unwanted tag-alongs

[vernard]

Its an old trend but it seems to have become even more popular as of late. Software that is free or popular will by default install other software onto your Windows machine. Adobe brings its Photo Organizer. Skype brings some plugins for IE and Firefox, most of the instant messenger clients bring a Toolbar for either Firefox or IE. Google is bad about this as well.

*sigh*

I don't mind you giving me the option. I just wish you would make it opt-out by DEFAULT instead of an opt-in. If I'm in a hurry, I get your crappy software unless I take the time to make sure I click a few buttons.

*grrrrr*

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Ummm, V? What you doin' running anything other than Free Software for your desktop? Aside from two totally addictive little logic games I run under Wine, I have one full-commercial package on my system: Acroread, and that's only because of Uncle Sam - fill-in-able PDF's for 1040's are just too cool. Other than that, everything else I run on a regular basis I have or can get the source for. There's no reason a geek can't have a system that runs precisely the way he wants it to. Joe Normal, not quite so simple, but for you? I'm surprised you're not running Gentoo.

[vernard.livejournal.com]

Despite what many people in the FOSS community think, there is more than one way to do it. And Windows is one of them. I have a triple-headed, dual bodies desktop environment: I have a dual headed Linux box and synergy2 to connect the desktop to a small windows machines as well. There are plenty of apps that only run on windows that I have found quite useful. And since my time is more valuable than anything else, if I can get something up and running faster on Windows than Linux then that is where I run it. At least initially. In this case, it was SightSpeed that I was mucking around with. I ended up falling back on Skype which does run under linux. However, as many folks know, WebCam support under Linux bites royally. So Windows it was. *shrug*

As far as Gentoo is concerned, I prefer Feroda Core at the moment since I maintain so many RedHat Enterprise linux boxen at work. I prefer Ubuntu for my laptop because of its easy of use detecting different hardware configurations.

Gentoo is very mature but back when it was first out, it was extreme overkill for what I was working on.

Although I tell you, the absolute Nightware that is Windows Vista has me this close to purchasing Transgaming's Wine prouduct so that that I can turn both of my gaming machines at least into Linux boxen. Then I'd have only one windows machine in the house....