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Parallels Update Installs Unrelated Daemon Without Permission
Calibax writes "Parallels recently released version 9 of Parallels Desktop, their popular hypervisor application for Mac. They also released a new product named Parallels Access that offers access to Windows applications from an iPad for $80 per year. Access has received less than stellar reviews. When a user upgrades Parallels Desktop, he is asked if he wants a free six-month subscription to Parallels Access. Even if he says no, the product is installed on his system and the application is started each time the system is rebooted. It is installed with ancillary files scattered around several directories in the system and Parallels has not supplied an uninstaller or listed the steps to fully uninstall the application, despite a number of requests. In other words, Parallels has decided it's a good idea to silently install a difficult to remove daemon application on the system, even if the user has explicitly stated they do not want it. They have not provided an uninstaller or a list of files installed or instructions on how to remove the application files. These are scattered to at least four Mac OS X OS system level directories."
Holy Department of Redundancy Department, Batman!
Thirty four characters live here.
I've been using Parallels Desktop for several versions now but I won't be 'upgrading' to version 9 until this is resolved. Up to now, Parallels has been a great product.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
I've been using Parallels over VMWare Fusion for a few years now (there has been some good bundle pricing on it, and there were some features it had that VMWare lacked at the time when I was deciding, though I don't recall what those were now).
Unless this turns out to be a tempest in a teacup or otherwise invented or overblown, I won't be doing that anymore, and VMWare will have gained back a customer.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
TFS rants in circles, and the subject of the complaint is a product named "Parallels"?
My head hurts.
The most important part: what this daemon does is allowing remove access to the computer, through Parallels' servers, using closed source code on both sides. Let's see, is there anything nefarious possible?
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
When you decline to install something you expect that it doesn't get installed. Parallels is going to burn a lot of trust by pulling this stunt. The cost of acquiring their customers has certainly got to exceed the profit from people who decide that they will change their mind and want to run this software anyways.
At a bare minimum they need to start by building a package that will remove all traces post haste for the anyone that wants it. For people that don't want to run the package explicit instructions need to be made available about how to completely remove this. Any number of companies have screwed up royally before this, those that are still respected are the ones that instituted proper damage control.
Well, you guessed wrong, because this article is about the Parallels Desktop Software for Macs that is installing the unwanted parts.
Funny enough, a software like Parallels Desktop needs such low-level access to the system that it would most certainly be prohibited from being approved into the Mac App Store. Apple is pretty strict about what kind of low-level access its App Store apps are allowed and where they can install their stuff.
So if the user would have stayed inside the walled garden, he would actually be safe from this particular threat.
I do not want to say that the walled garden is flawless or does not have some significant problems, but your guess is really simply wrong in this case.
What exactly does Apple have to do with shoddy 3rd party software?
Neither Parallels or VMWare Fusion are in Apple's App store. So if grandma is going to the store to buy virtualization software, I would hope she has some idea of what she is doing.
Also, if grandma happens to hose the Ubuntu machine you gave her and she has to look at this:
~#:_
Does that mean Linux is shit and just for freetard lusers?
Your first link is not the app store, though. That would be the online Apple Store, you know like Amazon.com? The one that actually has some brick-and-mortar cousins? With the Macs standing around and the Genius Bar? Sorta like Best Buy, but Apple-specific?
And, also that is definitely not for download, because, you know there is a shipping estimate there? And the first picture actually shows you the physical box the software is shipping in?
Besides, that box also contains the old version 8 which does not have the obnoxious behavior written about here. That one is new for version 9, which is not in your link.
Parallels is NOT sold in the AppStore. It's installed via a custom stand-alone installer.
Of course it is...
You do realize that's not the App store, but Apple's store where they ship you a box with the software?
Let me guess? Approved in the app store. And that ease of use that's touted by Apple means that it's helluva hard for the average person to get under the hood. Imagine grandma looking at this:
Parallels software is _not_ available on the App Store. If you look at what this software does, there is not a chance in hell that it would be allowed on the App Store. So your little rant is completely missing the point. So when you say it is "the problem with the walled garden", you are completely wrong: This app is _not_ inside the walled garden. It does things that the "walled garden" would protect you from.
Let me guess. You don't know the difference between the Mac App Store (which is Apple's curated App Store with its walled gardens) and store.apple.com which is their online store where they sell iPhones, iMacs, software and peripherals.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
unwanted software. CleanMyMac2 to the rescue. Found all the Parallels Access files and good-bye. No hunting or anything!! Left Parallels alone just removed the PA that I asked not to install. Though I wish everyone would just create an app that keeps it's files to itself so when I trash it EVERYTHING is gone. But then those that make CleanMyMac2 would not be selling their software.
Save Pangaea!! Stop Continental Drift!!
I was going to upgrade to Parallels Desktop 9 but after reading about this I might as well switch to VMware fusion 6.
First of all, there was ONE "less than stellar" review. The Ars review was pretty pathetically trollish, I have no idea why. Check Google if you don't believe it. http://www.google.com/search?q=parallels+access+review
I used it in beta testing and its head and shoulders above other remote access tools. Their pricing is out to lunch, but it is an excellent tool.
Second, Parallels always has done stuff like this. The last version or two has been popping up ads. It's lazy of them and stupid but it's not really an "unrelated daemon".
Don't expect their support to give you instructions on how to uninstall it, just run something like CleanMyMac2 and move on.
SYS 64738 NO CARRIER
Mac Operating System X operating system system?
This is a new record for redundancy records.
I have installed Parallels version 9 and tried out their access program, since it was free for six months. It works as advertised, although on our slow Internet connection it is essentially unusable. Trying to do work on a standard iPad screen that is normally displayed on a big PC monitor or even a big laptop makes for pretty tiny print. $80 per year is pretty steep. $20-$30 is about the maximum I would pay even if our Internet connection for up to par. It will not work on a LAN over Wi-Fi. I have no trouble uninstalling the Access part by simply dragging the Access.app in the applications folder into the trash and then emptying the trash and restarting. I did not see any extraneous processes running according to the Activity Monitor. Running the Parallel.app version 9 does not show any additional processes than before version 9 was installed. If and when I have to do real work, I will just take my MacBook and use the iPad strictly for entertainment, maybe answering an occasional email.
A sufficiently advanced simulation is indistinguishable from reality.
Ah, the advantages of OSX. No "ancillary files scattered" all around the system when you install something. Remember when all you had to do to uninstall a Mac app was drag it to the Trash?
But the most unsettling part of this is the fact that Parallels had to know they would be found out, and went ahead anyway. When a company gets caught with its pants down, at least there's an indication that they realize there was something wrong with their behavior. This is much worse, because they just didn't care what you think.
You are welcome on my lawn.
(She?) has always been pretty active, and used to be fairly insightful even if occasionally oversensitive about certain subjects and sometimes misinformed (but not usually to the point of repeatedly stating a false claim). No big deal; we all have our buttons and we all make mistakes. Overall, her posts were a definite benefit to the community.
That was, oh, up until a couple years ago. I couldn't give you a precise point, but these days it sadly does seem more like a troll account. Sad, because the points are still sometimes interesting (such as yes, the Apple app store does sometimes let malware through; no surprise to anybody clued in about this stuff, but Apple explicitly targets the non-clued-in). The way places and times of their presentation, however, leave a lot to be desired. As I said, it's sad.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
You have no idea how bad you have it with Windows.
Yeah, it's terrible. Having to worry about whether the latest game will run on the operating system I'm running... or buying hardware at OEM pricing online and incrementally upgrading my system instead of just buying a new one every year... and then there's that pesky problem of having to lug it into an official microsoft store whenever something breaks on it instead of the nearest 14 year old kid. It's rough.
Registry entries, malware, every free app including malware to slow down yoursystem including sourceforge using i3, eyecandy, ask, or whatever michevious crap!
Yes. Because malware authors target the OS with the biggest marketshare. Should Apple one day rule the world, and the Fanboys walk tall... they too shall feel the pain of worms, malware, and things being installed without your consent--oh wait, what was this article about again?
No fancy installers, no bizaare registry entries, simple folders, nothing hidden.
Yeah... that's really hard stuff there. Having to double click on an icon and click next a few times... or opening regedit and going through a tree-structure until you find the right entry, laid out just like any other filesystem.
So if the Mac turns into windows why spend 2x for the switch.
You're spending 2x now... you'll spend a lot more if Macintosh becomes the dominant OS... since you can only buy a Mac from Apple, and you can only buy the OS from Apple, and you can only get the apps from Apple, and all the peripherals are sold by... Apple. All that competition in the PC world sure does keep prices, er... really high, I guess.
While Apple still has bugs like in its store it is known as a superior platform...
To fanboys yes. To the rest of us, it's just another walled garden...
In the east it is more 50/50 windows vs mac.
Citation needed. Go ahead, I'll wait. While you're busy looking for that magical unicorn, articles like this continue to crop up suggesting that China doesn't want to pay the Apple tax.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
No matter what you say, they'll take the most insignificant thing and say "See! See! This tiny little bit right here is wrong! You spelled the product name wrong! That means everything you said must also be wrong!"
Half of your post in #44780265 is wrong, and basically all of your post in #44780073 is wrong, except the parts where you start making your own opinions based on the wrong information. Is it not fair for people to point that out? If I made a post that was half full of misinformation, I would expect to be called out for that.
Perhaps you would like to think that although all your premises (the most insignificant thing!) are wrong, your conclusions (the important part, yea?) are still correct. But if that is so, why bother to attempt to make an reasoned argument in the first place? Just click the "Post Anonymously" button and flame away!
Don't quote me on this.
Should be simple enough if you already know where the files are.
More correctly with a Mac it would be a simple shell script with elevated privilege to write to core directories. Same thing basically as a bash script run as root. Remember when Sony put a root kit on audio CDs? There were actually repair utilities created to remove it because the core files were so obfuscated in Windows that it was hard to remove at first until all the registry changes were found out.
Sony did not cave in at first LOL it took a concerted effort from users and sites like Slashdot to get the bastards to even admit to the existence of the malware!
This system intrusion was most likely done to inform the company when someone installed the software later, you know the old trick of leaving shit on the computer to keep track of customers habits. Much more reliable than website cookies which most users know how to delete even on a Mac, even some more skilled Windows users know how to show and remove the appropriate hidden files some shareware leaves under \userdata after removing "free trials" after running the installer but not accepting the license.
The problem with this company is that went beyond what windows crapware does and installed shit to protected areas of the Mac system on a free trial before the license was accepted and the rest of the software was installed. Either this was a genuine mistake or it was an illegal user tracking malware attack on Mac users.
Would be interesting to hear what the company says about it. I imagine that they are in extreme damage control mode the way Sony was after they got caught being a digital asshole.
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call