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Comment by dnu | Hacker News Reader

Well, I see that they offer to "Install the Ask toolbar" by default. I don't remember Sun doing this.

http://www.java.com/en/download/faq/ask_toolbar.xml

This I am genuinely annoyed with. I am going to start a petition to Oracle for these points, the Java community is extremely large and valuable and it's a disgrace to treat the platform this way.

I am doing some research, apparently this is only for the online JRE install, and it's been there since 2011.

Sun JRE install once peddled OpenOffice and Google Toolbar, but at least OO is better than Ask. Ugh.

They need to get rid of this, it's an embarrassment.

I got a McAfee something or other offer bundled with the installer. I don't know why Sun and Oracle did this, it gives the installer the look of shady shareware shit.

Yeah, I clicked okay on McAfee Installation, and he showed up 45 minutes later, with a teenage hooker and a ton of drugs.

He had good booze, but otherwise, sort of an asswipe.

Sent the girl home with a police matron.

One of the reasons Sun was gobbled up by Oracle is they could never figure out how to monetize their "extremely large and valuable" Java community. I don't like the toolbar spam any more than you, but Oracle doesn't have an obligation to provide a money-losing product.

Easy, write a mobile operating system that uses Java for all the apps- then license that to hardware OEMs until you've got a stranglehold on mobile OS, like the Microsoft model on desktop.

I am saddened that Google didn't buy Sun. Maybe they'll buy Oracle and the optical barrier over the valley will dissolve and reveal it is actually a portal into Hell.

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