Never had this problem of Adobe installing unwanted Anti-Virus stuff. Is this common for Window-users? For Mac I would suggest Pacifist if you want to install selective parts of an installer: http://www.charlessoft.com/
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 crappy is their ubiquitousness. Even if you seldom use Flash or Java applets, you'll often find yourself having them installed, because there is that one site that needs one or the other.
Now, people like us with the technical knowhow know how to get around that (disable plugins; flashblock, etc.), but most people just install these things whenever there are updates, each is a change of getting crapware along with them. And Java is quite often updated.
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 unfriendly handling of installers/updaters, and actually bad software.
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.
I'll definitely admit that the browser plugin is a piece of crap which should be moved away from. Sadly, there's still a ways to go for that as a number of countries use them pretty extensively. (bank interfaces are brought up a lot on HN) And yes, organizationally they definitely have some problems. The JVM has still been making progress though, with new garbage collectors and project lambda.
That said, I'm not sure what technical problems you're referring to. The JVM seems to work quite well on all platforms, even if it can be kinda clunky to program in Java at times. (which is part of the reason I mentioned other languages) And yes, I know the JVM is slow to start. It isn't designed for small scripts. Use Python or something else for that.
Yes. And what's even worse is this: How many sites in common use actually need the Java browser plugin? And yet, if you are not careful, it will be enabled in your browser, thus increasing your vulnerability for no good reason.
If regular users were commonly aware of what browser plugins they actually need, and knew how to go through the list and disable the ones they actually didn't need, that would mitigate things somewhat.
For the average consumer, "Java" is crapware. It has a horrible security track record, to the point where many national computer security advocates recommend removing Java from your computer. You get constant nagging from the Java auto updater, which you must attend to or you place yourself at risk. And it installs toolbars.
On my Windows gaming box I get a dialog box that says jusched.exe : cannot verify certificate of somesubdomain.oracle.com. I don't know if I'm more or less at risk if I press "no", but I guess the average user is just going to press "yes". So I guess my Java is now out of date but I'm not going to install software with admin privileges if there's a problem in validating certificates.
I will never ever install Java on a Windows box again. I did install it because I wanted to play a game written in Java. The game was unplayable because it was so slow and jerky - because it was written in Java.
There may be bits and pieces of cool tech inside, but for the vast majority of computer users, Java is crapware.
I'd be happy if the Java updater would garbage collect old versions of Java after it installed a new one. How many versions does the average user actually need?
Checkboxes are not allowed to already be 'selected' with Direct Mailings in Germany or the Netherlands, see http://www.fedma.org . Perhaps this should apply for other webservices as well.
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.)
Didn't say they were. I was replying to the folks saying that the distribution of flash without crapware was a free market solution. In a free market with no copyright, sure. In a market in which there is copyright though, adobe (copyright holder) decide on the distribution method. Which is what happened here.
The folks I was replying to seemed to think that adobe stopping them was anti free market. I just wanted to clarify that that meant they didn't agree with copyright in any form, which is quite an extreme position.
Ninite does not distribute Flash. Adobe does, and always has. Ninite merely provides an automatic way to download Flash from Adobe's servers and say "No" to every crapware installation prompt.
Adobe gets to decide on the distribution method, whether with or without Ninite. There's nothing stopping Adobe from bundling McAfee with Flash in such a way that it becomes impossible to install Flash without McAfee, it's a free market after all. Instead Adobe gave users a choice as to whether or not to install McAfee, and Ninite helps users express that choice.
> they didn't agree with copyright in any form
The article doesn't say anything about copyright or DMCA. Nobody else has expressed any view on copyright in this thread. The only person in this thread who is talking about copyright is you.
Other than the guy who posted a link to mises.org and agreed that copyright and the free market do clash. And I certainly didn't mention the DMCA, that was all you.
--edit-- And it could still be a copyright violation if the terms of the license require non-automated install. As it's adobe's product they get to say how it is copied (installed).
A free market? I've heared whispers of those magical places, but I am yet to encounter one in real life. Seems everything and anything worth something in this world has already been regulated to "no-real-competition".
There is a whole history with Adobe's SVG and Macromedia's flash and patent-wars, but those ended when Adobe bought Macromedia. So, you're correct. I was light heartedly referring to the comment about free market places, not commeting in regards to Flash specifically.
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.)
