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I remember a time in 2012. I was installing Windows on my computer to play a video game. It was the first time I used windows in about 2-3 years. I started
by npo9 7y ago
I remember a time in 2012. I was installing Windows on my computer to play a video game. It was the first time I used windows in about 2-3 years.
I started installing some utilities. A web browser, steam, a music player, etc. One of them asked me to install the Ask Jeeves toolbar. I became very angry. Of course I didn’t want to install the Ask Jeeves toolbar. No one wants the Ask Jeeves toolbar. What a dark pattern to try to get me to misclick and install some crap. What a clear lack of user focus. This angered me.
Tbh, I couldn’t tell you if it’s common for install wizards to try to shovel in crapware these days, because I avoid most situations where I have to use Windows. So much of the common user experiences in Windows are dark patterns.
- ragequitta 7y agoWouldn't you be able to say the same about literally any OS that doesn't have a completely walled garden? I'm positive I can find software on linux that bundles the askjeeves software as well. And probably MacOS. You blame the software developer for that and never use their product, you don't blame the OS.
- npo9 7y agoA real package manager, a standard consumer os feature, would remove this dark pattern.
- Aardwolf 7y agoNever saw that in a package for Ubuntu or Archlinux, not even AUR packages. Maybe it's just not the target audience of such toolbars, but if there were I'd also expect package maintainers and user comments would deal with the issue.