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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

#21

Post by bluedino »

FreezerburnV wrote: post #19
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…

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 unfr…

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

That's the problem - the 'bad' installer/update makes good software into 'bad' software

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

#22

Post by lucian1900 »

FreezerburnV wrote: post #19
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…

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 unfr…

Everyone means the Java applet runtime, not the JVM itself.

Both Sun and Oracle fucked up on the naming.

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

#23

Post by zdw »

FreezerburnV wrote: post #19
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…

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 unfr…

Take a look at the security record of both in browser plugin scenarios and get back to us on that...

While Java admittedly has a solid underlying core, the criticism is for the entire platform, which has some significant problems, some technical, some security, and many organizational.

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

#24

Post by mschuster91 »

bluedino wrote: post #20
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…

Referral links/searches

Sure, but how can this game be successful when the toolbar is active / dominant in the browser only for a couple of days until the user downloads yet another crapware bundle?

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

#25

Post by protospork »

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 off, the Flash updater on Windows works quite well on modern Windows systems.

Speak for yourself; I only ever see it on system startup. I only reboot once every few months (and it doesn't respond to waking up from standby), but there's a new Adobe security panic every two weeks or so, so that's not really acceptable. Plus it opens as a pop-under window for some reason, so I'm generally unaware of it until I've opened a browser, which I'll then have to close and reopen.

The 'stealing revenue' argument is definitely valid, but in Adobe's case it's such a hateful method that I can't sympathize at all.

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

#26

Post by cones688 »

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.

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

#27

Post by webjprgm »

makomk wrote: post #13
artmageddon wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not to mention a larger, longer download. Then you realize it and have to re-download it all over for the flash-only one. (It's happened to me a few times.)

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

#28

Post by stplsd »

FreezerburnV wrote: post #19
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…

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 unfr…

>good garbage collection

If Java had true garbage collection, most programs would delete themselves upon execution.

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

#29

Post by webjprgm »

amargulies wrote: post #15
beedogs wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yup. And trying to shut it down is litigating, legislating, and dealing down to "no-real-competition".

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

#30

Post by ChikkaChiChi »

Ninite was a godsend in the days before I moved our offices over to Chrome. It was the first tool that took the pain and suffering out of updating Reader, Flash, and Java without the worries of crapware ending up on workstations.

Thanks to this move, I'll be banning the flash plugin outright. I hope that makes Adobe happy.

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