{"id":9070,"date":"2015-02-06T17:24:50","date_gmt":"2015-02-06T22:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=9070"},"modified":"2015-02-06T18:57:38","modified_gmt":"2015-02-06T23:57:38","slug":"be-careful-when-downloading-from-microsoft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/be-careful-when-downloading-from-microsoft\/","title":{"rendered":"Be Careful When Downloading From Microsoft"},"content":{"rendered":"

When You Download From Microsoft Download Center…Be Careful<\/strong><\/h1>\n

It’s bad enough when developers stick PUPs and other garbage into their installers, or when sites like Tucows, CNet, Softonic and others take software belonging to someone else, bundle it with their own malware and PUPs and distribute it, but when big successful and rich companies like Sun Java and Adobe bundle their software with the likes of the absolutely terrible and worthless Ask Toolbar or McAfee’s awful virus scanner, you start wondering who you can trust if you can’t trust American icons like Adobe and Java.<\/p>\n

But you’d think that the company that made the operating system you’re probably using would be a company you could trust. Why would Microsoft need to attempt to bundle anything? They make billions of dollars in profits every year. So you trust Microsoft when you go their download center to download one their products that the download will be free from trickery and from software that will change your browser’s settings.<\/p>\n

Yesterday I was doing a session for Cloudeight Direct and I needed to download the free Power Point Viewer from Microsoft. So I got to the download center, click on the big download button and what to my bloodshot eyes did appear? Microsoft “recommends” Bing and MSN homepage. It “recommends” them by pre-checking the box so when I download anything from the Download Center and forget to uncheck that box my browser’s homepage will be MSN and my search provider will be Bing..That’s right, that’s what will happen if you are not paying attention, after you download from Microsoft Download Center. It’s fine if you really want MSN as your home page and Bing as your search engine. Even then though, you should make that choice, not have Microsoft recommending them by checking the box for you (and probably hoping you don’t notice). If I wanted MSN and Bing, I’d already have them – they’re not hard to find.<\/p>\n

\"Cloudeight
\nAbove: Note that Microsoft has the box to change your home page and your default search provider\u00a0 pre-checked. If you proceed with the download, your browser homepage will be MSN and your browser’s default search provider will be Bing.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

So maybe Microsoft’s losing the battle with Google, so what? To me it just looks bad if they think they can beat Google by using questionable methods. It would seem to me the right way to best your competition is by making better products. If Bing was better than Google then it would be doing better than Google – word gets around. You don’t need to shove something people want down their throats – they’ll gladly make the changes on their own.<\/p>\n

Whether or not the programs or changes that are made are benign or not, I don’t agree with trickery to get people to change something they may not want changed. It seems to me that Microsoft has joined the growing list of companies who use the trickery of the checked box to install or change things on peoples’ computers without their explicit permission. These companies know as well as we do, that people are often in a hurry when installing things and don’t read every dialog or uncheck boxes that are pre-checked. This method is not just used to install malicious software, it’s used to make changes and install things people may not be aware of. Just because you clicked download and didn’t uncheck a box does not imply that you approve of what’s being changed or installed. Respectable companies should stop imitating the pond scum companies who install malware and worse on your computer when you’re not looking.<\/p>\n

Using trickery to get users to install software or to make changes to their browser they may not want should never be\u00a0 an acceptable way of doing business. It’s a shame that Microsoft has decided to join the likes of Adobe, Java, and others who use the trickery of the pre-checked box to make changes to or install software on users’ computers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When You Download From Microsoft Download Center…Be Careful It’s bad enough when developers stick PUPs and other garbage into their installers, or when sites like Tucows, CNet, Softonic and others take software belonging to someone else, bundle it with their own malware and PUPs and distribute it, but when big successful and rich companies like Sun Java and\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1655,1462,1433,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9070"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9070"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9071,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9070\/revisions\/9071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}