Sure, it's common sense to read what you are agreeing to and sometimes the installers are just made to deceive the end-user (I am looking at you, Flash updater). But generally you just don't have the time or don't want to read through the 7-8 pages of an installer for a program that you have already installed hundreds or thousands of times. It requires certain amount of trust and when the chain of trust is broken, I get bitten once, sure, but the program loses an user forever. The sad thing is that this isn't the case for the Grampa with 12 Ask.com toolbars installed.
Most reports of "no thanks" failing to work are probably due to third-party installers from who-knows-where, but I've seen at least a couple of cases (PSPad and CamStudio IIRC, could be mistaken) where it was attributed to a bug in the official bundle.
It's time for us techies to build better software, to get laws passed that stop this sort of thing, to get websites like CNET download.com and manufactors like Lenovo blacklisted.
One part of this comes from the fact that some things are really difficult or impossible to repair these days. Cars come with engine computers that you need special tools to access, computers and modern electronics come so integrated that you can't easily swap out components yourself.
The other part is that people treat computers as one entity, not a combination of entities. So the whole device is one item, and if something doesn't work, it's all broken.
To drive a car, people have to learn a shit ton of things, not just about the law, but about the machine itself. And they do, because they have no other choice - and so for most it doesn't even register things could be different.
Look at professional software like Photoshop or AutoCAD - again, everyone knows it's "complicated", and so people either sign up for training courses, or sit down and learn it themselves. Somehow, the software tool being complex isn't a problem. But for most software, we've created an expectation that people should be able to use it from the get-go. I submit that this is wrong. People should be expected to read the manual, like in the old days, and the software should politely force them to.
There are schools and licences for driving a car. There is no EULA for washing clothes.
If we want to train users to not click on "I Agree" to get rid of the legalese then there should be no legalese for installing Spotify or buying from Amazon. I can buy in a shop without needing to sign a 10 page document, so why not the same with Amazon?
We, in tech, have trained users to click on the green buttons to make the computer boxes go away.
Imagine a society in which, many centuries ago, the literates decided on something similar: regular people can't be taught how to read or write, they don't need to and they won't learn.
RE education, I think this attitude is one of the bigger sources of the problems we have. Nobody expects to get into a car first time in their lives, go through a 2-minute tutorial and drive on the public road. Nobody expects to grok electric saws or soldering irons in 30 seconds. Those are all tools, and tools require some training, or at least reading the manual. Everybody knows that and thus nobody complains.
OTOH, we've created a silly situation with computing where people are expecting to be able to use stuff immediately. They should not. This thing is complicated, and you have to engage your brain. Dumbing software down to create illusion of immediate competency only makes our software worse, and it makes general population stupider.
As for the second point, I agree with building better software and throwing the book at CNET and Lenovo, and any other malware bundler. Seriously, this kind of behaviour should not be allowed in a civilized society.
This is how people learn to drive in many countries (e.g. Ireland). Though you usually start in a quiet car park/road or similar.
I always wondered about "drivers ed" classes I saw on US TV shows when I was younger, since they don't exist where I gre up.
Yes, but that's the part of the training. What I mean is that nobody will let you drive in real traffic the first time you enter the car in your life.
Well, it seems to be the way Microsoft wants to go at it anyway what with the atrocious Windows store.
As a sidenote, I really wish we'd get generic package management. A proper package management server and protocol that is. Something that can be used and picked up by Windows and linux distros but also by domain-specific packages (pypi, etc), browser extensions, games with addon repositories and so on.
It's sad that right now we can't answer "and now we need package management" by "sure, let me fire up pkgserve.d" or something.
I saw it with some co-workers - first google result, obviously fake colorful download buttons, ads everywhere and they finally have an (not necessarily the correct) install.exe they wouldn't think twice about actually executing it. Now imagine doing the same thing with less specific search terms like "mp3 converter" instead of Skype, VLC or Dropbox. That's a very sure way for non-technical users to mess up their system.
Java downloaded from Oracle has the Ask.com toolbar in the installer ffs !
Right. Because all that's preventing the world's population from developing the computer hygiene habits of anal HN readers is a few of your lessons.