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Is Microsoft Office Adware?
An anonymous reader writes "Office may fall under Microsoft's own definition of adware. It links to third-party commercial add-ons, includes up-selling promos, requires cookies for certain functions, and collects technical information. While this is like a normal day on the web, should the commercial office suite be held to a different standard and possibly be considered adware? The article also notes that clicking advertising links in Office will bring up Internet Explorer, regardless of whether or not it is the default browser. We discussed Microsoft's decision to turn Works into adware a few months ago.
SMOKE MARLBORO!!!
I think I've realized something about Microsoft: They really want us to NOT want to use Microsoft products. I finally get it -- It's not sufficient for them to own the market; in order to feel fully dominant, they must own it against our will. It's as though they think that if we wanted to use their products because they were good for us and worked in our best interest, it would not be true show of their power, for we'd be rational in wanting such products. Only if they can force their software down our throats whether we want it or not, do they have full assurance that their power is real.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I got a free copy of Office 2007 Pro from the "Power Together" Vista + Office giveaway. Haven't noticed any ads anywhere, it sure doesn't meet my definition of ad ware.
Is Microsoft Office Adware?
Of course not - If so, Windows Defender would block it. Which it doesn't. So no problem, right?
This is the low-end PC market. Knocking $40 off the manufacturer's build costs is probably major for them in this market. I know, Open Office, etc, but Works 7 (the last one I've seen) is actually pretty decent for what most people use, and the naive user who's buying these PCs just knows "Microsoft" for "Officey" stuff.
I would have been glad to get a free shrink wrap Works a few years ago. My mom was sending me documents in Works Word Processor format and I had to go buy Works to read them. Trust me, teaching "Save As . . . scroll down to Word... " wasn't practical with her at the time. It was a lot less painful to just go buy Works.
Finally, I hate to tell you, but the Works 7 Word Processor isn't actually that bad. It looks exactly like Word did a few years ago, and has all the features most people use.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
Wouldn't Windows fall under adware? Looking at the checklist it seems like they all apply... Especially Vista.
:(
On a side note, when I click on an email address in my Windows Mail, it opens Office Outlook. No, it is not set as my default mailer
I read it as "Badware". My ad.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
...Leopard to be adware as well. My copy came with links to iDisk/.mac and trial versions of iWorks with a few files that default to opening in Pages to get you hooked. While I can get rid of iWeb and iWorks, I cannot get rid of the iDisk link in the connect to menu item. Now that I think of it, iTunes is part of this whole adware strategy as well. Then there's Quicktime. Don't have the Pro version? Apple is going to tell you what you're missing in the menus by ghosting list items and putting a "Pro" tag next to everything. Personally I find this far more deplorable then a few links in what amounts to nothing more than an interactive/context sensitive help "palette". While many rabid anti-MS geeks on Slashdot might not find these links very helpful, some typical office workers will (and I'm sure Microsoft has the user studies to back this position up, unlike the typical Slashbot that has only anecdotal evidence they like to compare to actual data).
Sure, why not? I have been using Microsoft TechNet for a while now, and I kept getting these pop-ip prompts to install something called "Silverlight" just about every time. I have to use TechNet to do my job, so I finally just relented and hit the "OK" button.
Maybe Microsoft should come up with a new logo program: "Microsoft adware Aware"
Also uses I.E. when Firefox is the default (in win2k at least)
It drives me nuts because my boss *always* uses that instead of clicking the FF icon which is hindering my attempts to improve the workflow.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
NO NO
EMACS forever
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
MS sees the handwriting on the wall.
Warren Buffett saw it back in the early 90s when he said he wouldn't invest in Microsoft, because he didn't see a profitable business model (long term...Buffett's method).
Desperation is driving MS to use everything they can to continue the profit line, including using acquisitions to get what they couldn't create.
I don't have anything bad to say about MS, and use some of their products, but given their CEO's reputation and his lack of experience in any other large company, & changing FOSS world, I have this gut feel that says MS is going to have a REAL HARD time expanding its yearly sales and profits.
An OpenOffice advocacy site talking shit about Microsoft Office? Didn't see that one coming. But I guess Slashdot just has to get their Two Minutes Hate from somewhere...
Of course if this were a Microsoft Office advocacy site talking shit about OpenOffice we would have the FUD-Nazis screaming at the top of their lungs.
But honestly, I can't make myself care about the hypocrisy anymore; I am tired and bored of it even more than I am tired and bored of the whole Roger Clemens thing.
Back on-topic for a second, "adware" is not really a useful term as it encompasses a number of different things, some of which are not malicious and others which are. As long as Microsoft discloses what the software is doing then there really isn't any malicious intent.
EMACS sucks monkey-balls...., Real MEN use VI. http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/real_programmers.png
this is possibly the most incendiary, blatant attempt at microsoft-bashing that ive seen on slashdot. i mean... come on...
FYI: I don't know what you guys are talking about half the time.
And you had better have a passport, because on entrance you and your computer become subjects of El Presidente Señor Lanzero de Sillónes Ballmero.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
..is Intuit. Each year if you upgrade your Quickbooks, Intuit spends more effect and intrusiveness trying to up sell you on features and services related to their software. It has become so infuriating that I refuse to upgrade until I have no choice at all, in hopes someone will come up with something better that is functional enough to make me happy.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
They're looking at Office 2003, when the latest version of Office is 2007. In 2007, Firefox loaded every time I went to a link, whether in Office, via an Office dialog, or through Office help.
The article states, "it is unusual to require cookies or to use them in a desktop application", yet Office Online is the only part of Office that requires cookies. This doesn't seem that strange to me: no local features require them.
I wasn't able to find any ads in Office 2007, but because I'm running the latest version, none will probably show up until the next version of Office is released. Showing a couple of ad links at the bottom of the help text, and only after the user goes into help, stretches the definition of Adware a bit.
Almost everything Microsoft does makes a whole lot of more sense if you look at it from the standpoint that they hate their customers, but still want their money. I have never worked with products that exude more of a sense of contempt than those from Microsoft, and Vista is possibly the best example.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I'm still wondering how many years this stupid tagging beta thing will be left running until the Powers That Be realize it's only another vehicle to make stupid (and occasionally clever) commentary, and is never actually used for "tagging".
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
REAL men use butterflies!
Perhaps the manufacture should just give a genuine itemized invoice rather than bundling and let the market decide.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Desperation is driving MS to use everything they can to continue the profit line
I have this gut feel that says MS is going to have a REAL HARD time expanding its yearly sales and profits.
67 cents of every new retail dollar spent on PC software goes to MS Office.
Through end of November, U.S. retail PC software sales are up 10.3 percent year over year as measured in dollar volume, according to NPD. By comparison, Office sales are up 50.7 percent, by the same measure and in the same time frame. Office sales are so big, they make calculating broader PC software retail sales difficult. The "magnitude of Office sales relative to the rest of the PC software market is phenomenal. It's the massively huge tail wagging the dog." Retail Black Friday sales of Mac Office were up 215.8 percent year over year. While Mac Office generated blowout sales on Black Friday, Office 2007 sales growth was exceptionally good, too. Year-over-year U.S. retail Black Friday sales of Office were up 65.8 percent, as measured in dollars. The Year of Office 2007
Microsoft's profits are up 79%:
For the quarter that ended Dec. 31, profit rose to $4.71 billion, or 50 cents per share, from $2.63 billion, or 26 cents per share the previous year. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial had forecast a profit of 46 cents per share. Revenue rose 31 percent to $16.37 billion from $12.5 billion in the year-ago quarter, ahead of the analysts' prediction of $15.95 billion in sales.
{and, in what must be the understatement of the year]
"It looks like a very nice report," said Sarah Friar, an analyst for Goldman Sachs. Microsoft Corp. earnings leap 79 percent
I was sorely tempted to give my response a flamebait title like "The Geek Turns Delusional."
I won't disguise my opinion here that the Geek's increasingly frantic retreat from reality has been the Slashdot story since the posting of Microsoft's second quarter results.
The CDW poll points to a softening of enterprise IT negative attitudes toward Vista. Familiarity, it seems, has bred content: IT departments are happier with Vista's features, particularly in the area of security, and less concerned about the hardware costs of Vista than they were a year ago. Another year will bring further declines in the relative cost of PC hardware -- and make a lot of corporate desktop hardware look even more antique. Only a major economic downturn would be likely to derail current estimates of another strong year for PC sales, so even if Vista remains tied to hardware sales it would do well, and corporate upgrades could finally kick in as old hardware is upgraded. This has been a year when Vista has had its rough edges knocked off, and the marketplace has adjusted its expectations. By Vista's next birthday it should be more differentiated and acceptable for both its consumer and business marketplaces. Assessing Windows Vista On Its First Anniversary
they hate their licensees
There, fixed it for ya. The term "customer" leaves me with the impression that you've actually bought something and you can do want you want with it. I don't think this is how M$ sees it. Bill lets you use his s/w for a while if you behave and follow the rules.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
But is the article really flawed? Tell us, did you check what the info published was about, "clicking advertising links in Office will bring up Internet Explorer"?
This is what I did: I opened up Word 2000. I chose the "Help"-"About..." menu item. I clicked on the "Technical Support" button. A help window came up, containing a link to an online support site. I clicked that link. It took me to a microsoft site, full of ads. Up until this point it was not clear whether I was looking at a web site through Firefox (my default browser) or through IE7. Then I clicked on the MS Advertisement for "Microsoft Silverlight". Behold! IE7 opened the page... even though my Firefox is my default browser!
When I tried what you did, which is opening up links embedded in a Word document, I had the same result as you. But then again, the phrase you are picking on talked about advertising links, not embedded links.
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.