Google Bundles Toolbar With Adobe Apps

grammar fascist writes "Sci-Tech Today reports that Google is paying a 'significant amount' to bundle Google Toolbar with certain Adobe downloads. From the article: 'The initial venue for the Google mini-app will be downloads of the popular and free Shockwave multimedia player. The move is seen by some observers as an effort to outflank Microsoft, especially as Internet Explorer 7 nears its formal launch this summer [...] Interestingly, Google's search toolbar will be available only when Shockwave is downloaded for use with Internet Explorer on Windows.'"

Comments

Re:Obnoxious

[vistic]

I began looking at the comments for this story just to see how many comments will say it's a good thing or how many have excuses why it's acceptable.

I was disappointed there were so many.

Google Toolbar is a good program for those who use IE (I think it's totally unnecessary for Mozilla) but Google or not, bundled software is just obnoxious. It's sad to see Google going down this road. If I want to install Google Toolbar, I will go to google's website and download and install it. If I go to the shockwave download site, then I only want shockwave.

Google's contributing to the problem a lot of people have, where they have too many programs installed on their systems they never wanted. Too many programs installed even, that they don't even know are there.

Thanks, but no thanks

[kirun]

Although it's nice of them to helpfully include carefully selected sotware from premier partners (where the careful selection process is making sure it's the highest bidder), even if they promise to be really, really, good and not create a bloated installer, perhaps they could get the message that if I'd wanted to install X, I would have. If I'm installing a player so you can make massive profits selling people the encoder, I shouldn't have to look at ads as well. The fact that they've had to create a FAQ telling people why they shouldn't be annoyed suggests they know this.

Re:Alternatives

[jb.hl.com]

Oh, so it's alright if Google does it, but not if Microsoft does it? It's a pain in the hole either way.

Google are inconveniencing everyone through this. Acrobat Reader is already a 20MB download for reasons I can't imagine. Why bloat Shockwave in the same way?