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Adobe wants Ninite to stop rolling out crapware-free Flash
- digitalengineer 13y agoNever had this problem of Adobe installing unwanted Anti-Virus stuff. Is this common for Window-users? For Mac I would suggest Pacifist if you want to install selective parts of an installer: http://www.charlessoft.com/ http://www.charlessoft.com/
- artmageddon 13y agoDuring the installer the user will be asked if they want to install McAfee anti-virus. There is a checkbox on the page in the setup that is already set to true by the time they get to it, so most users will probably think that having "more protection" is a good thing and that Adobe is really looking out for them.
- makomk 13y agoAt one point, there wasn't even a checkbox in the installer as I recall - there was some kind of checkbox on the page to download the installer, and if you didn't notice and uncheck it you got a download that installed whatever crap they were pushing silently and automatically along with Flash.
- webjprgm 13y agoNot to mention a larger, longer download. Then you realize it and have to re-download it all over for the flash-only one. (It's happened to me a few times.)
- Svip 13y agoYes, it is common on Windows. When you are on their website to install Flash, there is a tick box you need to untick to avoid installing McAfee Anti-Virus with it. It is basically like the Ask toolbar bundled with Java. If you are not paying attention - which most people don't - you'll be installing unwanted software, because so much relies on basically crappy software (Flash and Java). Actually, that makes them crappy is their ubiquitousness. Even if you seldom use Flash or Java applets, you'll often find yourself having them installed, because there is that one site that needs one or the other. Now, people like us with the technical knowhow know how to get around that (disable plugins; flashblock, etc.), but most people just install these things whenever there are updates, each is a change of getting crapware along with them. And Java is quite often updated.
- digitalengineer 13y agoCheckboxes are not allowed to already be 'selected' with Direct Mailings in Germany or the Netherlands, see http://www.fedma.org http://www.fedma.org . Perhaps this should apply for other webservices as well.
- beedogs 13y agoConsumer protection in the United States is basically nonexistent, so you'll unfortunately never see Adobe reprimanded for this sort of behavior. (I guess we can wait for the 'free market' to take care of it. Feh.)
- amargulies 13y agoAs far as I'm concerned, Ninite is the free market taking care of it.
- webjprgm 13y agoYup. And trying to shut it down is litigating, legislating, and dealing down to "no-real-competition".
- Nursie 13y agoSo in your free market there is no copyright on software?
- kijin 13y agoWhen did Ninite ever infringe on anyone's copyright?
- Nursie 13y agoDidn't say they were. I was replying to the folks saying that the distribution of flash without crapware was a free market solution. In a free market with no copyright, sure. In a market in which there is copyright though, adobe (copyright holder) decide on the distribution method. Which is what happened here. The folks I was replying to seemed to think that adobe stopping them was anti free market. I just wanted to clarify that that meant they didn't agree with copyright in any form, which is quite an extreme position.
- artmageddon 13y agoIt's a real shame that Adobe is making this kind of mandate of Ninite. The Ninite catalog is a little limited for me given that I'm a developer, but when it comes to setting up a new PC(or a reformatted one)for friends and family, Ninite is the first place I go to for all programs and utilities they need, and most likely the last as well. On the one hand I can see why Adobe wants total control over their installers, but I really wish they could also see that a lot of people simply don't want it.
- giulianob 13y agohttp://chocolatey.org/ http://chocolatey.org/ is starting to gain some traction for dev tools.
- Already__Taken 13y agoI would expect powershell access to the windows store might just kill this project over night. I kind of hope so actually, nice official repository system native from MS.
- TillE 13y agoIf by "kill overnight" you mean "partially replace over the next few years", yeah maybe. But there will always be plenty of apps not on the Windows Store for various reasons.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- robmcm 13y agoI imagine this is Adobe trying to milk some final money out of flash. After all they are still having to support it and will do for a good few years.
- JohnTHaller 13y agoThis article is a bit... lacking. First off, the Flash updater on Windows works quite well on modern Windows systems. Second off, Ninite isn't just some good Samaritan, they're a for-profit company. Third, and related to the second, Ninite's updater costs $10 a year while Adobe Flash's built-in updater is free. They also have a Ninite Pro version that supports remote updates and installs and costs $240 to $2,220 per year. In a similar vein, this is why Piriform cut them off from providing CCleaner via Ninite. Because automatic updating is a feature of CCleaner's business model, too. The paid version of CCleaner has automatic updates. Ninite was essentially taking that revenue model away from Piriform and using it for themselves. With free software supported by offers, Ninite is hiding those offers in exchange for cash. It's basically a paid ad-blocking service.
- danielweber 13y agoI will complain that Adobe wants to be updated what feels like every time my Windows machine restarts, but it never asks to install any adware as it does so.
- protospork 13y ago> First off, the Flash updater on Windows works quite well on modern Windows systems. Speak for yourself; I only ever see it on system startup. I only reboot once every few months (and it doesn't respond to waking up from standby), but there's a new Adobe security panic every two weeks or so, so that's not really acceptable. Plus it opens as a pop-under window for some reason, so I'm generally unaware of it until I've opened a browser, which I'll then have to close and reopen. The 'stealing revenue' argument is definitely valid, but in Adobe's case it's such a hateful method that I can't sympathize at all.
- ChikkaChiChi 13y agoAdobe lost any credibility in this argument when they 'accidentally' pushed out a Flash update that sideloaded McAfee.
- pasbesoin 13y agoI thought that Adobe's rolling out automatic updates for Flash Player might finally end my having to (endlessly) maintain it on my parents' computers. No dice... (It doesn't work -- at all, it often seems, or at least consistently nor in anything like a timely manner.) After some horrible experiences with Adobe Support, I've decided that Adobe as a company is crapware. I am sorry for e.g. some of the engineering talent there that may be doing good work. But, they (you) seem to exist these days within a horrible company organization.
- mschuster91 13y agoI wonder how the "toolbar providers" actually make money. I mean, I work as a freelance IT guy, and on nearly every customer PC I find ~6-10 toolbars, 2-3 "free virus scanners" and >10 different youtube downloaders (which mostly brought the toolbars). With such an infestation (and given this, the competition between the toolbars), how do the individual toolbar providers get back the money they paid to the trojan horse software?
- bluedino 13y agoReferral links/searches
- mschuster91 13y agoSure, but how can this game be successful when the toolbar is active / dominant in the browser only for a couple of days until the user downloads yet another crapware bundle?
- joosters 13y agoI wonder if any of the toolbars have extra code to try and nobble further toolbar installers. Perhaps there is a coding war going on between the crapware providers, fighting to be the top of the URL-rewriting chain?
- mschuster91 13y agoLikely they have. I had to completely wipe a Firefox profile of a customer because ten toolbars had messed up the search engines so hard that I could not add Google back.
- chrisbennet 13y agoI just got so sick of the Adobe updates (and their failures to update) that I uninstalled all of it on my work machine.
- UnoriginalGuy 13y agoJust use Chrome... Boom, Adobe is no longer your problem.
- ChikkaChiChi 13y agoNinite was a godsend in the days before I moved our offices over to Chrome. It was the first tool that took the pain and suffering out of updating Reader, Flash, and Java without the worries of crapware ending up on workstations. Thanks to this move, I'll be banning the flash plugin outright. I hope that makes Adobe happy.
- Finster 13y agoWith Netflix moving to HTML5, and Youtube already supporting HTML5, there's fewer reasons to even bother with Flash or Silverlight plugins.
- pyre 13y agoExcept for the videos on YouTube that don't support HTML5 yet. From here[1]: | Additional Restrictions (we are working on these!) | | - Some videos with ads are not yet supported (they | will play in the Flash player) | | - On Firefox and Opera, only videos with WebM | transcodes will play in HTML5 | | - If you've opted in to other testtube experiments, | you may not get the HTML5 player (Feather is | supported, though) [1] http://www.youtube.com/html5 http://www.youtube.com/html5
- drivebyacct2 13y agoThat experiment is frankly just old, and wrong.
- ancarda 13y agoThe YouTube HTML 5 player is basically done now, it works just as well as the flash one. I wish they would stop "experimenting" and roll this out across the site. They seem to have no timeframe for releasing it.
- riotingpscifis 13y agoIf you live in a closed source ecosystem, you die in a closed source ecosystem. e.g If you want to distribute closed source tools and software without sorting out a license first, your going to have a hard time because often this is exactly how free (in terms of price) software companies make their money.
- sauce71 13y agoNoticed it was gone from Ninite yesterday. Good riddance and a nice one of Ninite I thought. Still on fresh Windows 7 the Adobe monster suddenly appeared. Not sure where it came from, IE10 or Chrome?
- SideburnsOfDoom 13y agoTitle here is wrong, the reg says "crapware-free Flash". This dash is a little thing but it does matter; it changes the meaning. I passed over this article all day, after I read the headline as "stop rolling out flash, which is crapware, free". Punctuation. It's the difference between "Let's eat, Grandma" and "Let's eat Grandma"
- SideburnsOfDoom 13y agoUpdate: It's been fixed now. Good, thanks.
- doron 13y agoWe use Ninite Pro extensively within our network. Not only does it allow remote updates (whereas locally it requires administrative rights most users don't have) it also allows disabling of update notification and disabling of shortcuts. The update process Adobe employs is a nag for admins, the constant flow of acrobat updates and flash updates is a bombardment of announcements which most users in a corporate environment don't have control over. I prefer paying ninite for the hassle free service, rather then adobe who seem to have no clue or interest in making users life easier. From my perspective, i don't care who profits as long as I can achieve my goals with a minimum of hassle. Ninite provides this, Adobe does not.
- astrodust 13y agoIf your users get used to clicking "yeah, whatever" on any and all software update pop-ups, this will almost certainly become an attack vector. Adobe Reader, Flash and Oracle's Java each have their own nuisance updaters that are constantly pestering you for attention. That software-updates-as-a-service is now a thing is really a sad state of affairs, but if Ninite can make a go of it, right on.
- SoftwareMaven 13y agoAdobe Flash updates are already an attack vector for some malware. My wife was presented with a "FlashPlus" installer to "update to the latest version of Flash" that looked exactly like Adobe's with the exception of the name. I'm still not sure what good fortune intervened to show me that particular installer before she hit "install".
- im3w1l 13y agoBefore we talk about your fortune, how many phony installers did you miss?
- BHSPitMonkey 13y agoI wonder why the creators of such an installer even bothered changing the name? Virus/malware authors shouldn't care about the possibility of trademark violations; They usually take care to ensure the software can't be traced back to their identities regardless.
- w1ntermute 13y agoCan anyone with a legal background explain if Adobe can actually force Ninite to change the way their software works? AFAICT, they can't. Why did this guy give in to Adobe? Because they've got an army of lawyers they can attack him with?
- DannyBee 13y agoYes, they can legally stop ninite from redistributing the installer using the installer license terms if they like. It's a dick move, but not illegal
- w1ntermute 13y agoBut Ninite isn't redistributing the installer, is it? It's downloading it directly from Adobe's site when the user runs it, just like if the user were to manually download Flash.
- swies 13y agoThat's right, we did no redistribution or modification of their software. Ninite just automates things you would do. But, publishers can license their software under whatever terms they want. They could forbid this sort of automation in the license, or even forbid Ninite specifically by name. As far as we can tell there's no right to automate your own machine that prohibitions like that would be violating. I think the only defense here is public backlash (thanks everyone!) and/or boycott.
- w1ntermute 13y ago> publishers can license their software under whatever terms they want. They could forbid this sort of automation in the license, or even forbid Ninite specifically by name. As far as we can tell there's no right to automate your own machine that prohibitions like that would be violating. You're referring to the EULA, right? Is that enforceable in court? I've heard mixed opinions in the past on this topic from legal experts.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoIt would be an interesting interpretation of the CFAA to bring charges against Adobe for interfering with the security and managing of a computer network.
- shaaaaawn 13y agoNinite is an incredibly useful product Shame on you Adobe
- koshak 13y agoI've recently got all JRE and flash players vanished from my enterprise. What I love about linux is that almost always you have an interface to manage software (apt/fabric/etc...) out-of-the-box. Ninite Pro. Ok, not bad. But personally I don't like the "subscription" model. Making software bundles, rolling them out and updating them can be made by IT dep. itself. It's not such a great and difficult job. And again, how about clenaup with Ninite? When I decide to use its bundle will it manage older versions of %SOFTWARENAME% for me?
- burpee 13y agoI see a fairly simple solution. The issue Adobe has is essentially that Ninite is taking away the choice of users to install this software when installing Adobe Flash. Ninite is therefore taking away the revenue that Adobe would get from these installs, if you were to assume that some users actually want them. Ninite could easily circumvent this by giving people a choice to include the adware. 99.999% of users obviously won't make that choice, but Ninite puts that responsibility back with its users.
- eclipticplane 13y agoI used Ninite at my old job; loved it! However, if Adobe were to force Ninite to drop Flash -- we would have quickly dropped Flash from our corporate network, and probably have been for the better even with a few users complaining that their favorite time-wasting website/game no longer works.
- unangst 13y agoGreat read. Two thumbs up to Ninite!
- minopret 13y agoUgh, "coalface admins". If I can hope to influence anyone's usage, I'll advise against using "coalface" as an adjective for people. I realize that a coalface is a place where a worker turns a resource into a commodity. But the word "coalface" is too much like "blackface". In fact it is used that way in regard to birds and cats. It risks distracting people with disturbing connotations, particularly here in the United States.
- hga 13y agoRather than complain about a U.K. publication's possible refusal to play the PC game, or ignorance of how coalface might be stretched to connote blackface (a word that is certainly less freighted over there), why not learn the term as the British use it, e.g.: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=coal%20face http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=coal%20face "Originally used with reference to miners i.e those who remove coal from the 'face' of the mine, its now more commonly used to mean any work closest to the frontline "Managers have no idea how hard it is for a sparky these days because they never have to work at the coal face. "I love pulling apart engines. Its great to get my hands dirty at the coal face." It's actually complementary to most of us....
- minopret 13y agoYet I wouldn't write "(I) have dirty hands" where I mean "(I) get (my) hands dirty". We'll all choose our own words. Good luck to us all, and may the best of us succeed.
- mariusmg 13y agoHere's how to remove the shitty Flash autoupdater on Windows : schtasks /delete /tn "Adobe Flash Player Updater"
- chestercheetaz 13y agoI hate Adobe. I also hate Flash.
- guard-of-terra 13y agoThe pains people come through to avoid Linux.