Mozilla Flips Kill-Switch On Skype Toolbar

An anonymous reader writes "Whenever Skype is installed or updated, it automatically installs the Skype Toolbar add-on for Firefox. Unfortunately, the add-on causes serious performance problems, slowing down some operations by a factor of 300 and is one of the top causes for Firefox crashes. As a result, Mozilla has decided to 'soft-block' the add-on, effectively killing it on all Firefox installs unless the user intentionally re-enables it. Given the extreme popularity of Skype, this has ramifications for millions of users."

Comments

do it mozilla.

[Skarecrow77]

the skype toolbar is junk anyway.

wait, let me fix it for myself

toolbars are junk anyway.

Re:do it mozilla.

[airrage]

hadn't posted since "...by airrage on Friday July 28 2006, @11:52AM." so just thought I would log back in and say hello. I shall now go back to my experiments. Good day to you sir!!

Re:do it mozilla.

[Pieroxy]

What puzzles me is companies (that are for-profit) blindly alienating customers by installing crap behind the scenes. I know that the average Joe probably notices nothing and will be hard pressed to link the firefox slowdown with the Skype install. On the other hand, skype users are not complete n00bs, so they are a population that probably has a good chance of finding out where the crap came from.

All in all, this kind of "strategy" puzzles me. What is the toolbar for anyways?

Re:do it mozilla.

[by (1706743)]

You're wrong -- toolbars are awesome...

Re:do it mozilla.

[Lord Byron II]

Wow... that's a long time to lurk.

Re:do it mozilla.

[cboslin]

Skype is wonderful as a VoIP phone, 3-way video calling tool, but a toolbar from them, no way in you know where.

You are sooo right, tool bars are crap (junk as you put it). Why companies waste their time putting yet another attack vector into their products and on our PCs, laptops, netbooks and smart phones (no root access ~ dumb device...it just ain't smart) is beyond me. A good reason not to purchase their products/services.

Even more unforgivable is auto update, auto upgrade or doing anything with my purchased hardware without my explicit permission, period. Even opensource companies are now making this fatal mistake. Fortunately I can switch to other Linux distros that are not stupidly attempting to control this part of my IT/Internet life. The last thing we need is having a tool bar forced upon us during an upgrade!

Toolbars, Flash, Actionscript, .NET, that put additional scripting into our browsers without allowing us some form of control is just slowing down our surfing and opening up our life to crackers and should be avoided. Bandwidth is at a premium for most of us, they need to stop wasting what little we have. (There is not bandwidth scarcity, this is a myth created by cable/telcos in order to increase our monthly payments)

Lets face it until our Internet providers STOP throttling our upstream bandwidth any excessive additional scripting, javascript, actionscript, crapscript, etc.. only serves to slow down our web surfing. It was bad enough to see "Loading..." that use to be reserved for inferior Flash sites and Yahoo eamil, now we see that crap on Gmail accounts too ... ugh.

It would not be a problem if my cable upstream bandwidth which is suppose to be "up to 2Mb" were not throttled to below 10Kb the majority of the time. When scripts stop working, video sputters, web pages will not load, I check my DD-WRT logging software and see my upstream bandwidth has been restricted all the way down to 0 Kbps, with spikes to 4Kbps...pathetic. Digg is unusuable at low upstream bandwidths, as our other social media sites that use frames and extra HTML + CSS + (anything else) and especially TOOLBARS!

One day I will have Synchronous FTTH Internet and a minimum of 10Mb/10Mb and these Cable Internet no service issues will becomes a thing of Christmas past - thank goodness. Even DSL at a promised 384KB upstream is over 300 times faster than 100% of throttled Cable Internet, DSL is cheaper too, even after paying out $200 to get started. Not a fan of AT&T, however they offer an 80% upstream bandwidth guarantee with their DSLExtreme service and the price is right, but I digress.

People take a look at your websites, let the web surfer decide when an event is triggered, stop helping us and automating events we don't care about that only serve to slow us down. It makes your website unusable for many of us and if it gets frustrating enough, we will stop using your site, period.

Re:do it mozilla.

[Cwix]

skype users are not complete n00bs

Really, my roommate loves skype, She cant figure out how to work it worth a damn. Id like to throttle the person who told her about it, because Ive become customer support.

Re:do it mozilla.

[Cwix]

OMG. I suppose you have to give IE credit for even being able to load all that.

Re:do it mozilla.

[Anonymous Coward]

All in all, this kind of "strategy" puzzles me. What is the toolbar for anyways?

Highlights phone numbers online, then adds a button so you can make a skype call to that number.

Re:do it mozilla.

[digitig]

Most of them. Certainly the Skype one is; it trashes the look of websites by putting the skype icon next to almost any string of numbers whether it's a phone number or not, and it's completely unnecessary for using Skype.

Re:do it mozilla.

[metamatic]

On the other hand, skype users are not complete n00bs

Allow me to introduce you to my mother and her sister-in-law. (People who aren't complete n00bs use standard VoIP, not proprietary crap like Skype.)

Re:do it mozilla.

[macpacheco]

Clap, clap, clap. Thanks mozilla crew !

Agreed, all toolbars are junk. It's just that some are more junk than others.

Skype toolbar is the hyperbole of all junk stuff short of being a fully fledged virus.

Remember, Skype comes from the same company that gave us Napster. Some versions of Napster installed software on our computer to use it for computational intensive calculations without our approval. I'll never forget that, ergo, Skype for me will always be evil. Almost as evil as any virus.

If you run Skype on a valid internet IP address, your computer becomes a bridge to allow two skype users behind a NAT to talk to each other.
My bandwidth is not free, and I don't want it wasted for other people.

Again, Skype is evil.

Re:do it mozilla.

[flyneye]

Hey!
    Get your damn snow tires off my dragster!

Re:do it mozilla.

[Archangel Michael]

One of my colleagues sent me a pic similar to that, from a real client with the caption "What is wrong with this picture". I looked at it for a few seconds and said ...

"It doesn't have Y! or Google Toolbars?"

Noticed that on this one too.

Also, I call Bogus, as it is running vmware tools. Nice try though.

Re:do it mozilla.

[warrax_666]

I love how the only content you can actually see on the MSN page is "meet sexy singles".

Re:do it mozilla.

[dougisfunny]

He said Good day!

Re:do it mozilla.

[miknix]

hadn't posted since "...by airrage on Friday July 28 2006, @11:52AM." so just thought I would log back in and say hello. I shall now go back to my experiments. Good day to you sir!!

you must be new here..

Re:do it mozilla.

[Anonymous Coward]

good call on the fix it yourself, LOL. 100% agree, nothing drives me more nuts that to have someone whine about their computer being so slow, and then you look at their desktop or open their browser, and its totally cluttered with every inane thing some [edit] company decided they wanted to force down their throat because they were too stupid to uncheck the "install all this extra bloatware" box on whatever program it was that they were actually looking for. Adobe, this includes you, you morons.

Hats off to Mozilla on this one.

Re:do it mozilla.

[ifiwereasculptor]

Clap, clap, clap.

Very good analogy. These toolbars do infiltrate your system when you least expect it, infect other programs you use and are sources of embarassment. You should always be protected.

Re:do it mozilla.

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't that be done with a Greasemonkey script?

Re:do it mozilla.

[dude420]

Yeah and locked down dumb phones are awesome. Bursts into a million pieces of glittery magic !

Re:do it mozilla.

[Chris Mattern]

But he has to have it! It's getting him All the Internet!

Re:do it mozilla.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree , skype has got some work to do in the code review dept.

Re:do it mozilla.

[__aatirs3925]

They should have made the kills witch for Java, and while we're at it plugins-container.exe ;)

Re:do it mozilla.

[yuna49]

Why companies waste their time putting yet another attack vector into their products and on our PCs, laptops, netbooks and smart phones (no root access ~ dumb device...it just ain't smart) is beyond me.

You don't see any value to having a corporate logo like Yahoo's or Norton's continuously in front of people's faces whenever they use their web browsers? Hmm, maybe you should sign up for Marketing 101.

Most people don't care about second- and higher-order ramifications of installing something like a toolbar. In many cases they didn't install it themselves anyway. It came that way from the OEM. In the case of something like Norton, they probably feel reassured that Symantec is looking over their shoulders while they surf.

Re:do it mozilla.

[yuri benjamin]

Id like to throttle the person who told her about it, because Ive become customer support.

Then stop. Unless you're getting something out of it, why be free support for friends and roommates? I'll help people once for twice as a favour, but after that I play dumb and make like I've exhausted my knowledge on the matter and refer them to a professional.

Re:do it mozilla.

[Seng]

Notice the VMWare tool icon in the systray -- No way someone would do that w/o being able to do a snapshot rollback ;)

Re:do it mozilla.

[multipartmixed]

I'm not a complete noob, and I use Skype. It works fine, as far as I can tell.

Can you suggest a VoIP client for my phone that supports video chat?

Re:do it mozilla.

[lorenlal]

Likely, but then Skype wouldn't be using that to possibly siphon traffic to see their ads and pay to make the call... I mean, that is the real point right?

I think Skype is quite alright for what it does... Namely communicate with other Skype users. But I was sick of that extension and sick of re-disabling it on every update. If Mozilla is blocking it for me, awesome.

Re:do it mozilla.

[Anonymous Coward]

I fully support this, I isolated the skype toolbar to adding extra content in text area's. When you use WYSIWYG editors, this corrupted a lot of html. Shame, shame on you.

Re:do it mozilla.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a complete noob, and I use Skype. It works fine, as far as I can tell.

Can you suggest a VoIP client for my phone that supports video chat?

Facetime

Re:do it mozilla.

[maxwell demon]

They should have made the kills witch for Java, and while we're at it plugins-container.exe ;)

You think Mozilla should engage in witch-hunt?

Re:do it mozilla.

[Hognoxious]

Highlights phone numbers online, then adds a button so you can make a skype call to that number.

Are people getting too dumb or lazy to copy and paste?

Re:do it mozilla.

[Skal Tura]

prying on your private data probably.

It's total junk and annoyaance. I wish i could install years upon years old skype, i hate it how Skype acts like it has total privilege to do anything on my computer, hijacking port 80 for routing some calls, the toolbar crap, the new UI is crap, it's bloat ware and you can't actually shut it down from anywhere else but task manager. Ouch!

I try to avoid Skype as much as possible. Unfortunately i do got some friends who won't use anything except skype, and that sucks. I'm forced to keep skype for merely a couple people :(

Re:do it mozilla.

[wideBlueSkies]

Yes.

Re:do it mozilla.

[scdeimos]

Have you ever tried the Quit option? No, really. It quits Skype.

My issue with Skype are the spammers - even though all my preferences are set so that only people in my Contacts can actually message or call me, I still get these annoying "Wanna be my friend?" messages pop up occasionally. In short, "No, fuck off", block, and curse my employer for making me install it - we use it for inter-office messaging and calling.

Re:do it mozilla.

[rjch]

You think Mozilla should engage in witch-hunt?

Obligatory Monty Python reference...

Re:do it mozilla.

[thsths]

the skype toolbar is junk anyway.

Yes, I figure that out pretty quickly. In the beginning, all the telephone links seemed useful, but soon they get just annoying.

wait, let me fix it for myself

toolbars are junk anyway.

Not necessarily. Showing the toolbar is useless, yes. But you could hide the toolbar, and still benefit from its functionality. If there is any, that is.

Re:do it mozilla.

[kdemetter]

We found a toolbar , may we burn it ?

Re:do it mozilla.

[Anonymous Coward]

Id like to throttle the person who told her about it, because Ive become customer support.

Then stop. Unless you're getting something out of it, why be free support for friends and roommates? I'll help people once for twice as a favour, but after that I play dumb and make like I've exhausted my knowledge on the matter and refer them to a professional.

I think I see a reason.

Re:do it mozilla.

[Vectormatic]

Be-zinga?

Re:do it mozilla.

[TikiTDO]

My grandmother uses Skype. She has not yet figured out that an email address will not work if you misspell it. After repeated lessons. That's about as complete a noob as you can find. What more, she is most certainly not a unique example in this respect.

Skype is one of the most popular mainstream online communication systems out there. The fact that they are doing something like this means the problem is probably serious enough that they had no other option.

Re:do it mozilla.

[smash]

Skype has always hijacked your computer to route other people's calls.

Re:do it mozilla.

[cbope]

The problem with the skype toolbar, is that it generally cannot know what is a phone number and what is just a number. Shortly after they released this crap, I removed it since it wanted to highlight practically any number more than a couple digits in length as a callable number, even when the number was obviously NOT a phone number.

It's really just a cheap way to drive traffic and usage to skype. I use skype regularly for both work and personal use, but this toolbar was garbage from the beginning. Unfortunately, their software quality seems to be slipping even in the main client app. For example, it never shows me as "away", even though I have configured it to go into away mode after 5 minutes of inactivity. The client insists I am always available and online, even when I am away from the computer for hours at a time. I get tired of explaining to friends and family that, really, I was away from my computer and not ignoring their calls. Again, I believe this is a sneaky tactic by skype to drive usage up.

Re:do it mozilla.

[multipartmixed]

Facetime only works when you're connected to Wi-Fi (how stupid is that?) and I don't ... think? .. it's VoIP.

Re:do it mozilla.

[Anonymous Coward]

friends with benefits :) is she hot??

Re:do it mozilla.

[hvm2hvm]

They always were

Re:do it mozilla.

[danknight]

My new background ! finally, The meekrat looks like windows.

Re:do it mozilla.

[recoiledsnake]

OMG. I suppose you have to give IE credit for even being able to load all that.

Firefox does seem to have trouble doing that. http://i.imgur.com/qD2OV.png

Re:do it mozilla.

[danwiz]

One solution to helping friend/roommates/relatives is to give them a detailed bill charging normal market rates.

Then zero out the total with a "courtesy" discount.

This serves several purposes:
It provides them, and you, a detailed record of what was done.
It lets them know that your time is worth money.

Re:do it mozilla.

[metamatic]

Fring. Uses SIP.

Re:do it mozilla.

[Atti K.]

installing crap behind the scenes.

I agree, it's crap, and it's installed behind the scenes, IF you do a Next-Next-Next-Finish install. Just choose the Advanced/Custom/I-know-what-I'm-doing install option and you can deselect the toolbar. This is true for Skype and for most other toolbar-installing software.

Re:do it mozilla.

[Anonymous Coward]

(People who aren't complete n00bs use standard VoIP, not proprietary crap like Skype.)

And people who aren't n00bs that want to communicate with their n00b friends? Do I have any options but to whine about proprietary crap? Of course I can recommend my friends to use something free, but I can't force them. And my relations are a bigger concern to me than proprietary crap.

Re:do it mozilla.

[Anonymous Coward]

It would have the equivalent slowdown. The problem here is watching for DOM mutations.

And for that, I blame Mozilla, for not having a _useful_ way of watching mutations, probably in a batched way.

Re:do it mozilla.

[AmiMoJo]

Tragedy of the Commons.

For Skype putting a toolbar in Firefox and running their software at login makes it both more visible to the user and makes them contactable as long as the PC is on. Therefore it adds perceived value to their product. The only down side is that the computer is a bit slower, but that isn't Skype's problem. Unfortunately every software company thinks this way so by the time the user has installed a few apps your PC takes a minute to boot and runs like a dog. The user blames Microsoft or the PC manufacturer, not understanding what is happening.

In other words computing resources are limited and available to all running software. Each app may as well use as much of those resources as it can to get maximum performance and exposure, except that then every app suffers as resources become scarce.

Re:do it mozilla.

[AmiMoJo]

There were talking about making a proper UI for these silently installed plug-ins but I don't know what happened to it. Even just a little pop-up windows telling you how shit^H^H^H^H value-added the software you just installed is by trying to slyly insert a toolbar into another, with an option to block it, would be a good start.

Re:do it mozilla.

[AmiMoJo]

A lot of people just don't seem to realise that the computer often lies to them. When "install toolbar to make your life better (recommended)" is selected by default they seem to think "I don't know much about computers so I had better just do what it says". They are probably the same people who believe what they read in newspapers like The Sun.

This is why...

[fishexe]

...software makers should not auto-install add-ons to other programs that users haven't asked for. WTG Skype.

Re:This is why...

[gorzek]

Oh, but you "asked" for it when you didn't bother to uncheck the "Yes, install Skype Toolbar!" button during installation. Never mind that it's checked by default and most people just click "Next" until the thing is finished...

Re:This is why...

[CastrTroy]

Skype installing a toolbar isn't half as annoying as the JRE (Java Runtime) or my Logitech Mouse Software installing the Yahoo! toolbar.

Re:This is why...

[KiwiSurfer]

Skype installing a toolbar isn't half as annoying as the JRE (Java Runtime) or my Logitech Mouse Software installing the Yahoo! toolbar.

Why bother installing the Logitech mouse software? Surely it works fine with out it?

Re:This is why...

[sjwt]

Because of games do shit house mapping of the extra buttons, or even wont let you re-map some keys.

Every time I have to use my keyword in a FPS, I lose a touch of immersion, more so if its something that i could of mapped onto my mouse.

Re:This is why...

[petermgreen]

It depends what you want out of a mouse. If you only have a basic mouse with two buttons and a clickable wheel then I agree there isn't a whole lot of point installing the vendors software.

On the other hand if you have extra buttons (or even things like sideways rocking of the wheel) and want to actually use them in normal desktop use (most apps other than games don't natively understand extra buttons) then you need extra software.

Re:This is why...

[fishexe]

Skype installing a toolbar isn't half as annoying as the JRE (Java Runtime) or my Logitech Mouse Software installing the Yahoo! toolbar.

I agree, they shouldn't install that either. Why can't all those fuckers just leave our browsers alone?

Re:This is why...

[LordLimecat]

Depends what mouse youre using and if you need /want to configure mouse buttons to masquerade as hotkeys.

Re:This is why...

[Vectormatic]

my logitech mx518 (two mouse buttons, clickable scroll wheel, two mouse sensitivity buttons, back/forward buttons) works under XP without any sort of extra logitech drivers.

honestly, i can see installing drivers for a joystick or something, but a mouse?

Re:This is why...

[YggdrasilOS]

Sadly, there are many games that fail to recognize any mouse buttons beyond the basic 3 (left, right, middle). Additionally, there are mouses out there with >5 buttons, and almost no game I've seen recognizes mouse6-mouse11 for keybinding. For these reasons, and many more (macros, custom sensitivity stages, bypassing Windows's awful acceleration curve, &c.), installing mouse drivers often makes sense.

Re:This is why...

[Anonymous Coward]

You need the software in order to remap buttons, which is very commonly used by gamers and photo/video editor types

Re:This is why...

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually like the Logitech software. I can set the acceleration a lot higher than I normally can in windows, and the extra buttons can be customized on a per application basis. The update checking can be turned off pretty easily. It's also nice to know when the battery is close to dying before your mouse stops working instead of when it stops working.

All I have to say is...

[masterwit]

All I have to say is good for them! Yahoo toolbar here, Some-Terribly-Pointless toolbar there... as I warn people I know, always press the "Advanced Install" option and if possible.

Skype is Adware, there I said it. Do something without the user's consent or knowledge (what is a EULA?)... I mean who uses a Skype toolbar anyway? Most people I ask usually reply, "Well I didn't know how to get rid of it..."

Rabble rabble rabble...I hate these types of software "bonuses" and blatant "promotions". Is it just me or do companies not realize that these practices usually make the customer angry? (I mean it certainly doesn't make them happy every time they view something they disabled.) /endrant

Re:All I have to say is...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's code like yours which makes for buggy toolbars. You're missing the /rant tag for your /endrant.

Re:All I have to say is...

[CyprusBlue113]

If you aren't angry enough to not purchase over it, then clearly you aren't offsetting the money they make using the feature.

Re:All I have to say is...

[mcgrew]

It's not that they don't know, it's that they don't care. So what if they piss you off? They don't need your business; it's a global market and they have seven billion other prospective customers.

Re:All I have to say is...

[egranlund]

Well, beyond the ads you speak of, this toolbar is useful in that it makes phone numbers on web pages render as links to call the number in skype which is nifty.

Re:All I have to say is...

[danlip]

I'm just vaguely annoyed. I do advanced install on every piece of software I install. Skype allows you to not install the toolbar, and so does just about every other piece of software with this annoyance. It so common and there is a work around so I'm not going to try and shop around for products that don't do it. Still I wish they wouldn't.

Re:All I have to say is...

[masterwit]

For me the /rant tag is depreciated... it is implied now and built into my thought-process compiler.

Re:All I have to say is...

[masterwit]

Very true... but if we look at AOL's homepage and Google's homepage, there is a tipping point for many users on clutter.

it's a global market and they have seven billion other prospective customers

Except for China now right? Either way your point is entirely valid.

Re:All I have to say is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Depreciated? It's value went down over time?

Re:All I have to say is...

[vlueboy]

Is it just me or do companies not realize that these practices usually make the customer angry?

The sad reality is that they do all the math in advance and it works for them to use this formula:
take_advantage_of_customer() until ( angry_customer_count >= oblivious_customers_count )

Bold company complacency creates user distrust, boredom and other such "customer classes" who become very vocal online. Some major complaint convinces a class or two to riducule or vouch against the company, and suddenly you have the next AOL, who has gone from 20 million users to 5 after y2k.

Unfortunately, that's an exception and most companies can do what they like, especially for free services. See Facebook.

Re:All I have to say is...

[Anonymous Coward]

As an employee of a company that puts a toolbar in browsers, believe me when I tell you that if you have a large enough user base, you CAN generate a significant supplemental stream of revenue from inserting a toolbar. For us, it amounts to enough to hire an entire team of full-time Engineers to do with what we like.

I would actually be fine with ditching it, but the bean counters are not willing to trade a guaranteed, measurable income stream with the vague prospect that happier customers would make up for the loss in revenue.

Re:All I have to say is...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the bean counters are not willing to trade a guaranteed, measurable income stream with the vague prospect that happier customers would make up for the loss in revenue.

And that is why they fail.

Honestly, any business model that relies on annoying people or tricking people eventually fails. Certainly it can work for awhile. But those bean counters are probably writing their resumes for their next jobs and leaving you folks to sink.

Re:All I have to say is...

[Anonymous Coward]

>I do advanced install on every piece of software I install.
Thats an unknown parameter to me. is it
apt-get -advanced -install
or maybe its aptitude?

Re:All I have to say is...

[sjwt]

Add him as a Foe, that will automatically add a few tags. /rant /pointless /stupid /uninformed /wrong

++many more! and close them off automatically when the user forges.

Re:All I have to say is...

[petermgreen]

I guess the debian equivilent would be setting the debconf priority to low so you see every question.

But unlike the vendors of propietry software the debian developers usually choose defaults that are friendly to users rather than to corporate interests.

Re:All I have to say is...

[Lanteran]

heh, a debian user. You should compile by hand, without a compiler, as men once did!

Re:All I have to say is...

[Hognoxious]

Other people say it's worse than useless because doing that buggers up the formatting and eats a lot of CPU.

The obvious answer (though not to Skype, it seems, or maybe I'm just a fucking genius) is to make it easily switchable.

Re:All I have to say is...

[masterwit]

Haha nice typo. Funny.

Bravo

[Fast Thick Pants]

Any extension that's known to be installed on the sly should make the kill list in my opinion, but especially one that's causing crashes.

Problems with Chrome too

[decipher_saint]

I had a similar problem yesterday except in Chrome. I guess I wasn't really paying attention but why the hell does Skype install toolbars without my input anyway?

That addon was removed pretty damn quick after it crashed and locked up my browsing session. Useless crap...

Re:Problems with Chrome too

[Seumas]

This must be a Windows thing, because I installed Skype about two or three months ago and it never installed any toolbars or other crap -- either in Firefox nor Chrome.

Re:Problems with Chrome too

[decipher_saint]

It actually happened as part of a Skype update that rolled out recently (this week I think).

But it could be a Windows thing, regardless: toolbar - do not want!

sounds like this

[nimbius]

summary was written by a skype executive...just because you developed a great product doesnt mean there isnt:
1. competition that is less popular but technologically superior, just waiting for an advance
2. cause to assume your success and popularity are justification for sloppy software lifecycle practices.
3. open source communities capable of reacting organically to protect their users, not your profits.

Re:sounds like this

[Cwix]

Youd have to tweak #3 some but, yes.

If they make a decision based on the customer good (key point), and make it easy to undo the change. Then I have no issues with them doing it.

Note: Im not a big Apple fan.

re: sounds like this

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Sir or Madam,

When you start your post in the "subject" box, and continue it on in the body of the post as if it's just another line break, it makes you look like an ignorant twat.

Please refrain from this usage in the future.

Thank you,

Rand M. User III

Re:sounds like this

[Tim C]

I disagree - Skype *is* extremely popular, and this *will* affect millions of people. Besides, do you really think a Skype exec would publicly say that their software causes serious performance problems?

Your other points are all true but really have nothing to do with the summary, which is simply a statement of facts.

But you still can't uninstall it...

[CCarrot]

I had this blocked from the minute I installed Skype, and since I'm not in the habit of calling random strangers on the internets via the 'callto:' tag, I haven't noticed any performance problems with Skype at all...

However, the uninstall button for the plug-in is greyed out, so there's no quick way to remove it altogether. I'm sure there must be a way, I just haven't cared enough about it (yet) to google for a solution.

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[jack2000]

WHY is it grayed out? WHY MOZILLA? Tell us?

This is not acceptable, the button should always be enabled even if the file is a plugin and resides outside of mozilla's profile folders, have a delete plugin file button. When you click it if you don't have the user rights to delete the file it should automatically throw a user escalation prompt.
How hard is it to get this right? COME ON!

While we are at it forbid installation of plugins and extensions without direct user approval from inside firefox. What OTHER installers are doing to firefox shouldn't be trusted, not at all.

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[RazzleFrog]

I agree that no outside installer should be able to install an addon without explicit permission the next time the user enters the browser. Would avoid people who don't know better than to look at all those checkbox options when they install something (like anything from Yahoo or even Java).

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[Andy Dodd]

You've got to be really careful with anything that requires user escalation... I'm not sure if there is a clean way to do this. However, this is the reason there are some "uninstallable" addons - They're addons that were installed system-wide.

Just deleting files from Firefox unfortunately screws up uninstaller apps.

I don't think there is a clean way to do what you want in a cross-platform manner.

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[The MAZZTer]

Because such add-ons are installed and loaded differently from standard add-ons. Normal add-ons are per-user and reside in the user's profile; Firefox knows what this directory structure looks like and can safely remove addons. However these special add-ons are installed who knows where on your disk and a special registry entry set up to have every Firefox user profile load them. Firefox doesn't even know if it CAN be uninstalled (Example: user permissions forbid writing to the add-on's folder, likely to happen under Vista/7).

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[OverlordQ]

WHY is it grayed out? WHY MOZILLA? Tell us?

Because it's installed globally, IE for all profiles. Why should user a be able to remove it for user b?

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[Anonymous Coward]

i agree. say a application does install a toolbar without the user being aware. FireFox could detect the new toolbar and prompt the user if they would like to actually use it. We can't control what others do during installation but we could control what FireFox does when new stuff is added to it.

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because chances are 90 out of 91 that user B doesn't want it either.

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Then it shouldn't ever load them

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[UnknownSoldier]

> Why should user a be able to remove it for user b?

Because maybe it is a trojan/spyware/adaware that was installed by mistaked, you know.

Firefox should either
a) let the _user_ uninstall it, with the dialog that pops up "Warning: This will effect all users!", or
b) "You need to restart firefox in administrator mode to uninstall this plugin. Would you like to do that now? [ ]Yes, [ ] No"

It's not fricken rocket science.

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[RollingThunder]

Then why not have the uninstall button active, but instead of uninstalling, it pops up an explanation?

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[SydShamino]

The next time the user enters the browser, how is the browser supposed to know if an addon is new?

Should Firefox maintain a list of installed addons? What stops a shady addon from manually modifying this list?
Should Firefox sign a list of installed addons? Firefox is open source; what stops a shady addon from just reading the key from the code and signing the updated list? Would you want your list of installed addons to automatically transmit to a mozilla website so that they can sign using a private key? That causes all sorts of privacy concerns on its own.

I, too, would like and have asked for something like this. But I'm pretty certain that they can't do it without a server call or closing a piece of their code.

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[CCarrot]

Why should user a be able to remove it for user b?

Conversely, why should user b be able to force it on user a?

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[SydShamino]

Well, Firefox could ignore that "special registry entry" and instead require special add-ons to install a small "hook" in each user's profile. That way each user could still remove the addon from their Firefox instance, yet only one version of the addon is still required on the system.

New users wouldn't get the existing addon. Tough.

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Conversely, why should user b be able to force it on user a?

Because user B owns the computer. Otherwise user A can by their own damn pc.

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should user A be able to install it for user B?

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[CCarrot]

Because user B owns the computer. Otherwise user A can by their own damn pc.

Interesting logic there...do you always set up your non-privileged accounts before your admin accounts, then?

Question for you, does Skype even need admin access to install (I've only ever tried with an admin account, so IDK)? So, assuming that A owns the computer and B is 'another user', can B install Skype thereby forcing that POS of a toolbar on A?

Just wonderin...

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[Your.Master]

People are proposing a solution for problem A and your counterargument is that it doesn't solve case B. Skype is not a malicious addon, it's an incompetent addon, and this is a fix for incompetent addons.

A lock on your door makes it slightly more difficult for unauthorized people to get in, even though a murderer could just set your house on fire while you sleep.

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[Bruce Cran]

That's almost exactly what Chrome does except that new users do get the plugin and have to 'uninstall' it if they don't want it.

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Firefox doesn't even know if it CAN be uninstalled (Example: user permissions forbid writing to the add-on's folder, likely to happen under Vista/7).

It doesn't have to uninstall the plugin files itself - it merely has to unlink itself from the plugin, and that much is within its power. The reason it's greyed out is because it's installed for all users. Disabling has the same effect.

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[Lehk228]

they live outside of the firefox user profile so it should not be editing them, what should be happening is "global" items should be blacklistable per-user account and delete should show up special and indicate that it is not being deleted from the system but being blocked from showing up for the current user's profile, and a way somehow to re-activate it (through about:config)

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[GIL_Dude]

Although this idea can work, it just starts an escalation. Assume Firefox is updated to do this. Firefox has to track the information about addons it knows about so that it can detect the new one. The slimeballs that are doing this eventually figure out how the tracking works and set it to approved. Then Mozilla makes an update to encrypt the store of known addons. It stops the slimeballs for awhile. Eventually, they figure out how to copy an encrypted data blob that has several known addons already allowed - including theirs. Mozilla makes another update - this time to use some LUID type information as part of the encryption so that the files can't be copied. Another escalation. Unfortunately it is hard to stop bad behavior with technical solutions.

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[X0563511]

Or hell, just give us a link to the damn thing's folder so we can delete it manually.

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[X0563511]

You know how the download interface has a means to open the download's folder? The same thing could be done for the addon - and if the user has rights* to remove that, they can exercise those rights.

* - either directly, or indirectly (run-as-administrator, IT ticket, different user, etc)

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[Anonymous Coward]

and a special registry entry set up to have every Firefox user profile load them

Not true. I was trying to get rid of the myriad Java plugins and addons the other day so I looked into Firefox's plugin model. For stupid historical reasons, Firefox actively goes looking for plugins in subdirectories of "C:\Program Files". Which means that the only way to globally delete plugins is to rename or delete the files in random directories outside of Firefox.

There should really be an option to turn off this behaviour. Or maybe there is and like everything else to do with plugins it's not documented properly.

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[heathen_01]

Should be controlled by the OS. What right does any software have to be messing around in the firefox directories anyway?

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[jack2000]

about:plugins is your friend. I wish they'd make it more straightforward. Maybe have an option to not load it for your profile, and another option to open the folder the plugin resides in. The name of the plugin's library could be show to the user before the folder is opened in case of multiple libraries per folder.

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[BZ]

Because user b is an admin on the machine? That's typically what being administrator means.

Though note that while the systemwide extensions can't be uninstalled, they _can_ be disabled. They'll still show up in the list, but they won't have any of their code running and won't affect the browser's behavior in any way other than being in the list.

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[BZ]

Users can disable systemwide addons via the addons manager, which effectively removes them from their Firefox instance. They still show up in the list, as disabled, and the user can reenable them if they want, but they no longer affect the browser in any other way.

In any case, the systemwide addon functionality is really meant for stuff like enterprise deployments; Skype is fundamentally abusing it here...

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[sjwt]

Because the installer asked!

And as all software knows, 'the user stupid enough to install me knows best'

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[X0563511]

That doesn't give you information on extensions (which are something different).

IE, flash player shows up in that, but Adblock Plus doesn't.

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[TangoMargarine]

This would be a good example of a situation that would benefit from my proposed universal third button in GUIs: "OK," "Cancel," and "STFU And Do What I Say Regardless of Whether It May Supposedly Damage My System" (could be shortened to "Fuck It" for visual considerations). As uninstalling these damn extensions involves modifying the registry, I would be tempted to tell it to just rip them out regardless.

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[TangoMargarine]

I'm trying to decide whether I'd be more angered at an "Uninstall" button you can't click, or one that you click and does nothing...

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[jack2000]

Maybe some sort of a program or a kernel hook that you point at a dialog box/program and it monitors for the next registry changes, it then shows you what the program changed and gives you the option of removing the registry entry/ reverting it to something or inputing a custom string so you don't have to bother looking it up in regedit. Hell it could even change the dialog boxes to include a fuck it button.

Native dialog boxes are in User32.dll right? Maybe some one could rewrite bits of it to have the hook for the Fuck it button.

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[k.a.f.]

Although this idea can work, it just starts an escalation. Assume Firefox is updated to do this. Firefox has to track the information about addons it knows about so that it can detect the new one. The slimeballs that are doing this eventually figure out how the tracking works and set it to approved. Then Mozilla makes an update to encrypt the store of known addons. It stops the slimeballs for awhile. Eventually, they figure out how to copy an encrypted data blob that has several known addons already allowed - including theirs. Mozilla makes another update - this time to use some LUID type information as part of the encryption so that the files can't be copied. Another escalation. Unfortunately it is hard to stop bad behavior with technical solutions.

Of course it's hard, that's why we wish the developers would do it instead of us less-able users. And of course it won't work perfectly all the time, but it's still way better than what we have now: slimeballs have unlimited access to your install, all the effing time! Oh, and once we get to the encryption/verification stage, what they do might actually become illegal in some jurisdictions, because it's access control circumvention. So, yeah, it's not perfect, but there are good reasons to take up the fight instead of taking it all lying down.

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[Anonymous Coward]

It certainly didn't prevent user A from installing it for user B...

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe RazzleFrog is talking about an hypothetic rule here : if your software circumvents it, I would expect to get remote kill-switched everywhere and banned from the Mozilla add-on repository (which is a significant source of installs for popular add-ons).

Add-ons writers tend not to write addons like someone would write viruses : the goal is more often to establish brand name X, recruit more users, provide additional features etc ... no sensible company would ruin its image using "virus like add-ons". Save SONY ofc.

Re:But you still can't uninstall it...

[Andy Dodd]

This could screw up, for example, packaging systems when the file gets deleted in a manner other than what the installer/packaging system expects.

And of course, there is the issue of rights - Privilege escalation is a dangerous thing, and I get the impression that at the moment, it's something the Mozilla team hasn't touched and probably doesn't want to touch. The annoyance of "Greyed-out" system addons is nowhere near as bad as the problems adding a privilege escalation mechanism could cause.

Queue endless discussion on allowing add-ons...

[HarvardAce]

And here comes the endless 500 post thread on how shouldn't allow to install without . This then ends up becoming a debate on operating system security and rights management and 100 other completely unrelated topics. Oh, and vi is better.

Re:Queue endless discussion on allowing add-ons...

[HarvardAce]

d'oh...that should have read:

And here comes the endless 500 post thread on how [Browser X] shouldn't allow [Add-on Y] to install without [User doing Z].

This then ends up becoming a debate on operating system security and rights management and 100 other completely unrelated topics.

Oh, and vi is better.

Re:Queue endless discussion on allowing add-ons...

[Anonymous Coward]

And here comes the endless 500 post thread on how shouldn't allow to install without . This then ends up becoming a debate on operating system security and rights management and 100 other completely unrelated topics. Oh, and vi is better.

Naw, it becomes a 500-post thread about how, if they'd just left an about:config option for the goddamn status bar, we wouldn't have to bog our browsers down with third-party modifications (whether they be in the form of add-ons or extensions.)

Re:Queue endless discussion on allowing add-ons...

[CCarrot]

And here comes the endless 500 post thread on how shouldn't allow to install without...

And another 501 posts complaining about other people's comments...

Re:Queue endless discussion on allowing add-ons...

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Oh, and vi is better.

F that noise. If it was so great there wouldn't be an improved version. Having said that, Emacs has never been improved. Thus Vim is the best of all. QED.

Re:Queue endless discussion on allowing add-ons...

[HarvardAce]

+1 internets to you, sir.

Re:Queue endless discussion on allowing add-ons...

[drinkypoo]

Having said that, Emacs has never been improved.

I was going to respond by saying that there have been various emacs variants, but...

Re:Queue endless discussion on allowing add-ons...

[Lehk228]

i have no problem with mozilla installing a windows root kit to prevent other apps from writing in mozilla's folders without specific user intervention

Re:Queue endless discussion on allowing add-ons...

[multipartmixed]

> I was going to respond by saying that there have been various emacs variants, but...

Why didn't you? It would have been a very Lucid response.

Re:Queue endless discussion on allowing add-ons...

[TangoMargarine]

It was too Karmic to be a good idea.

Re:Queue endless discussion on allowing add-ons...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's CUE, darnit, cue, cue, cue. Not queue.

Re:Queue endless discussion on allowing add-ons...

[equex]

vi is better ? you must be smoking crack. emacs is the only thing you need besides sliced bread.

Whisky tango...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people insist on having desktop apps embedded as plugins to browsers?

Re:Whisky tango...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people insist on having desktop apps as webpages?

Re:Whisky tango...

[Anonymous Coward]

Same reason so many apps install stupid systray applets and such, wasting memory and CPU resources. It's like companies think their application is the only thing you run on your computer so they all do it and you end up with 50 systray/browser plugin/bullshit crap doodads installed and running, it's ridiculous.

Basically it's companies being inconsiderate jackholes.

Re:Whisky tango...

[BZ]

They do?

The skype toolbar isn't skype itself. It's something that scans web pages for phone numbers and then gives you the option of dialing them via Skype, as I understand (haven't used it myself).

I still don't know why someone would want that, but that's presumably why they don't ask before installing it.

Good Griddance

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank god. I had to install skype for an interview.
When I removed it, it decided to wipe out all my bookmarks, addons and themes for firefox.

I was pissed, but at least I had xmarks.
If not, there would be hell to pay.

Should have had a notice rather then just disable.

[Kenja]

I would much rather a pop up told the user that addon X has problems and then give them the option to disable it.

So... it only disables the toolbar plugin, right?

[Just Brew It!]

Do "millions of users" really rely on Skype's toolbar plugin? Do "millions of users" even know what Skype's toolbar does? Didn't think so.

This is a complete non-event, except perhaps for the developers who worked on the toolbar code (who may be facing a demotion, or at least a less-than-stellar performance review).

Note that each user is warned

[guanxi]

The toolbar isn't silently turned off; there's nothing that nefarious going on. Users are notified about what is happening, and as the post says, can re-enable the toolbar if they choose.

That said, I'm not thrilled about anyone remotely doing anything on my computer without my explicit permission ahead of time.

Re:Note that each user is warned

[Anonymous Coward]

The nefarious part is Skype installing a fucking toolbar on all of my browsers without asking for, or allowing, any input on the matter. This is pure malware behaviour. It's indefensible. It should NEVER be accepted. Mozilla is doing the right thing here, even though they didn't to it because of the malware behaviour but because it made Firefox more unstable.

Re:Note that each user is warned

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't Skype's fault you clicked next as fast as possible.

Re:Note that each user is warned

[lgw]

Of course, the right solution if software X installs any toolbar without asking is to remotely delete the toolbar, uninstall X, modify the user's AV software to consider X malware, exploit DNS vulnerabilities to null-route X's homepage worldwide, then dust off and nuke the headquarters for X from orbit - it's the only way to be sure.

Mozilla was a bit restrained IMO. I was disappointed that this "kill" switch was figurative.

Re:Note that each user is warned

[Anonymous Coward]

Like automatically installing a toolbar in your web browser?

Re:Note that each user is warned

[gman003]

Well, Skype did not really request permission, or even really notify you. In limited cases such as this, I believe "fight fire with fire" is permissible.

Re:Note that each user is warned

[Anonymous Coward]

It IS Skype's fault if the installer says NOTHING about installing anything except Skype, then proceeds to install toolbars. You shouldn't have to assume that every piece of software is malicious, specially when they didn't show that behaviour before and/or in other OSs.

Re:Should have had a notice rather then just disab

[orkim]

Thats exactly what happened. At least, thats what happened for me this morning.

Had I not thought sooner I would have manually disabled it to. It was a nice reminder that I had not disabled it yet.

Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[Facegarden]

Anything that auto-installs needs to go to hell and burn.

Most recent example: My boss finally starts using Chrome instead of IE. Shortly after he starts using it, he complains that Gmail won't load - it gets stuck in a reloading loop. I look it up and NO ONE seems to know what is happening. Clearing the cache - all that - nothing works. A couple weeks later, it happens to me, and I immediately notice something new - a new extension has been installed, a big green "M" in the upper right hand side. McAfee decided I needed their "safe browsing extension" (something I NEVER want), and the safe browsing extension seems to cause the gmail reload loop. I uninstalled it (just because I didn't want it) and immediately noticed that the gmail problem was resolved.

Browser makers (well, google, and maybe mozilla) work really hard to make a kick ass, stable program, and then any jackass with some untested crap can auto-install whatever they want and bring it down. Skype, McAffee, these are supposed to be mature companies (well, some people hate McAfee, but whatever) yet they still pull BS shit (yes, two shits) like auto-installing something that isn't even stable. Or Apple installing safari automatically (but apple is already evil so that wasn't too much of a surprise).

I really wish there were some way to make that illegal without just causing some big legal shithole. Really I just wish there was some code of honor that good software vendors would agree too - autoinstalling being something to avoid (or have a box that says "Do you want to install the Skype shitty toolbar" *making sure* to have a "don't ask me again" checkbox).

This isn't 2003 and I don't want every toolbar you came up with installed on my machine!
-Taylor

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[denis-The-menace]

But creating add-ons for Firefox is cool so they have to do it to look hip.

(I think I'm repeating myself.)

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently updated Adobe Acrobat Reader, and it installed some McAfee program in the process. Of course, I immediately uninstalled the McAfee crapware, but that's beside the point.

I lost all respect for McAfee to handle security on computers after I found out how poor of a job at handling their own security: For some time, all of McAfee's products were stored on their FTP server for download, protected by the username and password combination of: licensed:321

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[Graff]

Apple installing safari automatically (but apple is already evil so that wasn't too much of a surprise).

Apple never automatically installed Safari on Windows machines. When you use Apple's updater it will have Safari checked as an additional, optional install but you can uncheck that and Safari won't be installed. It's not hidden or automatic, the user can check or uncheck the box as they desire.

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[jack2000]

We should just make a foundation that goes around and sues companies that make auto installing toolbars, maybe hire some layers to pull them through the mud, using despicable legal tricks to stall the case and cost them money.
Small claims court cases submitted out of town or to a minor employee so when they ignore it you autowin.

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[Damek]

I pretty much agree. I hate installing Adobe Reader and how it puts toolbars all over everything.

It would be nice if browsers like Firefox and Chrome could monitor installed extensions and only activate ones the user approves. Both Chrome and Firefox already warn you that extensions can harm your computer, and require you to confirm installation of ones you want to download and install. Shouldn't they be able to notice when a new extension has been installed that hasn't been approved by the user, and prompt the user with something like, "Firefox has noticed a new extension has been installed. Do you want to activate _EXTENSION_ by _COMPANY_?"

I guess then the third parties would just start spoofing user approval and we'd be right back where we started.

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[egranlund]

Yes, but it's an opt-out install rather than an opt-in install which most of these toolbars are in the first place. Most people don't notice (hence why they make it opt-out in the first place) and get a load of crap with everything they install.

The Skype toolbar is opt-out too...

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[KDR_11k]

QuickTime is the thing they force you to install when you only want iTunes.

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[Facegarden]

Apple installing safari automatically (but apple is already evil so that wasn't too much of a surprise).

Apple never automatically installed Safari on Windows machines. When you use Apple's updater it will have Safari checked as an additional, optional install but you can uncheck that and Safari won't be installed. It's not hidden or automatic, the user can check or uncheck the box as they desire.

You are wrong, sorry:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9901006-7.html

When they first introduced the tactic, it was not listed under "optional installs", but right alongside iTunes under "updates" or whatever, so it looked like an update to something you already had. For years, I just clicked "yes" to the apple updater, because it was always just there to update software I had (iTunes). And then one day, it said Safari needed an update, even though I didn't have it installed. Well, *I* noticed this, but plenty of other people didn't.

After a little while, they moved it from "updates" to "additional installs" or whatever, but it was still checked by default. People had to pay attention, and normally with software updaters, you just say yes - its an "update".

You build a certain level of trust with a user that your "updater" will only be used for updates, and it is an abuse of that trust to use it for installing new software without making it extremely clear that something has changed (like not having it checked by default, or having a prompt that is different from the usual software's behavior).

You may say it would be my fault for getting duped, but what about my mom? She doesn't have a lot of money, so her computer is a few years old. She's also not very computer savvy, so she falls victim to every one of these things, and her computer is constantly loaded up with extra junk. All she wants to do is log onto facebook to message her children, and her computer is so slow she can't really do that anymore.

The bottom line is:
*When someone like Apple tricks a user into installing new software, they're cheating old ladies out of communication with their loved ones just to pump up their install base.*

That is true sleezeball move.

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[Facegarden]

We should just make a foundation that goes around and sues companies that make auto installing toolbars, maybe hire some layers to pull them through the mud, using despicable legal tricks to stall the case and cost them money.
  Small claims court cases submitted out of town or to a minor employee so when they ignore it you autowin.

Yeah, that's not that bad of an idea. I hate that kind of shit, but that's kind of what the companies are asking for when they ignore user rights. They go sleezy, we go sleezy. So much nowadays, people will walk all over you unless some lawyer scares them away from it.
-Taylor

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[Prikolist]

We can all keep dreaming. It will happen around same time when programs will ask during install whether we actually want their quickstart/autoupdate services/startup items/tray icons.
I remember QuickTime used to bug me with installing one of those automatic programs (qttask?), which I had to either disable with some startup control utility or open the program and go through several hard to find screens of options to disable it (not explicitly either, it was rather disabling updates). Then newer versions (since around 2007) had an option during install whether to set the program to update automatically. Guess what? After making sure I select the right thing during install, on a clean new system, it would still run on startup with automatic updates set to 'on' in options. Haven't used the program for over a year now, so not sure if that bug (intentional or not) was ever fixed. I think that was the point when I lost the remains of my faith that friendly software installations will ever exist.

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[cbdougla]

I agree and while I know it doesn't really do anything to fix it, every time I have to upgrade iTunes or anything that requires the Apple installer, I take a screenshot of the installer with Safari checked and send an email to support@apple.com with a bug report.

I would invite everyone who deals with the apple installer to do this. Maybe one person can't change their mind but if they had to deal with a few thousand emails a week pointing out this problem, maybe someone might listen.

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[Facegarden]

I agree and while I know it doesn't really do anything to fix it, every time I have to upgrade iTunes or anything that requires the Apple installer, I take a screenshot of the installer with Safari checked and send an email to support@apple.com with a bug report.

I would invite everyone who deals with the apple installer to do this. Maybe one person can't change their mind but if they had to deal with a few thousand emails a week pointing out this problem, maybe someone might listen.

Actually, when this came up I mentioned it to my friend that works at Apple. I asked who would make a shitty decision like that, and he said "From the top." "Jobs?" I asked. "Yup." This is the same friend who currently has a Verizon iPhone 4, and who has had it "for a while now". Sadly, he's tight-lipped on everything else, but I really don't buy into the Apple hype anymore anyway.

So, as anecdotal as that may be, it looks like the decision was from Jobs, and he's a guy who's not going to care about some whining Windows users.
-Taylor

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[DarwinSurvivor]

So install the CODECS, not some crappy media player that nobody uses anymore. Not only is QuickTime crap, but why would you use it when you just installed iTunes to handle your media anyways?!?

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the team that did this. It was a simple coding mistake that QA didn't catch. It wasn't intentional.

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[Graff]

When they first introduced the tactic, it was not listed under "optional installs", but right alongside iTunes under "updates" or whatever, so it looked like an update to something you already had.

It still wasn't an automatic install. You could uncheck the box and it wouldn't install. By definition, an automatic install is an install that happens no matter what you do.

Now it's debatable as to whether or not Apple was trying to deceive people into thinking that the install was something they probably should do. The fact that Apple later moved the install into an "optional" section at least shows that they made a move in the right direction.

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[Facegarden]

... The fact that Apple later moved the install into an "optional" section at least shows that they made a move in the right direction.

Yes, I didn't mean to say it was automatic, you had to click the "ok" button, but when they call it an update even though its not installed, that's just as sleazy as an auto-install.

Why would you even bother trying to show them in a positive light after something like that? It was shitty, and they made it slightly less shitty after people complained. That's like raping you for a while, and then deciding to put on a condom to make it better. "A move in the right direction" doesn't mean shit when you're already so far off from the "right" direction.

I know the original article was about auto-installs, and I may have accidentally lumped this in with that, but my point was that people need to stop doing shady things to install stuff on your computer - whether completely automated, or just deceptive. Its my computer and I'm sick of having to be vigilant all the time. Or actually, I don't mind being vigilant because its easy for me, (but I'd still rather not have to) but I'm sick of these people making crap that overloads my mom's computer. I know you can't stop spammers and bad people, but Skype and McAfee and Apple aren't *supposed* to act like spammers and bad people! You should be able to trust companies like that to not screw up your machine. I mean McAfee is an *antivirus* company! They're supposed to fight malware, not create it!

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the team that did this. It wasn't a simple coding mistake that QA didn't catch. It was intentional.

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[Ash-Fox]

So install the CODECS, not some crappy media player that nobody uses anymore.

How does that make the QuickTime plugin work in browsers and Second life then?

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[Graff]

I know you can't stop spammers and bad people, but Skype and McAfee and Apple aren't *supposed* to act like spammers and bad people! You should be able to trust companies like that to not screw up your machine.

Installing Safari will in no way "screw up your machine". Yeah it'll take up some hard drive space but other than that it's just going to sit around and not do anything, good or evil. Should the Apple have made it an install you had to opt-out of? No, it's definitely on the wrong side of things. Installs should be intentional activities which are opted into, not opted out of.

On the other hand browser toolbars are active things that can possibly "screw up your machine". Browser toolbars change how your browser works and can possibly horribly interact with other parts of your browser, which is what happened with the Skype Toolbar and Firefox. It's an entirely different animal than Apple installing Safari on your machine.

Overall I definitely agree with you that it is wrong for companies to push their products in this manner but there are different levels of wrong, it's not all black and white.

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[DarwinSurvivor]

What does your browser and secondlife have to do with iTunes? If people need quicktime for other stuff, let the OTHER STUFF install it!

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[rawler]

The whole "I trust you, so please go ahead and run your installer with admin-privileges."-model is fundamentally broken for so many reasons. It's not just the install-various-crap-I-did-not-want problem, but also the problem of the "installer" not knowing critical details about you particular config, breaking things horribly, the uninstall-problem, dependency-problem etc.

Package-management systems are usually just marginally better (there's still install/uninstall-scripts that can go haywire, and poor support for isolating 3d-party apps), but at least it's something.

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[Ash-Fox]

What does your browser and secondlife have to do with iTunes?

QuickTime, not iTunes.

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[animaal]

It still wasn't an automatic install. You could uncheck the box and it wouldn't install. By definition, an automatic install is an install that happens no matter what you do.

That's a strange interpretation of "automatic". There's nothing in the definition of the word "automatic" that says you can't do something in advance to prevent the event from happening.

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[Anonymous Coward]

You may say it would be my fault for getting duped, but what about my mom? She doesn't have a lot of money, so her computer is a few years old. She's also not very computer savvy, so she falls victim to every one of these things, and her computer is constantly loaded up with extra junk. All she wants to do is log onto facebook to message her children, and her computer is so slow she can't really do that anymore.

You're right, it IS a sleazeball move, but it's not gonna stop, so in practice, your mom will have to learn to not be so trusting. I mean, look at it this way. If somebody shows up at her door, does she let them in and give them access to her entire place just because of what that person claims to be (or perhaps because of where they really are from)? I doubt it - she's gonna be wary. The same thing should apply to her computer, too.

Yes, it would be nice if this weren't necessary. Yes, it should be illegal, too, just like it's illegal for people to mess with your stuff behind your back if you DID let them into your house for one reason or another; I may let the plumber into the house to let my sink, but that doesn't mean he's legally allowed to do anything other than what I asked him to.

But nevertheless, your mom will also have to learn to not be so trusting, just like we've learnt to not be so trusting when it comes to letting people into the house. It sucks, but such is life.

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[Anonymous Coward]

At least read the fucking thread you're replying to next time. Ancestor posts are about iTunes installing Quicktime which isn't necessary for iTunes. You came along and vomited your crap here about secondlife as though that was necessary for iTunes, but in fact, you're just shitting all over a discussion.

SO FUCKING READ NEXT TIME BEFORE YOU REPLY.

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[Ash-Fox]

I did read it, I'm still talking about QuickTime, not iTunes and I am replying to your specific comment about codecs instead of players. Now answer it properly instead of side stepping.

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[Anonymous Coward]

Try reading it again. Slowly. Very slowly. You see how this thread is about installing Quicktime when all you want is iTunes? That's what the thread is about - iTunes should install the CODECS it needs, nothing more.

The adults were talking about iTunes, and so mentioned that Quicktime comes with it, but shouldn't because you should only install what is necessary for iTunes with iTunes. If you're using some OTHER application that needs Quicktime, then you get Quicktime, but if all you want is iTunes (WHICH IS WHAT THIS WHOLE FUCKING THREAD IS ABOUT) you only need the codecs.

Was that clear enough for you, or shall I try to do it all in two syllable words?

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed, definitely sleezy.

Then again, Microsoft gets away with it on every install of Windows and no one complains anymore. So a little bit of pot-kettle going on to complain that Apple is also installing their browser along with their product, which in their case, they don't even have a monopoly on.

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[vrythmax]

Anybody know of a study of the cost of auto installed software? I mean any ideas on the number of IT incidents caused by auto installed software? Just wondering if anyone has attached a cost to that yet.

Re:Auto-Installing *anything* needs to die.

[Graff]

So install the CODECS, not some crappy media player that nobody uses anymore.

QuickTime is far more than just a media player program, it provides a lot of behind-the-scenes functionality to other programs. I don't have a copy of Windows around to test it but will everything in iTunes work if you uninstall QuickTime? As a Mac programmer I know that many programs depend on QuickTime to handle media creation, manipulation, and playback. I would assume the same is true of iTunes and Safari on Windows.

I suppose they could have split it into 3 installs: iTunes, the QuickTime frameworks, and the QuickTime media player. I don't know if there's a technical reason they didn't do that, perhaps there's so little to the actual media player that they thought it wasn't worth making it a separate install.

and quite a long time in coming, too

[pm_rat_poison]

did I get asked for this? noooooo.
all extensions not explicitely allowed by the user should be disabled.

Re:So... it only disables the toolbar plugin, righ

[Anonymous Coward]

Do "millions of users" really rely on Skype's toolbar plugin? Do "millions of users" even know what Skype's toolbar does? Didn't think so.

This is a complete non-event, except perhaps for the developers who worked on the toolbar code (who may be facing a demotion, or at least a less-than-stellar performance review).

No, but millions of people have Firefox and Skype installed together, which means the addon is installed by default, and most people don't bother to go changing things. The toolbar makes Firefox slow and crashy, and these millions of people think it's just Firefox sucking.

not happening under OS X?

[bball99]

have not seen this problem w/ff and skype under os x?

Re:not happening under OS X?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, stop your silly complaing and switch to Windows. OK, I kid. Bu seriously, posters are mad at Skype, mad at Mozilla, mad at developers...

Wake up folks! It really is this operating system that allows this to happen! Seven solves nothing! Rise up agaist Microsoft and DEMAND that it stop, that they FIX it or start over (bring on Singularity!) or switch to Linux, FreeBSD, or any other OS!

Two Comments

[Wooky_linuxer]

1. Skype shouldn't have the ability to install an extension without explicit user agreement. I believe this is Mozilla's fault, it has been abused by others as well. Fix the extension installation process.

2. There shouldn't be a kill switch to an extension. It may be used in a benign form today, but tomorrow perhaps it will be used to kill an extension that allows users to see Facebook pictures, or whatever. I don't wan't that in my browser.

Basically, let me decide what I install in my browser (as well as my computer). It's simple.

Re:Two Comments

[compro01]

2. It isn't really a kill switch. It disables the addon by default, but you can select to leave it enabled. Call it a stun switch.

Re:Two Comments

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

1. Skype shouldn't have the ability to install an extension without explicit user agreement. I believe this is Mozilla's fault, it has been abused by others as well. Fix the extension installation process.

No, its the OS's fault. As Mozilla is just another application with the same level of privileged access to the user's configuration settings as any other application, anything that Mozilla can do to stop auto-installers can be undone by the very same auto-installers. If Skype really wanted to, the next version of their auto-installer could turn off this "kill-switch" too.

Re:Two Comments

[Ltap]

But what if the Mozilla landing party loses too many redshirts?

Re:Two Comments

[robmv]

If Mozilla try do do #1, this will happen

First round

1) Third-party install extension
2) Firefox detects it and ask for user confirmation
3) Firefox saves somewhere that the add-on was approved or rejected

Second round

1) Third-party install extension
2) Third-party modify the same files Mozilla saved on the first round to set itself as approved
3) user do not see any confirmation and the add-on is enabled

A third-party installer will always be able to set an extension as enabled, no matter what Mozilla developers do. Only if the OS give you the technology to separate entirely one application from the other, for example like Android do, one user per application (a user could be shared but the applications must be signed with the same key)

Re:Two Comments

[Kjella]

If it had been installed through Mozilla's extension installation process, you would be right. Except it isn't, it's installed by Skype. It's a problem you have on all platforms as far as I know, any installer can write all over the place. Personally I think it would have been rather nice to have a system where the skype installer only got access to the skype directory. Not like UAC or sudo which gives you all the keys to the kingdom, but a much more fine grained permission.

Re:Two Comments

[greed]

Congrats, you just re-invented the Apple App Store. (And/or SElinux; though I haven't seen SElinux configured that aggressively.)

That's basically what it does: your .app bundle (NeXTStep-speak for specially-suffixed directory) is self-contained and isn't allowed to fiddle with Other Stuff. It's preferences and user data folders are constrained to follow a specific path name convention.

It's like ./configure --prefix=/where/I/want/it but with enforcement from the installer.

Re:Two Comments

[vlueboy]

Copy from Vista's security model: it already treats even admin users in hostilely and sets Command line and file operation warnings so that you must "elevate" manually. A simple implementation for Firefox is a concept like a "Disk firewall" some company already sales:
Encrypt your config folders and/or files so that the files aren't intelligible to anything else.

Like paranoid applications that only trust the Windows registry, put decryption keys, checksums and whatever in undocumented binary bitmaps and checksum even those registry keys somewhere else. Done... random programs mustn't be snooping beyond Firefox's addin API and must ask user nicely for the right^Wprivilege to install. We're tired of Antiviruses, Adobe download managers, HP printers and even random websites easily bundling unannounced toolbars that nobody removes later on.

However, any attempts would block a particularly useful shortcut for extension devs who must constantly uninstall and reinstall after every XPI "compile"

Re:Two Comments

[0123456]

Encrypt your config folders and/or files so that the files aren't intelligible to anything else.

And, uh, how are you going to store the encryption key so that Firefox can get it but some random installer running with admin privileges can't?

Re:Two Comments

[warrax_666]

The OS is privileged, the browser is not.

You really haven't thought this through, have you?

Re:Two Comments

[Anonymous Coward]

The leader will have to fuck some green bitch.

Re:Two Comments

[jack2000]

We want them to go that far. Then we can go AH-HA!
How would you recommend we make it so only certain programs can access certain folders? Make a folder untouchable except for a specific program, without using a different user to do this.

Re:Two Comments

[jack2000]

This is one area where DRM COULD work. But it has to be set up on the OS level, a way to grant aplications exclusive rights to store and modify files in folders.

Re:Two Comments

[vlueboy]

Thanks.
You seem more reasonable than the other reply; I'll answer his question here: As a disclaimer to any encryption or "hiding" scheme, yes, man#1 hides and man#2 will figure out how to unhide, and thus no human obfuscation system is 100% unhackable. In the absense of DRM-like things (or deeper knowledge of Win32 API that must exist to undermine* 0123456's rebuttal) then Whac-a-mole what we'd end up playing with the hiders... a game where we win if we don't get tired of finding some new place that "they" can't think of hitting. In my primitive awareness, I would say 'have FF set up a new Windows system user like Microsoft's service named similarly to "RemoteLogin Helper object[random4digitID#]"' and remove rights to read that key except for that installer. To read the Firefox Key, FF can talk this custom engineered randomly-named service that would refuse to respond to anything but FF; many programs already use helper services like that.

Your run-of-the-mill company would NOT chase after fruit hanging that much higher than Mozilla's current model of "hey, someone left the door wide open, so we can't guess the neighbors left were the ones who put a newly hacked component here because we do no auditing and signed logging / tracking of our own." This is not making some NSA-level scheme; and we can claim that anyone still screwing with our 'encryption' is curcumventing DMCA and can be threatened with the feds. Though hackers will continue to break through like with any other browser, we'll ward off the legit intruders who currently think they're doing you a favor because the extension model is not yet turnkey-based. So we're making our own Apple-like walled garden. That works for them!

* Like what commercial Antivirus programs have been doing for years regardless of the yearly creation of thousands of new malicious programs. If AVs can to protect themselves against rogue programs, specifically meant to shut down and uninstall them prior to running amok, then somewhere in Windows there are APIs for that that you can be sure enforce Windows' own license integrity and validation. QED.

Re:Two Comments

[vlueboy]

I'm not writing NSA code here; just keeping the annoying flies away and showing them that only hackers should be breaking in, anyway.

The encrypted data is still encrypted and they can read the key all they want, but nobody without detailed analysis (read as DMCA-circumventions) will know the encryption and decryption algorithms, aka "where in your code the actual door is for that key." Feeble as this be since I'm not a coder, it can be strengthened by actual cryptographers and WinAPI experts.

Most importantly, circumventing encryption is illegal in the US AFAIK, thus legit companies will stop messing around with unattended addins. The whole point of this /. story was that legit guys think they can just waltz in. Hackers will always hack around any and all our hurdles, but we don't need the money-grubbers to do it for free.

Re:Two Comments

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Skype shouldn't have the ability to install an extension without explicit user agreement. I believe this is Mozilla's fault, it has been abused by others as well. Fix the extension installation process.

No, its the OS's fault. As Mozilla is just another application with the same level of privileged access to the user's configuration settings as any other application, anything that Mozilla can do to stop auto-installers can be undone by the very same auto-installers. If Skype really wanted to, the next version of their auto-installer could turn off this "kill-switch" too.

No, it's Mozilla's fault. while the OS allows the file to be written to the user's configuration, it's the browser that still loads it. There are a number of ways to store settings accessable only by the app that created them. It's Mozilla's fault for not going the extra mile.

Re:Two Comments

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

There are a number of ways to store settings accessable only by the app that created them.

Really? Name one. I'd genuinely like to hear it, because the anti-virus guys have been trying for decades and they don't seem to have a solution that is robust.

Dear Mozilla

[Charliemopps]

Please disable all toolbars by default. When the user logs in, pop up a page that says:

"This program tried to install a toolbar, you probably don't need it and it's probably full of ads. The nephew you always call when you have computer trouble would seriously be mad if you enable it. Would you like to enable it at this time? If so, please type in 'yes, I'd like to be inundated with ads and malware please' in the box bellow."

Re:Dear Mozilla

[Attila Dimedici]

I like that.

Re:Dear Mozilla

[lgw]

I do believe I would change browesers to one that had this feature. Especially if the "OK" box stayed grayed out even after you tyoed the phrase.

Re:Dear Mozilla

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm the nephew that is always saying the same and always getting mad. I really liked that a lot.

Re:Dear Mozilla

[Anonymous Coward]

I am one of those people called upon to fix relatives' computers, and I whole-heartedly agree 100%!

I have never needed a toolbar in my browser other than the built-in default... and I'm an "advanced user"... why would "novice users" need one?.. for any reason?

Re:Dear Mozilla

[Anonymous Coward]

this is not a solution. if the browser can set a flag saying that a user authorised access, the rogue extension installer can set the same flag. if the browser records information on the local machine that says an extension is installed and enabled, the rogue extension installer can record the same information. the only way this would work is if the entire application's user profile is encrypted with a passkey that the user has to enter every time they start the app—and even then, the rogue software could just install itself, sit in the background, wait for the password request box, and capture the password.

Re:Dear Mozilla

[BrowserCapsGuy]

If so, please type in 'yes, I'd like to be inundated with ads and malware please' in the box bellow."

It wouldn't make any difference. My sister would still just as blindly type YES as she does click OK. I love her dearly, but I've stopped trying to change her habits because this way I wind up with a fairly new free laptop about once a year.

Re:Dear Mozilla

[Anonymous Coward]

Internet Explorer 9 has this feature, though it's presented more as a non-modal enable/disable/ask me later box.

There's info on their blog about it.

Grayed-out Addons...

[kcbnac]

Are installed not to the user profile. Exit Firefox, re-launch as an Administrator (Right-click the shortcut, select 'Run as Administrator' and accept the UAC prompt)

You'll now find yourself able to uninstall that, and any previous versions of the Java Console that have been left behind by numerous updates to that piece of software as well.

Re:Grayed-out Addons...

[obarel]

Thank you thank you thank you thank you so much!

Re:Grayed-out Addons...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are installed not to the user profile. Exit Firefox, re-launch as an Administrator (Right-click the shortcut, select 'Run as Administrator' and accept the UAC prompt)

You'll now find yourself able to uninstall that, and any previous versions of the Java Console that have been left behind by numerous updates to that piece of software as well.

Lies. Even running as admin you can't remove quicktime, windows drm, .net, adobe, and other crap from firefox.

I might have to keep quicktime installed on my computer for some video work, but I hate quicktime and I DON'T want firefox to interface with quicktime at all.

The most annoying thing about firefox is that it doesn't allow the ADMIN USER to easily remove extensions & plugins from firefox.

The only way that really works is to edit the C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\greprefs\all.js file so that the plugins/extensions aren't loaded at all.

Re:Grayed-out Addons...

[Anonymous Coward]

this is categorically false. The only way to remove the Java Consoles is to exit Firefox and go into the directory C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\extensions and delete all directories that start with {CAFEEFAC

Re:Grayed-out Addons...

[CCarrot]

... and any previous versions of the Java Console that have been left behind by numerous updates to that piece of software as well.

Aha! I always wondered what "POS" stood for...piece of software! Thanks!

Note to self: Java Console Update handler = POS

Re:Grayed-out Addons...

[LordKronos]

Apparently that's not the case for every grayed-out addon. The 2 that Norton installs are greyed out, but your Run as Administrator trick doesn't help. I can disable them (don't even need to be admin to do that), but not uninstall them.

Still, probably a useful thing to remember for future reference, so thanks anyway.

Re:Grayed-out Addons...

[kcbnac]

Firefox 4 lets you at least disable plugins; haven't played with it enough to figure out how to remove 'em.

Re:So... it only disables the toolbar plugin, righ

[Amorymeltzer]

33,000 crashes in one week from one cause is a definite event, and means someone needs to fix it. Mozilla tried to get Skype to work on it for two weeks and, when that failed, they had to do something themselves.

Ahh big question is

[Anonymous Coward]

When? which release?

It's been a while, but...

[countertrolling]

Every time I installed Skype, I found the option to avoid installing the ancillary junk.

It's not killed

[noidentity]

If it's a kill-switch, then the software is dead afterwards and cannot be revived. This sounds like it merely just disables the add-in by default. Hardly a kill-switch. Might as well say that it bricks the skype add-in, sheesh.

Re:It's not killed

[maxwell demon]

So it's a narcotic switch?

I removed it...

[Mage66]

After having Firefox crash several times because of it. I removed it. I never used it, and don't miss it. Most Skype users won't.

Does anyone use it?

[lurker412]

I like Skype and use it often, but I have never once used it from within FF. They gave me a dollar credit a few weeks ago in apology for the big outage they had, which honestly didn't affect me in the least. I thought that was a lot nicer than the usual corporate stonewalling of "some of our users may be experiencing minor difficulties..." But I don't or trust toolbars from anyone, and I always disable them.

This has got to stop.

[Anonymous Coward]

If I install your program, I don't want it loading toolbars or extensions into my browser without my express permission. I use Linux most of the time, but when I have to set up that other OS and Firefox suddenly says "new plugins have been installed", I become extremely annoyed. It is bad enough that these other plugins could potentially be security risks, but they also decrease performance.

Simple rule: just ask.

*gasp*

[eyenot]

[whisper] *awesome*

Toolbars are bad

[stalky14]

MMMkay?

purpose.

[LordMyren]

i wasnt aware the addon had a toolbar. what i was aware of, is that it attempts to detect phone numbers on the page, and replaces those numbers with a graphical link that launches a skype call to that number.

Re:purpose.

[ls671]

It that's true, then that solves the question with regards to why it would cause a slowdown. I could image that parsing a whole Slashdot page with 500 comments in it to find phone numbers and inserting links would cause some kind of additional slowdown ;-)

Re:purpose.

[TheLink]

I guess that's what the multicore GHz CPUs will be used for :).

What toolbar?

[Artifex]

Never had it try to automatically install a toolbar in my Firefox or my Chrome in OS X.
Doesn't look like it stuck anything in Safari, either, but since I never use that, I wouldn't care.

You people and your OS centricism.

Re:What toolbar?

[AngryDill]

I've installed Skype on three of our (Linux) family PCs. I see no Skype toolbox in the Firefox or Chrome browsers, either.

-a.d.-

Fantastic

[Dega704]

I honestly wish every browser would do this with every toolbar. They are worthless and annoying. Seriously, toolbars should have gone away with the early 2000s, and here they still are all over the place like damn cockroaches. On windows I have another one humping my leg every time I turn around. They don't even provide any useful functionality besides taking up screen space and slowing everything down. Unrequested software that automatically installs by default with other software should be banned; plain and simple. If I took my car in to get new tires and they installed an enormous, ugly spoiler with their logo all over it at the same time I would be livid. Anyone would. So why is anyone tolerating this nonsense?

Ramifications such as...

[seebs]

Firefox running faster and not crashing?

Quelle horreur!

Not Automatic

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, since when is this ALWAYS installed when you install Skype?

I've used Skype for almost a year now, and Firefox for many years. I've NEVER had the Skype toolbar installed.

I always use advance installation, but that doesn't mean this statement: "Whenever Skype is installed or updated, it automatically installs the Skype Toolbar add-on for Firefox." isn't wrong.

In fact I recently reformatted and reinstalled both programs a few weeks ago. No toolbar. Not even "greyed out."

Ramifications for millions of users

[handy_vandal]

Not having an apoplectic stroke when I find out that Skype is fucking with my Firefox -- now that's a ramification I can live with.

Also does this on Chrome

[St.Creed]

Normally I operate on a "no toolbars!" principle, but I tried it to see what it did. I wasn't impressed when Chrome began crashing irregularly. I recommend people uninstall it pronto, if you are suffering from Chrome crashes.

Re:Also does this on Chrome

[paulqdotorg]

My default browser in Windows is Chrome, and it's always telling me that Skype toolbars has become unresponsive, and offers to kill it. After reading this, I decided to uninstall it by simply right clicking on it and selecting, "Uninstall." Two points for Google Chrome; one for isolating and killing the problematic toolbar when it misbehaves, and two for making it real easy to uninstall the toolbar.

Re:Also does this on Chrome

[St.Creed]

I agree completely. It's one of the reasons I'm using Chrome as my main browser, despite occasional issues.

kill it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Good. I hate when companies force me to install something. At the very least, make it work right! Thanks, Mozilla!

none makes sense

[NetNed]

I hate when flash or adobe reader or java updates then asks me everytime if I want some stupid toolbar they are pushing for whatever company. It's just like every program that wants to add something in the sys tray or in start-up so that it "launches faster".

I think just about everyone is fine with using the search bars included with whatever browser you use and everyone is fine with it taking 10 seconds longer for a program to load and skip the 30 second slow down that happens at boot for some stupid programs "quick launch" bar.

Thank You Mozilla!

[Nail]

"Given the extreme popularity of Skype, this has ramifications for millions of users"

The only one that matters: now some browser tasks will complete 300 times faster than before.

I don't like it when a installation program wants me to install some browser related thing by default ("uncheck the box"), much less give me no choice in the process. These things collect like dirt on your browser.

Fix Security First

[bill_mcgonigle]

I really wish there were some way to make that illegal without just causing some big legal shithole.

I don't think there's any need to get the police involved. Why is the Mozilla configuration writable to the Skype installer? That's a huge security hole. Fix that first.

Re:Fix Security First

[Facegarden]

I really wish there were some way to make that illegal without just causing some big legal shithole.

I don't think there's any need to get the police involved. Why is the Mozilla configuration writable to the Skype installer? That's a huge security hole. Fix that first.

Yeah, I don't really want it to be illegal, because laws like that are just going to make things worse, I just know that this kind of thing isn't likely to go away any other way (and it may not be that likely even if it was illegal).

Re:Fix Security First

[0123456]

Why is the Mozilla configuration writable to the Skype installer?

Because the installer requires admin privileges, which means it can write to pretty much any file on the machine? On Windows, anyway.

If you give a random program root privileges you shouldn't be too surprised when it trashes your system.

Re:Fix Security First

[bill_mcgonigle]

Because the installer requires admin privileges, which means it can write to pretty much any file on the machine? On Windows, anyway.

If you give a random program root privileges you shouldn't be too surprised when it trashes your system.

I agree, you've correctly identified the problem.

Stumbleupon

[sourcerror]

The Stumpleupon toolbar is quite cool. And there's the Webdeveloper's toolbar as well.

Re:Stumbleupon

[Schemat1c]

The Stumpleupon toolbar is quite cool. And there's the Webdeveloper's toolbar as well.

Agreed. Stumbleupon is the only toolbar I use plus the one I make myself loaded with live bookmarks.

Re:Stumbleupon

[tokul]

The Stumpleupon toolbar is quite cool. And there's the Webdeveloper's toolbar as well.

Interesting choice. Advertising spyware and making it look legit by putting other plugin name in advert.

Re:Stumbleupon

[sourcerror]

So, do you have some kind of proof that Stumbleupon is spyware? Or is it just "everyone knows it"?

Re:Stumbleupon

[tokul]

So, do you have some kind of proof that Stumbleupon is spyware? Or is it just "everyone knows it"?

Lets see.
Custom bookmark service run by third party without clear data privacy controls. Check
Negative comments and evaluations deleted from application page. Check
Ring home feature, which if I remember correctly prevented use of browser on some machine. Check.
Yes, it is a spyware or crapware from facebook and similar category.

Re:Stumbleupon

[sourcerror]

Well, I looked up their TOS. You're correct that they have a shitty privacy policy, however I don't use my real name there anyway.

It does

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox does pop up a notification, and gives you the option to keep the add-on enabled.

That was clearly...

[noob22]

not an instance of said behavior. However, this is.

LOL!

[Anonymous Coward]

"ramifications for millions of users." That's freaking hilarious. Nobody uses that thing. Anyone who doesn't uninstall it themselves just ignores it. Oh slashdot, you're so funny sometimes.

BitTorrent Update

[ISoldat53]

The latest BitTorrent update installs a toolbar even if you tell it not to.

Re:BitTorrent Update

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what sort of BitTorrent you use. uTorrent doesn't. Or at least the version I updated to last time didn't..

Good Riddance

[TimCostantino]

That crazy plugin was one of the most annoying pieces of software ever... I'm glad it's gone. Who really wanted every phone number on every site clickable into skype... Very happy FF did this. Now they need to prevent auto installs of plugins...

Linux problems

[Wowsers]

Well, at least Linux users don't have to worry about the problem, what with the latest beta of Skype being so ancient there is no probability of anything new coming out from Skype, let alone anything to slow down Firefox for Linux.

bummer

[Anonymous Coward]

if MS or apple had done this, we'd have had a field day going on about censorship

Motive?

[kubernet3s]

Does anyone know precisely why software companies continue to do this? The thing with Apple and Quicktime seems to be a pretty blatant attempt to strongarm people into using a terrible media player, but I don't see how junking up a user's computer with annoying add-ons and plugins really helps a product like Skype or McAfee. Why, after a user has already downloaded a product, does the installation of superfluous support applications mean more profit for the people that sell them? If anything, it makes them more likely to consider them too riddled with crapware and switch to something hassle free. Can someone illuminate this for me?

Re:Motive?

[BZ]

The Skype toolbar is a method of pushing users to make phone calls (which Skype gets revenue from) via Skype.

And since the slowness and crashiness are perceived as a problem with _Firefox_, not Skype, there is no downside, right? At least until a story like this breaks.

java console addon - FF devs should AXE this too!

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time I've upgraded or reinstalled new versions of Java, this stupid "java console" addon is automatically added to Firefox!

Please, FF devs, put a stop to this, I tire of removing it manually from all my user's accounts. YES, if you run a multi-user Windows XP (and maybe 7) system ALL of their Firefox addons lists will contain this new java console addon.

I haven't read what it's for, but *I* didn't want it there, I *don't* want it there, please start BLOCKING this stupid addon when Java is upgraded or reinstalled. Thank you very much.

%15 of the crashes are the browser

[fluffy99]

By the statistics linked in the article, only 5 of the top 18 reported browser crashes are attributable to add-ins. Yes, 6% were caused by the Skype add-in, but apparently 15% are being attributed to libraries associated with the browser itself. How about they fix those?

Skype is following the ICQ path.

[C_Kode]

Skype is like ICQ was. Every software release gets horrible worse. Today I no longer use ICQ and tomorrow, I will no longer use Skype.

Oh, this is what they do to crashy plugins?

[Anonymous Coward]

So will they blacklist Flash next?

misleading article

[austinpoet]

I have mozilla.

I have skype.

I do not have skype toolbar. I don't have to re-disable/remove it when I upgrade skype.

Maybe I just have less pebcak?

Will this open the door for more of the same?

[jarofgreen]

As others have pointed out, Skype are not the only ones guilty of the "auto-install" crime by far. If Skype, why not all the others to?

Also breaks Windows Explorer

[Anonymous Coward]

Had serious naggage from the missus because her laptop kept crashing Windows Explorer when running Firefox during file transfers for reasons unknown.
Needless to say this toolbar might have been the root cause, as the problem hasn't happened since I removed it.

If you ask me, Skype needs to compensate people for this inconvenience and lost time/etc.
£10 worth of free credit per affected user sounds fair.

Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they kill the Adobe Download Extensions Manager Extension Plugin For Adobe Plugin Extensions next.

ramifications?

[tokul]

this has ramifications for millions of users.

Maybe my English is not that good, but disabling skype toolbar is not ramification. It is a relief.