow, it hurts everyone. Specially when it comes from the two biggest players in the market.
When I used a Mac as my primary device, I relied on Office for Mac and it always ran well. I never had problems with it. The only issue was the lack of Visio, which I replaced with Omnigraffle. Disclosure: I work for Microsoft, though this experience was at a previous employer.
This has been my experience too -- everything works reasonably well, I'm pleased with it. It's not always pretty (and I'm frustrated that some keyboard shortcuts don't work like they ought to) but it's always run properly.
Microsoft Outlook for Mac (the newer "blue" one, v15.3) is actually my favorite mail client on the mac. It's basically exactly what I wanted -- I wish there was a Windows version of the Mac Outlook :)
Selling to private persons is a bureaucratic nightmare in EU!
If you managed to market your app and managed to get paid, you now have to be registered for VAT in the country you are selling to. And there are tons of rules like 10 day money back return that are enforced by law in most countries.
If you serve adds (or crapware) instead, you get a monthly paycheck witch require minimal accounting work or customer support.