9 ms·

The Never-Updaters: Why Some People Refuse to Download New Software

39 points by pretext 3y ago

Ajay-p 3y ago
A classmate of mine was committed to this position. He told me that each time he updated his device he lost functionalist that he liked, was given functionality that he disliked, and of course the issue of greater resources such as battery drainage.
- gus_massa 3y ago
  It's a problem with cheap tablets. They work with the OS version they are shipped, but after an upgrade they may become too slow to be usable.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    It's also an issue with computers. Macs in particular.
    - soylentcola 3y ago
      And many modern TVs (or as I call them, "bargain basement smartphones strapped to really nice screens".)
- antifa 3y ago
  I'd speculate the amount of people who have experienced malware that an update would have protected them from is orders of magnitudes smaller than the amount of people who have reliably experienced things worse after update or the update is the malware.
beardyw 3y ago
My printer constantly, constantly asks me to update. What is wrong with what it does now? Expecting some shiny new DRM.
- malfist 3y ago
  Seriously, I think my printer has an update every week or two. What even is it doing? It printed before the update and keeps printing after the update
  - expertentipp 3y ago
    It's pinging T-Mobile whether you're allowed to use magenta.
theandrewbailey 3y ago
https://archive.ph/dCzyw https://archive.ph/dCzyw
jollyllama 3y ago
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I'm not aware of ever having been affected by an unpatched vuln, but many times I have lost configs, data, or time to updates.
lowlevel 3y ago
I take this stance. Almost always, the new software is worse in some way than the old, either taking away some capability to make room for a new product you would have to buy, or by breaking support with hardware you already own. It's my position that software was almost universally better 20 years ago.
- MarkusWandel 3y ago
  Software 20 years ago was less capable. But software 20 years ago also didn't expect to keep making money after it was sold to you. So the motivation of the vendors has changed. Formerly: Deliver, once, a product that's good enough so you'll be pleased - and recommend it to others. Now: Suck you into becoming an ongoing revenue source, even (or particularly if) that means a less good user experience (e.g. ad overload, dark patterns, turning "for life" features into "paid subscription" features on upgrade, etc. etc.)
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > It's my position that software was almost universally better 20 years ago. While some things are better now than then (almost entirely because the hardware is better), it does seem clear to me that on the whole, software is generally worse now. Sometimes a whole lot worse.
  - jeffrallen 3y ago
    You used to have to save before printing because printing could crash your app or your entire computer. Occasionally, I print something now and have a minor moment of panic remembering that I haven't saved in a while. It also used to be that saving could crash. And that saving could save a file which open could not open. Software is better now.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      Neither of those things were ever universally true (I don't remember ever encountering either of those issues, personally). They may have been a problem with the particular program(s) you were using? Regardless, as I said, some things are better now. But a lot of other things are worse. I suppose that whether software is better or worse overall now depends on which things bother you more. For me, there's no question that software overall is not as good as it was.
nicolaslem 3y ago
I mostly love updates of FOSS software, each time it feels like receiving a tiny gift from a developer somewhere in another corner of the world. I run Arch so I get multiple gifts each day. On the other hand, I mostly dislike updates of proprietary apps. They tend to be much larger in size (I'm on a metered connection) and usually don't have my best interest in mind.
- unintendedcons 3y ago
  Bingo
- JohnFen 3y ago
  It's true... before software was continually updated, a software update (aside from small security/bug fixes) was something people got excited about and anticipated for good reason. Now, they're things people tend to dread. A lot of (but absolutely not all) FOSS software still comes with that sense of excitement for updates rather than fear.
- m463 3y ago
  Every once in a while arch updates break... but I've learned if arch-keyring is part of it, quit, apply that manually, then do the full update.
fortran77 3y ago
My brother--I don't know how--has no idea he doesn't run updates. He'll tell me he does. His iPhone was still on iOS 15 as of a few weeks ago.
JohnFen 3y ago
I don't refuse to update software, but I do prefer to wait for as long as possible (preferably until I see a number of reports from others who have updated) and I absolutely don't want automatic updates at all. Updating software is risky and can come with functionality loss, unexpected functionality/workflow changes, etc. Which means I want to do it when I have a couple of days available to recover from it.
kelseyfrog 3y ago
I get rizzed by my SO whenever I update software. There's a "have fun when it breaks," aspect that she gets to relish a little bit in when it does!
mbrndtgn 3y ago
To be honest, I've rarely lost any functionality because of a new feature release of any software. I can't even think of a security update that caused any problems in the last few years. The article mentions iOS and macOS updates and I can relate to that somewhat, though. OS X 10.7 at the time was horrible. It had known memory leaks that never got fixed and you _had_ to update to 10.8 to fix it. There was also a version that introduced a new DNS forwarder which was so broken that Apple rolled it back in a point update. It still seems weird to me to reject any software updates based on broken functionality. Oh, I actually do stay away from updates on one device. My HP printer would reject my third party toner if I would update it and that's why I keep it disconnected from the internet.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > It still seems weird to me to reject any software updates based on broken functionality. Does it seem weird to you because you've never suffered due to a change in the feature set? I can understand that. If you haven't felt the pain, it's hard to be very sympathetic.
DangitBobby 3y ago
I also hate updates. They practically never solve problems I have but they do break working setups, lose settings, expose me to tutorial/walkthrough/new feature nags, force me to re-install other software that is now broken, break things like python envs (in the case of a brew update) and golang installs (when MacOS devs fuck with clang), threaten me with reboot loops (Sonoma), rearrange things (why does MacOS keep changing their settings app?), cause existing software to stop working because of API updates that developers can't keep up with (Android is particularly bad about this) or just generally force me to close all my shit to restart for the update to take effect. From a developer perspective, even worse (though not exactly the same) is having to modify working code due to developers making arbitrary backwards incompatible changes that I have no choice but to incorporate because node/react/security etc. updates. Generally speaking, my enthusiasm for software development has fallen off a cliff in no small part because of the bit rot imposed on me from incessant updates.
- Ajay-p 3y ago
  I would find the option to update on selective things to be more valuable. I would happily update security-only updates, but maybe pass on others, such as updates to the UI, or general functionality of the device. What I dislike more than anything is when I am forced to update for non-security reasons; for example Microsoft products!
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    The biggest thing we've got wrong with the modern approach to update is, in my opinion, combining security updates with feature updates. They should be separate. You always want security updates. You may not want feature updates.
  - Gibbon1 3y ago
    I've thought for a long time that it would be nice to have versioning at the function and data structure level. Not to mention tools to auto-build a wrapper around newer libraries. Even if incomplete it'd sometimes do the job.
Isthatablackgsd 3y ago
My issue with updates/downloading is the lack of software manager to updates software in Windows. It was a pain to go to various websites to download a package and install/upgrade a updated version. Back then when I have Win 98SE, I relied on FileHippo to scan and provide information if there are updates for my installed software. In XP and Win7, I only update software that have issue or something that I need to check. It was nice for some software that come with their own updater. I was thinking about my experienxe with Ubuntu (Ibex version) with their apt-get and the package manager. To my surprise, there are package managers for Windows, Chocolatey and Scoop. This was before Windows Store come to fruitation. Chocolatey is my main package manager for my Windows and I had been using it ever since. This allows me to have a peace of mind for me to updates my software particularly command line tools, Chocolatey made it easy for me and automate the environment variables for me if the software needs it. And no more for me to open up Google and search for the name of the software, `choco search <app_name>` and it will give me a list of the software and I just install from there. I use `choco upgrade all -y` and it just handles it without needing my input further.
- WorldMaker 3y ago
  Starting with certain updates to Windows 10 there's also `winget` now out of the box installed as an alternative to both Chocolatey and Scoop. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/package-manager/winget/ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/package-manager/wi...
  - jmrm 3y ago
    The best thing about 'winget' is being able to have a powershell/batch script in you usb stick to install the last version of most of the software you use. The only 'requirement' to use winget is updating Microsoft Store after installing Windows and install 'App Installer' from the Store, at least in Windows 10.
    - WorldMaker 3y ago
      I've been slowly digging into Winget Configuration [0] since I started exploring the Dev Home (Preview) app on Windows 11. I still have too many machines that can't upgrade to 11 right now, but Winget Configuration seems a real neat way to bootstrap new machines. (I know that you can use Winget Configuration on Windows 10 without the Dev Home UI, but the UI is one of the more compelling things about it, I think.) [0] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/package-manager/configuration/ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/package-manager/co...
Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago
Some programmers are hell-bent on removing features, particularly those in the graphical world. Take firefox for example, one of my favorites to rag on. Many will tout how quick it has become to which I say "So what? I don't allow any javascript". Or maybe touting new image and video formats. I will just point at libavformat and libavcodec. What they have done is removed xul, removed scrollbars, removed rss, removed the text encoding menu, removed unsigned extensions, and every year there is some new vision about how the ui must look. I am apprehensive of the coming KDE version 6. I can't imagine how people must suffer on autoupdating systems whether that is linux, mac, windows, or some godforsaken mobile device. > can’t seem to free up enough space Technical issues are completely understandable. I am lead to believe most devices are tiny and will hide your files from you nor do they easily support external storage. Therefore I am not at all surprised people can't remedy this. > unsent messages If you sent it then it was sent. Relying on remote software to delete it is insane. I see all the times people edit a message from matrix. To be honest I see it as a feature and apparently one that would be removed if updated. > When a device no longer gets the newest OS, it’s time to upgrade to a new machine Consoom!
mrkeen 3y ago
I'm interested in points of view from developers-who-deploy-software-changes in one form or another. Why do you / do you not accept software updates in your os/dependencies/packages? Do you naturally gravitate to something like CentOS and/or stick to LTS distro releases? How do you reconcile believing that you improve your software against the idea that others make theirs worse?
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > How do you reconcile believing that you improve your software against the idea that others make theirs worse? It all depends. As an employee, I just accept that there's little I can do about the whole situation because the causes of it are things I have no control over[1]. This issue is actually one of the ones that gets me thinking that there isn't much room for engineers like me in the software industry anymore. With my own software, I do have that control, so I avoid the practices that I think are leading to not optimizing for quality. [1] In my current position, my employer does not engage in the practices that I think are problematic, and I am proud of the quality of our work. But it's a special case because we produce industrial machinery and the software has to be rock solid when shipped, constant updating isn't possible, etc.
NemoNobody 3y ago
I'm typing this on an Essential PH-1 phone I took out of the box a week ago to replace the Essential PH-1 I have been using daily since 2017. I never updated the other phone once and it lasted 6 years of significant use. I did update this one to Android 10 - I don't want 6 years out of this one.
nathants 3y ago
on windows i disable system updates, but steam and epic get updates. on linux everything gets updates. this is fine.
anjel 3y ago
Frequent minor updates on F-Droid are why I stopped using a certain developers simple line of apps. F-Droid requires manual updating and I wonder if it occurred to this dev what a timesuck he had turned his apps into.
userinanother 3y ago
I hate updating video games. More often then not they remove some awesome exploits or feature that I may want to make use of or removing inappropriate content for censors
jmrm 3y ago
I'm refusing to update to Windows 11, and won't do until I buy a new machine or something like that, and I wish I could go back to Windows 7, where the task manager doesn't get frozen when things go bad or where there are programs like "Settings" made with that Metro/UWP apps that go slower than most Electron apps written in JS.
prepend 3y ago
I don’t know if I fit into the reasons here. I blocked chrome from updating because it would peg my cpu a few times per week. After the 10th time, I stopped the update and haven’t had that problem yet. There aren’t really any new features from chrome I want for weekly updates and the suckiness of their updater. I just reinstall every few years. I also find that updates are usually a pain. They do dumb stuff with cpu and disk. They consume a lot of data (my isp caps me at a TB) and so aren’t a good value. “Security” isn’t a real reason for super frequent updates.
methou 3y ago
My grandpa can't accept windows 10 and had to stuck with win7. I remembered that he actually loves my old hackintosh setup, so when he's computer died I bought him a m1 Mac. After spending days with him over TeamViewer and video call, I finally understood that the reason why he couldn't accept windows 10 - the desktop icons were moved in a way he doesn't remember. (he has hundreds of them, and yes we bought him a big screen)

39 points by pretext 3y ago

A classmate of mine was committed to this position. He told me that each time he updated his device he lost functionalist that he liked, was given functionality that he disliked, and of course the issue of greater resources such as battery drainage.

gus_massa 3y ago
It's a problem with cheap tablets. They work with the OS version they are shipped, but after an upgrade they may become too slow to be usable.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  It's also an issue with computers. Macs in particular.
  - soylentcola 3y ago
    And many modern TVs (or as I call them, "bargain basement smartphones strapped to really nice screens".)
antifa 3y ago
I'd speculate the amount of people who have experienced malware that an update would have protected them from is orders of magnitudes smaller than the amount of people who have reliably experienced things worse after update or the update is the malware.

beardyw 3y ago

My printer constantly, constantly asks me to update. What is wrong with what it does now? Expecting some shiny new DRM.

malfist 3y ago
Seriously, I think my printer has an update every week or two. What even is it doing? It printed before the update and keeps printing after the update
- expertentipp 3y ago
  It's pinging T-Mobile whether you're allowed to use magenta.

theandrewbailey 3y ago

https://archive.ph/dCzyw https://archive.ph/dCzyw

jollyllama 3y ago

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I'm not aware of ever having been affected by an unpatched vuln, but many times I have lost configs, data, or time to updates.

lowlevel 3y ago

I take this stance. Almost always, the new software is worse in some way than the old, either taking away some capability to make room for a new product you would have to buy, or by breaking support with hardware you already own. It's my position that software was almost universally better 20 years ago.

MarkusWandel 3y ago
Software 20 years ago was less capable. But software 20 years ago also didn't expect to keep making money after it was sold to you. So the motivation of the vendors has changed. Formerly: Deliver, once, a product that's good enough so you'll be pleased - and recommend it to others. Now: Suck you into becoming an ongoing revenue source, even (or particularly if) that means a less good user experience (e.g. ad overload, dark patterns, turning "for life" features into "paid subscription" features on upgrade, etc. etc.)
JohnFen 3y ago
> It's my position that software was almost universally better 20 years ago. While some things are better now than then (almost entirely because the hardware is better), it does seem clear to me that on the whole, software is generally worse now. Sometimes a whole lot worse.
- jeffrallen 3y ago
  You used to have to save before printing because printing could crash your app or your entire computer. Occasionally, I print something now and have a minor moment of panic remembering that I haven't saved in a while. It also used to be that saving could crash. And that saving could save a file which open could not open. Software is better now.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Neither of those things were ever universally true (I don't remember ever encountering either of those issues, personally). They may have been a problem with the particular program(s) you were using? Regardless, as I said, some things are better now. But a lot of other things are worse. I suppose that whether software is better or worse overall now depends on which things bother you more. For me, there's no question that software overall is not as good as it was.

nicolaslem 3y ago

I mostly love updates of FOSS software, each time it feels like receiving a tiny gift from a developer somewhere in another corner of the world. I run Arch so I get multiple gifts each day. On the other hand, I mostly dislike updates of proprietary apps. They tend to be much larger in size (I'm on a metered connection) and usually don't have my best interest in mind.

unintendedcons 3y ago
Bingo
JohnFen 3y ago
It's true... before software was continually updated, a software update (aside from small security/bug fixes) was something people got excited about and anticipated for good reason. Now, they're things people tend to dread. A lot of (but absolutely not all) FOSS software still comes with that sense of excitement for updates rather than fear.
m463 3y ago
Every once in a while arch updates break... but I've learned if arch-keyring is part of it, quit, apply that manually, then do the full update.

fortran77 3y ago

My brother--I don't know how--has no idea he doesn't run updates. He'll tell me he does. His iPhone was still on iOS 15 as of a few weeks ago.

JohnFen 3y ago

I don't refuse to update software, but I do prefer to wait for as long as possible (preferably until I see a number of reports from others who have updated) and I absolutely don't want automatic updates at all. Updating software is risky and can come with functionality loss, unexpected functionality/workflow changes, etc. Which means I want to do it when I have a couple of days available to recover from it.

kelseyfrog 3y ago

I get rizzed by my SO whenever I update software. There's a "have fun when it breaks," aspect that she gets to relish a little bit in when it does!

mbrndtgn 3y ago

To be honest, I've rarely lost any functionality because of a new feature release of any software. I can't even think of a security update that caused any problems in the last few years. The article mentions iOS and macOS updates and I can relate to that somewhat, though. OS X 10.7 at the time was horrible. It had known memory leaks that never got fixed and you _had_ to update to 10.8 to fix it. There was also a version that introduced a new DNS forwarder which was so broken that Apple rolled it back in a point update. It still seems weird to me to reject any software updates based on broken functionality. Oh, I actually do stay away from updates on one device. My HP printer would reject my third party toner if I would update it and that's why I keep it disconnected from the internet.

JohnFen 3y ago
> It still seems weird to me to reject any software updates based on broken functionality. Does it seem weird to you because you've never suffered due to a change in the feature set? I can understand that. If you haven't felt the pain, it's hard to be very sympathetic.

DangitBobby 3y ago

I also hate updates. They practically never solve problems I have but they do break working setups, lose settings, expose me to tutorial/walkthrough/new feature nags, force me to re-install other software that is now broken, break things like python envs (in the case of a brew update) and golang installs (when MacOS devs fuck with clang), threaten me with reboot loops (Sonoma), rearrange things (why does MacOS keep changing their settings app?), cause existing software to stop working because of API updates that developers can't keep up with (Android is particularly bad about this) or just generally force me to close all my shit to restart for the update to take effect. From a developer perspective, even worse (though not exactly the same) is having to modify working code due to developers making arbitrary backwards incompatible changes that I have no choice but to incorporate because node/react/security etc. updates. Generally speaking, my enthusiasm for software development has fallen off a cliff in no small part because of the bit rot imposed on me from incessant updates.

Ajay-p 3y ago
I would find the option to update on selective things to be more valuable. I would happily update security-only updates, but maybe pass on others, such as updates to the UI, or general functionality of the device. What I dislike more than anything is when I am forced to update for non-security reasons; for example Microsoft products!
- JohnFen 3y ago
  The biggest thing we've got wrong with the modern approach to update is, in my opinion, combining security updates with feature updates. They should be separate. You always want security updates. You may not want feature updates.
- Gibbon1 3y ago
  I've thought for a long time that it would be nice to have versioning at the function and data structure level. Not to mention tools to auto-build a wrapper around newer libraries. Even if incomplete it'd sometimes do the job.

Isthatablackgsd 3y ago

My issue with updates/downloading is the lack of software manager to updates software in Windows. It was a pain to go to various websites to download a package and install/upgrade a updated version. Back then when I have Win 98SE, I relied on FileHippo to scan and provide information if there are updates for my installed software. In XP and Win7, I only update software that have issue or something that I need to check. It was nice for some software that come with their own updater. I was thinking about my experienxe with Ubuntu (Ibex version) with their apt-get and the package manager. To my surprise, there are package managers for Windows, Chocolatey and Scoop. This was before Windows Store come to fruitation. Chocolatey is my main package manager for my Windows and I had been using it ever since. This allows me to have a peace of mind for me to updates my software particularly command line tools, Chocolatey made it easy for me and automate the environment variables for me if the software needs it. And no more for me to open up Google and search for the name of the software, `choco search <app_name>` and it will give me a list of the software and I just install from there. I use `choco upgrade all -y` and it just handles it without needing my input further.

WorldMaker 3y ago
Starting with certain updates to Windows 10 there's also `winget` now out of the box installed as an alternative to both Chocolatey and Scoop. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/package-manager/winget/ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/package-manager/wi...
- jmrm 3y ago
  The best thing about 'winget' is being able to have a powershell/batch script in you usb stick to install the last version of most of the software you use. The only 'requirement' to use winget is updating Microsoft Store after installing Windows and install 'App Installer' from the Store, at least in Windows 10.
  - WorldMaker 3y ago
    I've been slowly digging into Winget Configuration [0] since I started exploring the Dev Home (Preview) app on Windows 11. I still have too many machines that can't upgrade to 11 right now, but Winget Configuration seems a real neat way to bootstrap new machines. (I know that you can use Winget Configuration on Windows 10 without the Dev Home UI, but the UI is one of the more compelling things about it, I think.) [0] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/package-manager/configuration/ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/package-manager/co...

Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago

Some programmers are hell-bent on removing features, particularly those in the graphical world. Take firefox for example, one of my favorites to rag on. Many will tout how quick it has become to which I say "So what? I don't allow any javascript". Or maybe touting new image and video formats. I will just point at libavformat and libavcodec. What they have done is removed xul, removed scrollbars, removed rss, removed the text encoding menu, removed unsigned extensions, and every year there is some new vision about how the ui must look. I am apprehensive of the coming KDE version 6. I can't imagine how people must suffer on autoupdating systems whether that is linux, mac, windows, or some godforsaken mobile device. > can’t seem to free up enough space Technical issues are completely understandable. I am lead to believe most devices are tiny and will hide your files from you nor do they easily support external storage. Therefore I am not at all surprised people can't remedy this. > unsent messages If you sent it then it was sent. Relying on remote software to delete it is insane. I see all the times people edit a message from matrix. To be honest I see it as a feature and apparently one that would be removed if updated. > When a device no longer gets the newest OS, it’s time to upgrade to a new machine Consoom!

mrkeen 3y ago

I'm interested in points of view from developers-who-deploy-software-changes in one form or another. Why do you / do you not accept software updates in your os/dependencies/packages? Do you naturally gravitate to something like CentOS and/or stick to LTS distro releases? How do you reconcile believing that you improve your software against the idea that others make theirs worse?

JohnFen 3y ago
> How do you reconcile believing that you improve your software against the idea that others make theirs worse? It all depends. As an employee, I just accept that there's little I can do about the whole situation because the causes of it are things I have no control over[1]. This issue is actually one of the ones that gets me thinking that there isn't much room for engineers like me in the software industry anymore. With my own software, I do have that control, so I avoid the practices that I think are leading to not optimizing for quality. [1] In my current position, my employer does not engage in the practices that I think are problematic, and I am proud of the quality of our work. But it's a special case because we produce industrial machinery and the software has to be rock solid when shipped, constant updating isn't possible, etc.

NemoNobody 3y ago

I'm typing this on an Essential PH-1 phone I took out of the box a week ago to replace the Essential PH-1 I have been using daily since 2017. I never updated the other phone once and it lasted 6 years of significant use. I did update this one to Android 10 - I don't want 6 years out of this one.

nathants 3y ago

on windows i disable system updates, but steam and epic get updates. on linux everything gets updates. this is fine.

anjel 3y ago

Frequent minor updates on F-Droid are why I stopped using a certain developers simple line of apps. F-Droid requires manual updating and I wonder if it occurred to this dev what a timesuck he had turned his apps into.

userinanother 3y ago

I hate updating video games. More often then not they remove some awesome exploits or feature that I may want to make use of or removing inappropriate content for censors

jmrm 3y ago

I'm refusing to update to Windows 11, and won't do until I buy a new machine or something like that, and I wish I could go back to Windows 7, where the task manager doesn't get frozen when things go bad or where there are programs like "Settings" made with that Metro/UWP apps that go slower than most Electron apps written in JS.

prepend 3y ago

I don’t know if I fit into the reasons here. I blocked chrome from updating because it would peg my cpu a few times per week. After the 10th time, I stopped the update and haven’t had that problem yet. There aren’t really any new features from chrome I want for weekly updates and the suckiness of their updater. I just reinstall every few years. I also find that updates are usually a pain. They do dumb stuff with cpu and disk. They consume a lot of data (my isp caps me at a TB) and so aren’t a good value. “Security” isn’t a real reason for super frequent updates.

methou 3y ago

My grandpa can't accept windows 10 and had to stuck with win7. I remembered that he actually loves my old hackintosh setup, so when he's computer died I bought him a m1 Mac. After spending days with him over TeamViewer and video call, I finally understood that the reason why he couldn't accept windows 10 - the desktop icons were moved in a way he doesn't remember. (he has hundreds of them, and yes we bought him a big screen)