Java 6 Plus Yahoo Toolbar
July 21st, 2008
This morning I was prompted to update Java 6 to the latest version. I said yes, and was eventually greeted with this:
- I guess we now call it “the Java” (I suspect this is a bug and the text is truncated)
- The Yahoo! Toolbar is selected by default.
I find it insulting when applications bundle unrelated crapware like browser toolbars, particularly when the installation selects the extra junk by default. It is far too easy to quickly hit “Next”, overlooking the toolbar selection.
Furthermore, this nonsense adds unwanted clutter to the GUI. Client Java needs all the help it can get, in particular software upgrades need to be elegant and streamlined. Bundling in a browser toolbar cheapens the whole experience because it starts looking just like so many other crapware applications that plague the PC industry.
and specially when there’s no easy way to remove some of that crapware
Does it also add injury to insult by setting Yahoo! to be your home page, your default search provider, your default mail, etc. etc.?
I thought it was bad enough that Java wanted to drag along OpenOffice (in the name of all that’s holy: Why?) and that it insists on installing an icon in the already overcrowded System Tray, and then hiding the option to turn that off in the Advanced tab. Other than pandering to the ego of Java’s marketing droids, what possible purpose does that serve?
And while I’m on a roll, lets hand out awards to QuickTime and Adobe Acrobat Reader for wanting to install themselves in the System Tray, the Quick Launch bar, your desktop, your bathroom mirror, etc. etc. In my ENTIRE LIFE I can’t recall ever launching Acrobat or QuickTime directly, rather than by clicking on content that required them! Do the product managers of these apps REALLY understand so little about how people use/want to use their products?
Is there a Most Obnoxious Software prize somewhere? Looks like there is some fierce competition!
Uh, I wouldn’t have expected that kind of crap during a Java installation… Seems they don’t really want to give a better image of Java …
I liked the word Crapware for these kind of applications that get installed (and they’re always selected by default). But what I can’t believe is it’s getting installed with Java! What a good impression that is.
Eric, don’t be so fast to dismiss this. I mean, check out all of those badass, innovative features! Just when you thought you only wanted The Java, suddenly your experience on teh intarwebz is bultiplied: search the web from anywhere - ANYWHERE, man. No more problems with spies in Soviet Russia with the Anti-Spy tool and no more wasting precious kilobytes of RAM running a mail client.
It’s depressing that Sun would go and do something like that. Hopefully they’re just sucking some cash out of Yahoo! before it sinks once and for all - hopefully we won’t see a continuation of this degrading crap. (But I’m not holding my breath.)
Ran into the same thing installing VMWare’s ‘player’. It wanted to add the Google toolbar and as you pointed out the default was already selected ‘for’ me. Grrrr…
Yahoo must be paying Sun to include a Yahoo toolbar with the Java installer. Unfortunately, the vendors have mortgaged the users in the name of a quick buck. Perhaps the readers of Stuff That Happens are experienced enough to opt-out of junkware, but Aunt Emily and Uncle Fred aren’t. And guess who they’re going to call when their system grinds to a halt because it’s overloaded with Free Trials, Toolbars, etc.
That is such a travesty, I’m so embarassed for Sun.
It’s half Sun’s fault.
The Yahoo toolbar is included by default when using InstallShield. Basically if the Sun developer doing the bundle “forget” to uncheck the “include Yahoo toolbar”, here we are.
So, pushing software via Software installer is the “Red Line” crossed by Yahoo, not Sun.
Click on my name for the story…
I find it particularly bothersome that software that “collects information about” my use (i.e. my searches, etc.) is enabled by default !!), with an assumption that “By installing this application you agree to appropriate terms of use and privacy policy”. It’s OK to say that on the shrinkwrap of something I have to remove in order to install some software, not for a pork barrel addon I did not ask for. The opt in default is very poor form. (I always kill that jusched task. Maybe I’ll publish a tool that polls for and removes it…)
> “It’s half Sun’s fault.”
It’s not “half” Sun’s fault. It is entirely Sun’s fault. And it didn’t happen by accident either. It happened deliberately because Sun agreed a distribution contract with Yahoo.
> “Basically if the Sun developer doing the bundle “forget” to uncheck the “include Yahoo toolbar”, here we are.”
No, not at all. The installation package is assembled by professional developers working on the flagship product of a leading software company; and tested by professional testers and approved by professional marketeers. There is nothing accidental going on here.
> “So, pushing software via Software installer is the “Red Line” crossed by Yahoo, not Sun.”
On the contrary. Yahoo is doing the right thing for themselves, in so far as they are promoting themselves and their products. It is Sun who are entirely in the wrong by performing stealth distribution (because it’s switched on by default) of unrelated, unnessessary, unasked for, unwanted, third party crapware as part of a “standard” upgrade.
Earlier Sun used to bundle google tool bar, & now Y! toolbar, nothing new.
OMG!! I could not agree more with this! It is just the most stupid thing in the world and makes me question Sun’s motives even though their CEO spends so much time “embracing” open source.
Well, I agree with all that has been said above.
But still, Java is great software and it’s still free and open source. It had to be said.