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AOL 9.0 Called Badware
An anonymous reader writes "The bad news at AOL keeps coming. First they get in trouble for releasing search data on more than half a million customers, then it gives away security software with a nasty EULA, now its free client software is accused of acting like badware according to Stopbadware.org, the Google-funded rating group."
So, Google technically owns like 5% of AOL, and funds stopbadware.org. So this is sort of like Sony vs. Sony, isn't it? Not directly relevant, but interesting as it shows how widespread these big Internet companies are, and how many pies they have their fingers in.
That sounds like a term a 5 year old would come up with.
Does this mean people actually believed that old versions of AOL were good? From what I can recall AOL has never been good. Perhaps it didn't act with malicious purpose, but it has, in my opinion, never been good and I certainly recall several occasions in my previous support job where it ended up being the cause of problems with totally unrelated software. My apologies to any AOL supporters out there, but this is looking like the end for AOL.
To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion...
The suite is also criticized for engaging in "deceptive installation" and faulted because some components fail to uninstall.
This is just ridiculous. Why are there so many programs that refuse to uninstall or leave pieces of themselves lying around? How hard can it be for the "uninstall" function to actually work? Worse, do I really need several dialog boxes to get rid of something? I can always install it again. It's not like I'm wiping my hard drive.
Make love, not reality television.
From the summary: "...its free client software is accused of acting like badware..."
This is news? Everyone I know has been saying that for *years* about AOL and their software. It tries to take over your system, has odd compatability problems, is extremely difficult to remove, and bombards you with ads. And that's when you *pay* for it!
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I wonder what the "Google Toolbar" rates...
Between not letting you cancel (even post mortum) and having "bad"ware... the only thing left for them to do is start including dell batteries with their CDs
Spyware has a conotation of being, you know, about _spying_ on the user. Malware implies some malicious intent. Etc. That's stuff which not only doesn't cover all the crap out there (e.g., yes, how about stuff that keeps nagging me after I thought I uninstalled it?), but also is attackable -- and indeed attacked -- in courts on technicality grounds. You get people like Claria/Gator sending legal nastygrams around just because they're prepared to argue in court about some technicality in that classification.
"Badware", while maybe it does sound like a kindergarten word, tends to convey the broader meaning and not get bogged in such lexical arguments. It doesn't imply malicious _intent_ or have to fit any definition of spying or whatever else these fucktards argue in court. It's just "bad".
And, frankly, as an end-user I don't care why or with what intent it was written like that. E.g., if a toolbar or anti-virus is a nightmare to uninstall and leaves components running after I uninstalled it, it's "bad". I don't care if it's like that by malice or if Hanlon's Razor applies. ("Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.") It's just "bad" and they better clean up their act.
To give a personal example, I had an experience like that with one of those MacAffee all-in-one security packages. An older version, but annoying anyway. Among the many problems it had, picture this: so when installing I installed it on D:, to free space on C:. But the first update installed itself in the default directory in C: anyway. But here's the stupid part: it also let the original version from D: running at the same time, so I had two anti-viruses running at the same time, slowing my machine to a crawl. So I uninstall it. Ok, it uninstalled the newly installed one from C:, but left the old one still installed and still running. Only this time without an uninstall, so I had to manually edit the registry and remove files to get rid of it.
I'm sure that Hanlon's Razor fully applies there. It was no malice, there was no intention to spy, it's just written by the cheapest incompetent monkeys. But it's "bad" anyway. So "Badware" seems to fit that just nicely.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
After all, it is often computers owned by people like the average Joe Schmoe which get compromised and are used to send spam or propagate worms.
Let's talk about Joe Schmoe for a second here. Joe Schmoe is probably a decent guy, and not necessarily dumb. It's just that he has a job, bills to pay, hobbies, and with any luck, a wife/girlfriend, and maybe kids. He thinks of his computer as he thinks of his washing machine. He buys it at a big box store, spends an hour or so setting it up, and then he uses it as a tool. When it breaks, he calls Geek Squad or the smart nerdy kid down the street, just like if the washing machine breaks, he calls the repair guy from Sears.
He doesn't look at a PC as a car, he thinks of it as a washing machine. We need to educate him about how to use it safely (SP2, patches, and AV for starters), and acting all high-and-mighty about it gets you nowhere.
My god, you're a moron.
First of all, people *do* operate cars without a thought to safety. Have you ever driven on a major highway in a large city?
How about the number of people who destroy thousand-dollar engines for want of two bucks of motor oil?
If Joe Schmoe decides he wants to click "Yes" when AnnoyingAdBar, LLC tells him to, than doesn't he pretty much get what he deserves?
(And, more importantly, when he pays me to fix it, don't I get what *I* deserve?)
Support freelancers, encourage stupidity!
I know its very popular to bash AOL, but in their time they served a purpose.
Back in 95, I had Prodigy. It was terrible. My username and email were something like "85XZW9@prodigy.net" or some such un-memorable non-sense. I couldn't tell people my e-mail address because I couldn't even remember it myself. IIRC, there was no "screenname", just the account name. Their client software was very much a DOS type app (even when run under Win3.1) that could not be minimized and filled the whole screen with a single task. And they did not have IM or anything like it.
So one-day I tried AOL 2.something. It had a windows interface, so I could have multiple tasks open (i.e. one with the news, another with the weather, and another with a browser). I had a real username that was memorable and that approximated my own (along with a few other screennames for chat). And they had IM (no buddy list yet, that would be another year or two away), so I could send private messages in chat. And there was more content than prodigy. The web based advertising and spamming business were still immature, so they were not as sophisticated or motivated to spy on their customers as they are now.
I also tried a few more services back then, MSN, still independantly run compuServe, something called WOW, etc. None of them were as good as AOL in 1995. Remember that pure ISP-only "web" was still young, web content was sparse, and search technology was immature, so it was hard to locate. Once cable-modem came to town in 1999, I keep AOL around for a few years for the email address. But I shut that down back in 2002.
In their time AOL was the best on-line + internet service around. Basic internet was just not developed enough and the other services just didn't match up.
I would love to see someone operate a toaster oven with the same casual disregard for safety that people seem to want to operate computers with.
I put my toaster on the counter, stick the pop tarts in, and push the button. They get done in a minute, and I eat them.
The problem with computers is that if you use the washer incorrectly (or set it up incorrectly), it floods. You notice the problem right away. Most users don't realize they're botted until 2-3 months later (when the adware or spyware gets really, really bad).
The best way to do this is to offer computer classes with incentives, and to make home installion a part of computer sales. Failing that, Dells should all come with the firewall on, and AV and anti-spyware installed and running with a 6 month subscription, as well as a note (in dead tree form) reminding the user that he needs to update and renew the stuff in 6 months.
AOL is worse than malware. Malware is written with bad intent, or possibly written by Malcom Reynolds. AOL is just badware -- badly conceived, badly designed, and badly implemented.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
FTA:
Backed by tech companies such as Google, Lenovo Group, and Sun Microsystems
It is run out of two well-respected university departments: Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and University of Oxford's Internet Institute in the U.K.
It's not just funded by Google, and the researchers are in public departments, not privately employed ratings companies.
Android Software Engineer
I installed AOL 9.0 on a virtual machine to see for myself, and it is a seriously annoying piece of software. It takes an extra section of the taskbar for itself (about 1/5 the width of a 1024 screen). It adds an autostart tray icon and about five desktop shortcuts. I launched the program to see if I could log in with my AIM account. I got to a screen where I could log in with an existing account or register a new account, but that screen had no back or cancel. I could only kill it with task manager.
It's obviously made for newbies who need lots of handholding, and it's good that they're bundling free antivirus with AOL 9.0 because that demographic really needs it. If you want to try out free AOL 9.0 over broadband, do yourself a favor and install it in a VM. MS Virtual PC and VMWare Player are both free (beer). QEMU is Free, but you need the KQEMU module to get decent speed, and it's free (beer).
You know, a more cynical person, after reading about how our esteemed legislature is just *drooling* all over the idea of heavily regulating the internet, and after reading several stories about how politically-backed PR firms have been increasingly 'astroturfing*' internet forums and other community based sites, might start to think that all these nearly identical messages from ACs advocating a "driver's license for the internet" are some form of covert propaganda.
A more cynical person, someone experienced with both politics and the internet, might think that messages like this, posted with such similar wording, with such a similar idea being conveyed, could be 'testing the waters,' to see how the techies might respond to such a proposal.
A more cynical person might think that some senator or congressman, perhaps something involving Ted Stevens, is feeling out the idea of floating a bill, maybe something called "The Internet Security Act," or "The National Data Protection Act," or even the "Save the Children from Internet Pedophiles Act," where compulsory licensing is hidden away within.
A more cynical person would probably realize that all those license fees would simply disappear into heavily pork-filled projects, the main beneficiaries of which would be gigantic corporations, probably technology based, but equally likely to be ConAgra, Exxon, United Defense, or Halliburton. Even a simpleton would know the license fees do nothing to benefit them.
A cynical person might already know that as soon as a license becomes madatory, a huge revenue stream is created by fining those individuals who are unlicensed. Just like parking tickets, tax penalties, and code violations, this money will go to supporting even more regulations.
A cynical person would suspect that an unlicensed computer would become basis for sneak-and-peeks, no-knock-raids, and unwarrented wiretapping. A cynical person knows that countries like Cuba, China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia already have laws regarding licensing of internet access. Sure has helped them, hasn't it?
A more cynical person might think that kind of thing, indeed.
*Astroturfing: In American politics and advertising, the term astroturfing describes formal public relations projects which deliberately seek to engineer the impression of spontaneous, grassroots behavior. The goal is the appearance of independent public reaction to a politician, political group, product, service, event, or similar entities by centrally orchestrating the behavior of many diverse and geographically distributed individuals.
Because Google has a real interest in taking down AOL considering that they paid a billion just to do business with them.
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