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UnBox Calls Home, A Lot
SachiCALaw writes "It turns out that to use UnBox, the user has to download software from Amazon that contains a Windows service (ADVWindowsClientService.exe). Tom Merritt over at C|Net reports that the service tries to connect to the internet quite frequently. Even tweaking msconfig could not prevent it." From the article: "So, in summary, to be allowed the privilege of purchasing a video that I can't burn to DVD and can't watch on my iPod, I have to allow a program to hijack my start-up and force me to login to uninstall it? No way. Sorry, Amazon. I love a lot of what you do, but I will absolutely not recommend this service. Try again."
They really have no clue, do they? This whole thing gets worse everytime I read up on it. They may as well make it Windows XP MCE only, cause I can't see anyone else putting up with this.
*shakes head*
Check out Unbox's 12 monkeys and the special edition DVD with over 2 hours more video.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Using Windows, this is. I guess the story can be summarized as "F Unbox"?
Has anyone tried to use Amazon player using wine?
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
3. Unbox Video Player
In order to download and view Digital Content using the Service, you will need to install the Unbox Video Player (the "Software") on an Authorized Device and agree to the Microsoft Software Supplemental License Terms set forth as an Addendum below these Terms of Use (the "Software License"). The Software may operate on your Authorized Device continuously for a variety of reasons, including the management of your Digital Content. The Software also will access the Internet in order to perform a number of functions including as described below:
a. Software Upgrades. The Software automatically checks for upgrades, but the Software will not automatically upgrade without your consent, except as provided herein. If you do not consent to an upgrade that we make subject to your consent, the Digital Content may no longer be viewed on your Authorized Device. You must keep the Software on your Authorized Device current in order to continue to use the Service. We may automatically upgrade the Software when we believe such upgrade is appropriate to comply with law, enforce this Agreement, or protect the rights, safety or property of Amazon, our content providers, users, or others.
b. Information Provided. Amazon respects your privacy, and the Software will not access computer files or other information on your computer that are not used by or otherwise related to the Service. Among other things, the Software will provide Amazon with information related to the Digital Content on your Authorized Device and your use of it and information regarding your Authorized Device and its interaction with the Service. This information will enable Amazon to manage rights associated with the Digital Content, allow Amazon to help you use the Service more effectively and otherwise help Amazon to enhance and improve the Service. For example, the Software may provide Amazon with information about the Digital Content from the Service on your Authorized Device, whether it has been deleted and whether it has been viewed. The Software may also provide Amazon with information about your Authorized Device's operating system, software, amount of available disk space and Internet connectivity, such as whether your computer or other device is available online. This information will, among other things, help us deliver Digital Content to you more efficiently and effectively. The Software may also provide Amazon with information about the transfer of Digital Content to portable devices to help us ensure compliance with our rules concerning portable devices.
c. Removal of Software. If you uninstall or otherwise remove the Software, your ability to view all Digital Content you have downloaded to the Authorized Device will immediately and automatically terminate and we reserve the right to delete all Digital Content from that Authorized Device without notice to you.
I am tired of seeing companies, whether it is open source or not, offering services that bury unforseen privacy violations within them. There are responsible programs like (on Windows) Winamp and Windows Media Player and even (on *IX) pine, which inform you that it is going to be sending usage information back to home base, with an option to decline such activity.
Some of the software is so sneaky as to masquerade as a legitimate SSL requirest, so even a network administrator has no clue whether or not the information coming out of their network does or does not contain proprietary information about the network's users--and you are left to the "trust us" language in the EULAs with no proof that the data being sent is benign info.
Where is the EFF on this???
please correct me if I'm wrong but other then the intial authrorization, I think the only phone home that itunes does is to plug things for the mini-store advertisments at the bottom of the page. ANd you can turn that off. I don't think it runs services that phone hope besides the application itself. Perhaps on windows it's different than on macs?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
For the MPAA and that lot to release their 'wares' onto the internets, they sure as hell are going to want to protect their interests as they are passing through the untold numbers of 'tubes' to reach the end user. God forbid they allow the user to actually use the entertainment they purchase without having an MPAA approved agent watching their every step.
Give me the same service without DRM and without violating my privacy and then I'll bite.
What IP address(es) does it phone home to? How would you block outgoing traffic on common household routers such as Linksys WRT(forgotthenumber) to this address?
Lots of spyware requires a net connection to uninstall. This is just more spyware. It won't be long before Windows itself requires a net connection to run. WGA is mighty close to that. Claria(or whatever they call themselves now) is alive and well. People who buy new machines won't notice and won't care. It's all good news for the phisherman...who will be hanging out at your local landfill where your machine will end up when you get tired of waiting ten minutes for it to finish booting up. For now the best way to protect your system is to use a live CD.
What?
The article didn't make this service seem very fun.
...is if you fire up taskmgr, and add the "page faults delta" field, and look at that iTunesService. Compare vs. Explorer, or other bloated app of your choice.
I don't believe that the services that iTunes install phone home (although I could be wrong), but iTunes does indeed install a service that runs all the time (ie whether you're using iTunes or not). This is the "iPodService", that is described as being "iPod hardware management services". If you stop it, iTunes restarts it. If you set it to disabled then run iTunes as an admin, it sets it back to manual and starts it. At install time, it's set to automatic - ie it runs when Windows starts.
I wouldn't mind, but I don't own an iPod and so for me this is just a pointless waste of resources. Imho there ought to be a config option to allow you to specify that you don't have an iPod and so won't be needing the service, but it appears that that was too much to ask for.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Amazon is clearly catering to a single party -- motion picture copyright holders.
I've outlined my opinions here (warning: web site plug).
But it's pretty simple. Costs too much, doesn't provide value, intentionally confuses customers, and doesn't support the right hardware.
If this software has blatant spyware in it, I wouldn't be surprised a bit.
Lets face it folks - things have gotten out of our hands. There is no way we can prevent something like this from happening. More and more applications will phone home in the future. It is very valuable data to companies - imagine if you could do user surveys on all users? Companies can do that with software that phones home. Collecting similar data by using old methods would cost millions and millions of dollars - this new way is not only cheap, but extremely efficient way to do it.
Unfortunately I have to say there is nothing we can do about it. We just have to accept it.
" It won't be long before Windows itself requires a net connection to run. WGA is mighty close to that. "
Is this a clue how MS intends to compete with Google Office?
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Either he didn't untick the appropriate box in the "Services" tab of msconfig (not recommended as a solution) or he didn't go into the control panel (or run services.msc) and change the 'Startup Type' from "Automatic" to "Manual"
My guess is he unticked a box in the "Startup" tab of msconfig and expected that to solve the problem. Unless of course, the Amazon program didn't really install a Service at all...
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Well at least the author of the story managed to get the video to play. I downloaded "The Enterprise Incident" and have not successfully been able to playback the episode in its entirety. At the 4:12 mark, the window goes black and the progress bar goes to the beginning. Amazon "support" has not been helpful at all. A Motley fool poster seems to have a simlilar problem. The Progress Bar doesn't work to jump to any point in the video.
The Unbox player may not be necessary to play back videos purchased through Amazon. It might just be a "wrapper" around WMP. I was able to play back the episode directly through Windows Media Player, and it stops at the 4:12 mark as well, but with an error message: "Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The Player might not support the file type or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file." Which is kind of an odd error to get in the middle of playback.
At least I didn't pay for it.
After all the book is way better than the movie and you can get it from a library you can take it anywhere and you can lend it to people.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
You don't need Congress to persuade you to not choose to run spyware. A little self-discipline will be quite enough.
Say all you want about the inevitability of DRM and the media companies' requirements for it, but one thing is for sure: DRM-compliant software is always (there has never been an exception) intended to serve someone other than the user. You can candycoat this ugly fact all you want, but if you choose to run a proprietary player because you want to watch some DRM content, you accept that you are telling your computer to do things that are contrary to your self-interest. It's just a matter of whether these things are worth it or not. Take responsibility for this choice instead of crying to Congress. JUST SAY NO is just as viable an option for spyware, as it is for cocaine.
If you want to cry to Congress because making choices is too hard for your delicate psyche, then tell them to change copyright law so that protection doesn't extend to DRMed content. Then the media companies, instead of the pathetic users, will have to make a choice: put their trust into the law, or put their trust into technology?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Amazon is clearly catering to a single party -- motion picture copyright holders.
It's intersting that someone with the nick name, "gnu-sucks" would complain about non free software problems. Yes, the "single party" in this case is the MPA. In other cases it's M$ or the highest bidder. That's the way non most non free software works. It's non free because the author wants you to do as they say in one way or another. As lots of companies, such as IBM, have been making lots of money selling and servicing free software, you can't say the "do as I say" is about paying for development anymore. Amazon is offering the usual non-free media deal: In order to enjoy popular culture, you must surrender control of your computer. Use of WMP and Windoze DRM just makes the deal suck that much worse because WMP is buggy.
People selling DRM crippled junk are going to go out of business sooner or later.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Books are amazing! I had forgotten how good a good book can be until I picked one up and read it recently. But the problem is hard availability - if it's raining or you live far away you don't want to go to a library. I wish you could buy books online - you know in Adobe PDF format or similar. It would be great if you could just download a book!
These companies typically lose money because the consumer realizes that their products aren't worth the price. Also, any bill related to this would have to be far too technical for congress to wrap its head around, resulting in something either ineffective or harmful.
Spyware, adware, DRM tools, exploits, viruses, worms, trojans, rootkits, etc.... I LOVE THEM. Why? Because malware continues to keep the masses informed about the dangers of software and that nobody... not even big companies (e.g. Sony, Microsoft) should be trusted to release "good" software let alone "bug free" software. The more people get burned by malware, the more likely they are too research a piece of software before they install it. Keep the malware coming!
>Imho there ought to be a config option to allow you to specify that you don't have an iPod and so won't be needing the service
funny that you're complaining about a few kb of memory being used for this, WHILE YOU'RE RUNNING FREAKING WINDOWS.
drop cf. ocean.
Amazon.com launches digital download service Check it out: http://techaddress.wordpress.com/2006/09/07/amazon -unbox-launches-download-movies-and-tv/
From the Fine Article:
I noticed that the Amazon player had launched itself. Annoying. I looked in the program for a preference to stop it from launching itself, and there was none. Typical. So I went to msconfig and unchecked Amazon Unbox so that it would definitely not launch itself at start-up. When I rebooted, it was no longer there. However, my firewall warned me that a Windows service (ADVWindowsClientService.exe) was trying to connect to the Net. I clicked More Info in the firewall alert and found it was Amazon Unbox.
As a Debian user, all of the above is so much meaningless mumbo jumbo to me, but the details are unimportant. It did not do what he wanted it to do despite great effort. He finally figured out that it would pretend to uninstall itself if he allowed the still loaded client unrestricted access to the internet. Without a system audit from an independent operating system, there's no telling if it finally did what he wanted but ultimately the service failed him: this is not a good way to watch movies.
It's crap like that that keeps me away from non free software and non free media. I'm not going to give up control of the machine that gives me my mail and news just to hear a song or watch a movie. It's bad enough that the greed heads force me to watch adverts on rented movies when I play them through a set top box, bad enough for me to one day build a mythTV box. But install spyware on my normal computer or gateway? You have to be kidding.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Translation: you're a jabbering idiot who doesn't have a clue.
READ. Re-read until you comprehend.
Hope this helps!
A lot of people don't have a car, and bus lines often stay closed for 36 to 60 hours at a time. For a lot of people, time is money; at U.S. federal minimum wage, spending a half hour isn't worth a $2.50 discount.
Let's take a look at the claims individually:
Unbox installs a service: Well, this isn't too surprising and services can be disabled from startup. I know, I've done it.
The service connects to the net: Once again, not too surprising. Wireshark does wonders. When the player wasn't running, I didn't see much traffic, though there did appear to be some polling going on (perhaps this is how the client knows that there is something to download?) Of course, when it was actually downloading something (or I was juggling items in the player) there was much more communication, but that is to be expected.
Need to login on uninstall: A bit of futzing around shows that there is a drop-down list of clients when you purchase something. They need to keep that up to date somehow, so it makes sense that they need you to login on uninstall. How else would they know?
Now, I will admit, Unbox worked without a hitch for me. Maybe I'm just lucky (it is possible). And while we do always need to be careful about privacy concerns, it is always a good idea to think through the reasons and accusations first. Sometimes there is a reason for network traffic, sometimes it is an "OMG! PRIVACY VIOLATION!"
Never buy digital restricted media, ever!
Update: I received an email from Sheila at DV guru saying that she hadn't had to log in to Amazon to uninstall. On a hunch, I reinstalled Unbox and this time allowed ADVWindowsClientService.exe to access the Internet when prompted by my firewall. This time when I uninstalled, I was not prompted to login. So ADVWindowsClientService.exe is connecting to the Net without your knowledge, even when uninstalling.
So they're obviously trying to check on acceptance by making the product notify them when it's uninstalled. Good. Encourage everyone you know to install it, then uninstall it. If the uninstall numbers go high enough, they may get the clue.
Ohh, you took the bait.
My slashdot username is simply to point out that there are other OSS licenses. I dig gnu, but it has its share of shortcomings.
Also, IBM doesn't make money selling free software. They make money installing it, and coming up with creative solutions. Not to mention support. By proxy, free software has made them some money for sure. But not the sale directly.
yeah... i guess the market share that us windoze users are just all idiots... which is also probably why so many fortune 500 companies are using it or are moving to active directory or migrating from notes/groupwise to exchange. Linux has its place and while its getting better its not in the 'ease' of use for the folks out there who are making that decision with their money it appears. I love my Ubuntu 6 desktop that I dual boot to on my thinkpad like any other *nix guy here... but there are some things that are still easier to do in windows and while you want to blame the OS, try looking at the company developing the application (itunes or unboxed) that is doing this in the first place ?!?!?!?! t
sig goes here!
re-reading your comment, twitter, I have to reply again...
That's the way non most non free software works. It's non free because the author wants you to do as they say in one way or another
If you consider gnu gpl software to be 'free software', by your reasoning, than you're seriously mistaken. GPL licensed works have very specific license requirements. If I'm to distribute my GPL'd app, you better believe it absolutely has to include the source code. And, if anyone wants to use it for their own purposes, their works have to be covered by the same license. And I have to include an obvious copy of the GPL license. I'd say this certainly falls under your thesis of DRM being bad because the author requires one to "do as they say in one way or another".
In a way, this is a form of DRM. Digital Rights Management. Use our code, and your code from this must be under our (GPL) license. (The analogy is, use our song or video material, and you must have it licensed by our publisher, etc.)
Consider how GPL advocates cry 'code theft' whenever a company sells a product with embedded linux, and doesn't offer up the source code. Have they really stolen anything? Is this not similar to copying a music cd? Why is a restrictive software license much different than a restrictive music or video license?
By contrast, yes, I do prefer BSD-style licenses. And probably LGPL, though I haven't sat down and read it yet.
And also, I much prefer a license that allows for copying (though with restrictions) to one that doesn't.
"Sorry, Amazon. I love a lot of what you do, but I will absolutely not recommend this service. Try again."
Harsh words man... harsh words.
All iTunesHelper.exe does is sit dormant until an iPod is connected, after which it fires up iTunes and syncs tracks. There's no "phone home" activity as described in the grandparent post.
"Sufferin' succotash."
It's more funny to watch people get furious when someone else makes a valid point.
Wow! Thank you very much for that information!
I'm not a big fan but this is the first "Play for Sure" app that has worked well for me. So far no problems playing content on the two portable devices that I own that support it. But this is a pretty hairy beast. Either this will improve, or something better will come along. (Poke Poke Apple) (Rhapsody's "To go" never seems to work as well as this for me...)
iTunesHelper isn't a "useless service." It simply waits for an iPod to be plugged in, after which it starts up iTunes and syncs your tracks. There's no "phone home activity," and you shouldn't be surprised it messes things up when you stop it manually. Are you actually surprised that when you messed with an iTunes background service, it affected the app's functionality?
You don't give specifics for any of your other complaints, so I can only assume you're just bitchin' and whinin' about nothin'. Furthermore, you claim your experience with iTunes resembles the Amazon Unbox experience described in the article. So you're saying you weren't able to play a video without messing with the progress bar, iTunes started up automatically, and you had problems uninstalling the application? Or were you just making a meaningless comparison as an excuse to vaguely bitch about iTunes?
"Sufferin' succotash."
It's the exact same application, compiled from the same codebase. iTunes for Windows doesn't magically phone home more than the Mac version does. Next time, please learn what you're talking about before criticizing someone else's response and acting like an anti-social asshole on a geek website (I know it makes you feel really cool inside, but trust me, the perception is only internal).
My computer was a Christmas present several years ago, and I rely on the bus partly because I lack a driver's license.
In Fort Wayne, Indiana, the Citilink buses are closed Saturday nights, Sundays, and holidays. The 36-hour figure is from 1800 on Saturday to 0600 the next Monday; the 60-hour figure is from 1800 on Saturday to 0600 the next Tuesday. I asked a resident of South Bend, Indiana, whether the public transportation in her town kept better hours, and she told me that they do not.
My point is that if bus fare + time spent riding the bus to and from a Wal-Mart store is worth more than the price of shipping from walmart.com, I'll pay for shipping.
If I'm to distribute my GPL'd app, you better believe it absolutely has to include the source code. And, if anyone wants to use it for their own purposes, their works have to be covered by the same license. And I have to include an obvious copy of the GPL license.
Yes, if you distribute someone else's software you have to pass on the same rights you received. That has nothing to do with your own software, for which you can use whatever license you please. If you want to distribute modified GPL'd software, you do have to make the license and source code, in the form that works for you, available. That's not a really big deal now is it? Of course you can use and modify GPL'd software for your own purposes without any restrictions whatsoever. It's only when you make a copy that the restrictions come into play because the authors don't want you to abuse other people with their work. That all seems fair to me. After all, I'd hate for some dork like Bill Gates to use my software to make money and prop up his little Windoze empire.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Be aware that the Windows OS provides hooks to run programs when devices are attached, so there's no reason for a device vendor to have a program always running in memory waiting for the device to be attached.
The reason they put "iTunesHelper" in memory at all times is merely to make their program appear to load faster.
The cake is a pie
Well, it is useless if you don't have an iPod.
I tried to uninstall the damn thing repeatedly and it always hung "checking for a valid installation" or somesuch. I eventually had to manually kill all the services, manually delete all the files and manually delete all the Amazon references in the registry.
Though a broken uninstall is a pretty typical 1.0 bug. But not allowing it to be removed from the startup list (the reason I was trying to uninstall in the first place) is unforgivable.
The cake is a pie
I think if it wasn't there, Windows would treat it as a standard mass-storage devic0e (with regards to the initial plug-in, as it does anyways while it's connected). And instead of just loading iTunes as you'd expect it to, you'd get that stupid menu of "You've got music on here, what the hell should I do?". But by and large, you're probably right - I'm sure Apple could come up with a workaround for something that silly.
at grandparent/ggp/whatever generation of iTunes hater:
Anyone complaining about that is just nuts. Especially since the type to complain about that is almost certainly using Firefox (that's to say, knows SOMETHING about how computers work), which is notorious for taking well more than it's fair share of memory. iPodService.exe is showing about 3.9M of memory used, versus 66+ for iTunes, another 75 for Firefox and I've seen it get into 300+M before. If a third of a percent of your system memory being used concerns you that much, you're either really anal about memory usage or shouldn't have any programs installed except for the one that needs every single clock cycle and bit of memory available to it.
As to the bit about CD burning - what? I've never once had iTunes mess it up, though I'd prefer if it would auto-switch from an Audio CD to an MP3 CD if I've got over 80m worth of music in the playlist (as I've got one vehicle that's audio CDs only, and the other doesn't care). In fact, I wish other software burned discs as reliably as iTunes does.
In any case, why are you using iTunes if you hate it so much and don't own an iPod?
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
A little unrelated to the article, but if it isn't in msconfig it's probably a service.
The government can't save you.
When I can buy a movie from one computer and have the download start *on another machine*, it's pretty obvious that the software has to be in contact with their servers. Given the large number of internet users with unroutable IPs, having a service that just listens on a port isn't really feasible either.
Whether you think its a good thing or not, this shouldn't really be a surprise to anybody who thought about the software for more than a minute or two.
lol, did I just steal your first post?
You just got troll'd!
Let me be more clear: Using the correct registry entries, you can make any application run when your particular device is connected, regardless of whether or not it is a "mass storage device". I know this, because I have done this for devices my company makes. It's not a "workaround". It's the Windows mechanism for detecting and dealing with devices. Sitting in memory all the time to do the same thing is the hackish workaround.
The issue isn't that a particular program takes "just a little" memory. It's that every goddamn application vendor takes "just a little memory" and "only one tray icon", etc, etc. It's a tragedy of the commons scenario that files up everyone's machine. Still, if you at least give the user control, that's not so bad. When, like unbox, you don't allow the user to say "no, I don't want you to run every time I boot", it sucks.
The cake is a pie
I think if it wasn't there, Windows would treat it as a standard mass-storage devic0e (with regards to the initial plug-in, as it does anyways while it's connected). I suspect that you're wrong about that. I know that for USB keyboards, mice, printers, scanners, and cameras it's possible for the vendor to have their own driver (usually installed by the user) which overrides the generic driver. I suppose maybe it may be different for USB mass storage devices, but if so it seems rather exceptional to the way that Windows handles USB devices.
This article got me thinking - how does iTunes work with regards to authorizing a computer to play purchased music?
Let's say I hook a computer up to my network, copy some music to it, authorize it, and then remove it from the network so it no longer has access to the Internet. I assume at some point iTunes will want to phone home to double-check that the computer in question is still authorized to play those tracks, or that you haven't reached any burning limits?
My sister had her iMac about a month earlier than her Internet connection, and she didn't have any problems with iTunes during that time with any purchased music that was copied over (she had previously purchased music from iTMS on my Mac, using her own account).
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
That's a good point, I hadn't realized that.
If it's sending performamnce stats or checking / updating license status, that's one thing.
If it's sending keylogger logs, credit card numbers and health records it's another.
I'm pretty sure it's not doing any of those things, but is this an argument about substance or principle?
iTunes phones home when I authorize / deauthorize a machine. I don't have reason to suspect Evildoing whrn it does.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
That's the way non most non free software works. It's non free because the author wants you to do as they say in one way or another
An hour later:
I'd hate for some dork like Bill Gates to use my software to make money and prop up his little Windoze empire.
So, you, the author, want people with your code to do as you say in one way or another?
The Amazon client service doesn't seem to be "useless" either. Since one of their big things is being able to send a download to your computer from any web-browser, they need some resident program to catch the message and manage the download.
You could argue that it should all be done in the application, but if they want to make that feature work for the average user (i.e. start up automatically, not take up screen real-estate, and keep a smaller memory footprint than a visible appliaction) a service doesn't seem to be an unreasonable solution.
"If it's sending performance stats...'
NO. It is never OK for the software to connect to the internet without informed consent of the OWNER of the computer. That's where security problems start - an app that isn't talking over the internet is very unlikely to get hijacked. An app that is using internet access without the computer owner's knowledge or consent is far,far more likely to be attacked.
Again, NO. It is never OK for someone to use MY computer to analyze the performance of THEIR software, unless they're willing to pay me bucks to do it. Would they let me login an use their bandwidth and one of their computers for free? Don't think so, why should I be expected to let them use mine? Just cuz I'm not a billion dollar bizniz?
Still again, NO. It is not OK to insert software into my boot sequence without my consent. That's another chink in the armor.
A thousand times, no. It should be just as easy to remove the software as it was to install it - and internet access is not a part of file deletion.
This is very, very much "an argument about substance".
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
I haven't shopped at Amazon since they "unilaterally changed" ("violated") their privacy policy to divulge my personal info they required I store with them. Of course I changed it all before I notified them it was unacceptable, and of course they ignored me (and doubtless thousands of others). Now this bullshit, from the people who patented one-click shopping.
Where's the online aggregation of independent booksellers, getting Amazon's economies of scale but retaining their individual connection to the interests of their customers? Big enough to put Amazon back in the dotcom bust where it should have stayed.
--
make install -not war
It's not the "to" but the "from". How much can you carry home on a bike? I can stuff a few DVDs in a backpack, but not significantly larger items, such as a DVD player in its packaging.
That should earn it the Badware Logo.
The great thing about StopBadware is that their guidelines define some actions as making software "badware" despite any disclaimers or EULA terms. "Hard to uninstall" software is always "badware", no matter what the EULA says.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
GPL is specifically worded such that the software is free, and remains free. With the BSD license, someone else can take your source code, make a few changes, and rerelease it as their own in a closed format, making the code essentially non-free. I do see your point about the fact that restrictions exist meaning that you are not free to do with the code as you please. However I don't think that's what free software is about. I believe that free software is about having the source code open, and keeping it open. Not making it open so that others can use it, close it up, and make your code less free than it was before.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
We are evil, and we charge you a lot!
Sadly, most people (I'll bet upward of 80-90%) won't know, wouldn't understand, or wouldn't care. And so if the service is okay and the price is okay and it's convenient enough, most people will be dumb enough to use it.
Look at spam. There are so damn many idiots out there that you can make money simply spamming people.
Pathetic.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
So let's get past the CAPS and absolutes.
"an app that isn't talking over the internet is very unlikely to get hijacked."
Vulnerabilities aren't generally found by owners / end users as a result of knowing what apps are using their network connection. They're found by security wonks analyzing behavior and traffic. Are there instances where a legit app was found by an end user to house a vulnerability that did actual damage before being discovered and patched? Certainly not this one - reports have it as a named explicit process, unlike a rootkit.
Nobody reads end user agreements anyway, so demanding what you demand is essentially irrelevant.
"to analyze the performance of THEIR software, unless they're willing to pay me bucks to do it. Would they let me login an use their bandwidth and one of their computers for free?"
That's a red herring - you use plenty of companies' computers via a network, and they collect stats on your computer, deposit cookies etc. - that's how you access their web, file and mail servers, and they don't pay you for that.
"It is not OK to insert software into my boot sequence without my consent. That's another chink in the armor."
I'm guessing you don't use Windows much. Windows users lost control of the boot sequence ages ago. Ditto the systray
"and internet access is not a part of file deletion."
Well it is part of deletion, for example when authorizing / deauthorizing individual machines on iTunes, and again - if it uses well known or public ports, and moves legitimate traffic without an explicit string of consent screens, what's the real issue?
Am I upset that Apple didn't beat me over the head with the internal operation of this process? No. Would I be uspset if there were an undiscovered vulnerability? Sure. But the time to uncover such problems is decreasing and scrutiny is increasing.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
All your "Comments" are just thinly disguised spam. All your links point to your sploggy website. You are a waste of electrons.
No it doesn't. It makes their implementation of that code non-free. The code is as free as it ever was.
*applauds*
One of the best explanations I've ever read.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
http://www.abebooks.com/
An aggregation of second hand booksellers.
Hopefully, Google and other search engines will start warning users that Amazon.com is a known malware distributor when the site comes up in search results.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
Surely some spyware company (or Sony) has a patent on phoning home.
Blasphemy!
Before bitching about this software how many of you actually tried to use it? They offer(ed) a free download of one of the shows. Granted the selction both in DVDs and TV Shows is limited now, that selection is sure to increase over time.
.avi file which is encoded with MS DRM. However there is a program on the net that allows you to strip the DRM from avi file so you can play it in any player you wish on your PC. However if you want to burn the dvd you'd need to convert it, then burn it to a dvd.
The "free" download basically works out like a normal amazon purchase where you add it to your cart. You go through the normal process and then once you get to the billing part where it normally would charge you the -1.99 on the bill shows you that you owe 0.00. Thus making the purchase free.
You get 2 files, although an article I had read earlier in the day I tried it says there are supposed to be 3 files. You get a proprietary Amz file for use on designated portable video players (ie: Creative Zen Video). And the other file is a
Now for the ugly. I don't very much like Amazon's proprietary player that they have you install. I also don't like the fact that they DRM'd the files. Granted its easy (right now) to get around, but we shouldn't have to deal with this. At least not after we've already purchsed the file.
The question that came to mind after playing around with Amazon's new product was whether any of the AA's will ever "get it" enough to where "we" are happy. Or are we as a collective just playing a mind game of "well, you're almost there, but not quiet". And around and around we go...just to justify pirating. To be honest I don't like doing it. But at the same time places like Barnes & Nobles, Borders, Musicland, Sam Goody, etc are some how able to justify their DVD prices while the likes of Walmart, Target, etc are able to offer the same exact movies for much cheaper prices. How are dvd prices not a fixed rate? The cost of producing the disc itself is roughly the same. There is nothing physically different about the products. So why the increase in price?
This again brings up another good point about Amazon's new offer. I even knew before I tried out the service that the prices would be same as their boxed DVDs...so as not to undercut the sale of regular dvds. Well wtf! We're not getting a physical DVD, we're not getting a nice DVD box, so what the hell is the extra cost coming from? Usually the price of a product is dictated by the middlemen (ie: the movie people, the disc manufacturers, the people who ship the dvds, etc) But when it comes to digital downloads there isn't all of that. So all the excess is pure revenue. Again the consumer is screwed. Again we are put in the middle of something (fight between MS, Apple, Real, et. al.). And of course this spurns on more pirating.
Honestly I've been moving away from that arena and towards legit purchases as I get older, and I can see the future being more digital, but come on. If you don't give us freedom in the usage why the hell should we buy a(n) portable video player if we can't choose are favorite compression method, our favorite device, etc. If it doesn't inter-operate then it will eventually become vaporware or us (the sad customer) will end up with about 10 devices to do basically the same thing that maybe 1 or 2 devices could accomplish.
In conclusion. I do think Amazon is leaning towards the right direction, but I'd rather not have to undo the DRM just to be able to get the sucker to play in Windows Media Player Classic, or even into a converter so I can burn it to a DVD so I can watch on my tv. That is utter nonsense. Once that is out of the way I think we have a winner.
And don't even complain about the price. The 1.99 per show is fine. Its the same as itunes. You can get 10 episodes for 20 bucks. That isn't bad by any means.
"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty."
defectivebydesign
this one is a year old but shows how 'shitty' exchange is...
0 05/08/23/lotus-microsoft-email-cz_dl_0823lotus.htm l
http://www.forbes.com/intelligentinfrastructure/2
its not some mom and pop review... will fire up some gartner and idc ones as well tomorrow...
fly boy signing off...
sig goes here!
Amazon succeeded long ago because they were less expensive and more convenient.
Unbox is neither.
Q: Why do technology companies always overreach and seek to use the Internet to exploit customers using questionable if not outright illegal tactics?
A: For the same reason that dogs lick their balls. Because they can.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Reading through your exchange and the review you posted, youre missing the point. The guy you disagreed with was more or less saying that usage numbers dont mean squat (I have a more complex opinion on the subject). The article says that usage numbers of Exchange are up, *and qualifies it as being due to people using other MS software*. In other words, the review you dug up support the point of the guy youre arguing with. There was no mention of quality in the "review".
Seems to using 4MB whilst doing nothing on my machine.
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
The difference is that in iTunes, you buy videos from it's built in web browser. With Unbox, it keeps a service running polling the web server for new files that you've purchased outside of their client, in your normal web browser.
I truly don't know how the author didn't realize that when he bought his first video and a few minutes later, the client automatically found it and started downloading it.
You can also purchase videos on one PC and send them to another using that same background service. iTunes doesn't have that feature, so it doesn't require polling a server for new download requests.
That iTunesHelper service is totally unnecessary if you don't have an iPod. It should not "affect the app's functionality" if you don't have an iPod. Yet it does. None of Apple's software is very good on Windows though*, so it's about what I would expect.
* I was just watching an episode I downloaded from iTMS yesterday, and it kept allowing the screen saver to come on several times during the movie. When I rewoke my comp., the Quicktime viewing area was transparent (showing my desktop through) and wouldn't return to showing the episode until I restarted QT. Other Windows apps would simply disable the screensaver while they're active, or at least function properly when they return.
> Why fear the MPAA when merely exercising your rights?
Because in the US, fair use is an "affirmative defense," not an "absolute justification."
An absolute justification precludes legal action because of a supervening event (or right) which means that when it's proffered in response to a pleading a judge makes an evaluation and if it's been raised properly, the case is dismissed.
In contrast, fair use must be raised as a defense, which can only be resolved by proceeding with a long and expensive trial. You may take pride in the fact that it's an *affirmative* defense, which undermines the legal basis for their case, but your ultimate victory will be Pyrrhic as you wallow in poverty thereafter.
So why fear the MPAA? Because they're a faceless, soulless organization that can threaten and browbeat you and make your life miserable with an expensive lawsuit that will plague you for years, if not for the rest of your life. And it will cost them such a tiny insignificant amount of their war-chest that they will pursue you to your death without nary a thought on the part of a law clerk or accountant.
'You sure you're not a teensy bit afraid of them?
Are you really sure?
Although I would never allow such malware to run on my PC, it is concievable that such programs may be necessary from time to time. If you were really concerned about a service calling home all the time, I would write a script that monitors active network connections and shuts down any connection that matches a certain network address. You can do this on the command line with netstat /o /b and then kill the process of the program using that connection with tskill. I do it all the time. Hell, you could even write a script that checks network connections every N seconds and kills the connections automatically.
Now that's alot of work for trying to close down persistent connections, and it really only is a bandaid. If you have software or "services" that are aggressive enough to keep opening connections like that, I think it is best you re-evaluate the necessity of that software.
First off, iTunesHelper barely takes any memory at all (less than 4MB last I checked), and it gets paged out if you never use it. Second, Windows would see the iPod as a normal storage device, since it's nothing more than a FAT32-formatted external drive with some system folders on it.
It also monitors for iPod connections and aids iTunes in performing CD burning operations. You can monitor the process and see for yourself that it only kicks in when an iPod is plugged in or when you burn a CD in iTunes.
It should be noted that the Mac version also has an iTunesHelper process listed in the user's StartupItems folder. On the Mac, iTunesHelper is run from inside the iTunes bundle itself. This isn't some Window-only feature; it's cross-platform and is a part of iTunes' design.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Not true. The requirement is merely that the source should be available (read the licence itself if you want to know the exact terms). You do not have to ship the app complete with source code.
Again, not true - and dangerously close to the lies which Microsoft tells about the GPL's viral nature. *Use* of the software is quite unrestricted. The circumstance where you have to use the same licence is if you want to *re-distribute* the code. All the GPL says is that if you want to pass the code on to someone else then you have to give them the same rights which you received with the code.
There's an awful lot of FUD put about by those wanting to malign the GPL for their own profit - let's not add to it.
John
it breaks down like this:
it's legal to buy it, it's legal to own it and, if you're the proprietor of a video store, it's legal to sell it.
It's legal to carry it, which doesn't really matter 'cause -- get a load of this -- if the cops stop you, it's illegal for them to search you. Searching you is a right that the cops don't have.
Mod me down.. It's a useless comment that had to be made.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
I'm sure it would'nt be a problem for Apple to write a simple little install hook that adds itself to the registry when you install itunes that simply replaces WMP with itunes if you plug in an ipod.I think developers are getting infected with "gamers disease".They just don't think about things like managing system resources after most folks abandoned Win9X.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Have you noticed that if you terminate that process, you lose no functionality? Given this it's pretty obvious that the only reason for it to sit around is performance.
All devices have vendor and device ids available to Windows and allow you to provide an application handler for any given vendor/device id combo.
The cake is a pie
I love murderers - they show people the dangers of living and make everyone appreciate their life, and illustrate how nobody can trust other people to do the right thing ...
you fucking retard