Aggressive installer is just like aggressive marketing (or guerilla marketing) - it uses inconvenient way to promote some other products. This is what I've been thinking for last few times I've been installing Java updates. When you click on that orange icon notifying you that update is available, you get an installation wizard which "will guide you though the setup process". At some point you are prompted to install OpenOffice or Google Toolbar along with Java, although I don't understand how they are related and why it is already selected by default. As I do not need nor use any of those tools, I unselect it and continue. But imaging an average user, who knows nothing about computers and only uses his own for e-mails or researching online. Speaking of such user, I have several perfect examples - one of them is my mother, who is a psychiatrist and often searching Google (or different online resources) for something she needs. Second is my girlfriend, who just uses mails, sometimes online in-browser games and chats.
Now what they would do when they are going though setup? Right, they just click Next button a couple of times and vu-a-la, the system is up-to-date. With an addition to useless (to my mom and g-friend) OpenOffice and Google toolbar, which make Internet Explorer look like garbage collection and Word documents are now opened in strange-looking application that none of my relatives know about.
What next? Maybe wizard will prompt to install Linux instead of MS Windows? Why not? What is the difference, right? Isn't that the same tactics that EU and Open Source organizations claimed to be used by Microsoft? Microsoft at least added they own software, which is an added value to operating system as a whole - Windows Media Player is an example, without it the system would not be able to play media files, but what we see here? Some organization sneaks another software which adds another piece of junk and makes my system unstable. And I do NOT want to say that OpenOffice or Google toolbar is a piece of junk as is. But in my environment - they do not add anything valuable and instead interfere with already installer programs, which makes them just a plain junk.
posted @ Saturday, July 26, 2008 11:44 AM