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Comment by jiggy2011 | Hacker News Reader

jiggy2011

Agreed, a lot of the reasons that non technical users dislike Windows seem to be the result of these. It really takes control out of the users hands.

We can see the origins of this becoming a problem on Ubuntu with Canonical adding stuff like the Amazon search and seemingly having no issue with bundleware as a means of monetisation.

On the other hand I'm surprised this isn't more of an issue on the Mac, since Mac (especially older versions) will allow installation of software from random sources which could include bundleware.

Is there something about OS X that makes bundleware more difficult to develop or is it just easier to monetise an OS X app without bundleware?

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I can see the future of apt-get on Ubuntu now...

    $ sudo apt-get install emacs
    After this operation, 86.3 MB of additional disk
    space will be used and AVG Toolbar Pro! GOLD EDITION
    will be installed to Chromium
    Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

If that happens, all someone needs to do is repackage Debian's version of aptitude for Ubuntu.

Or an older version from Ubuntu.

Really, this is a non-issue on Linux, because either 1) someone will just "fix" it an release their alternative, or 2) everyone will just stop using the offender.

You could've said the same thing about e.g. download.com. Turns out there's such a thing as momentum.

Depends on what type of software you are talking about. For copyright protected proprietary software (which Canonical want people to develop for their OS) there may be legal protections which prevent it from being rebundled outside of torrent sites (which have their own risks).

#2 assumes a savvy enough userbase.

Legal protections against rebundling aptitude? Something released under the GPL? Which means everyone has all of the ability to easily change the sucker.

If you're packaging something as a deb, you can potentially bundle other things, but at the same time, because a deb is a glorified tar.gz, someone can just provide information on how to get rid of the offending thing.

Or, if you're using Arch, the AUR maintainer just adjusts the PKGBUILD to do it for you.

It's not particularly hard.

And sure, having people install a different package manager requires a savvy enough userbase, to an extent. If they can copy and paste a couple commands into the terminal, they can change it (wget [somefile] && dpkg -i [somefile]). How hard.

I don't mean aptitude itself.

I mean , if you are bundling your own software for Ubuntu you get to distribute it however you like. If somebody else decides to redistribute it minus the crapware then you can potentially sue them.

So you can say "the only legal way to get my software is to download this file which is bundled with InstallMonetizerForUbuntu".

Whether it is bundled as a .tar.gz or a .deb and whether it comes from a random website or the Ubuntu software store is largely irrelevant to this point.

Sure, people will create programs and instructions on how to get the crapware off your system but this is basically the same state as now exists for Windows with various "cleaner" programs, some of which install even more shit.

I've said nothing about distribution. Only packaging. And specifically giving people instructions on how to do it themselves. Which isn't illegal. Nor is it particularly endorsing something illegal.

> So you can say "the only legal way to get my software is to download this file which is bundled with InstallMonetizerForUbuntu".

But, once I have that downloaded, I don't have to go straight to installation. I can remove files and change the install script. Sure, you can give me a binary file, but the only binary files I've ever received are after I've paid for something, and I've never found paid software bundled with crapware, even on Windows.

I can still write a script that would get rid of the bundled things provided you already have the packaged file, and distribute that script to anyone who wants it.

And while yes, people will create decrapifyers, I'm talking about preventative measures (modifying the installer).

Well sure, expert users can certainly reverse engineer installer scripts and some intermediate users might be diligent enough to go doing research before they install each program.

Not a solution that scales very well though, if it did we wouldn't have the problem we do on Windows at the moment.

> Do you want to continue [Y/n]

"Yes" & "No, I do not not want to install this"?

Oh Zeus, no! One of the reasons I love Linux is the fact that I get to control what gets installed and how. Don't give people such ideas. Given how Ubuntu now is going to be full of ads and the like.

IMO, some of it is due to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory. One developer starts with an advert, somebody else has two, a third developer gets paid to sneak in some toolbar, the first notices "hey, I can make money that way, too", and the ball gets rolling.

Now, the question is why this has not happened for Mac Software, at least not on that scale. Gruber (2004) claims it is due to zero tolerance (http://daringfireball.net/2004/06/broken_windows).

I think that is partly true, and it sort-of started with the original PC. Installing a DOS program such as Lotus123 was a nightmare, where people had to answer such question as "number of lines on a page" and "how does your printer do bold" to configure a printer. Installing hardware, similarly, was a nightmare (what IRQ should we use? Do you have extended or expanded memory? etc).

Interesting analogy, it's certainly true that there is some sense of "community" for both Linux and Mac users in that people will generally choose these platforms because they have certain beliefs about how things should work and won't tolerate things that fall outside of this.

Windows on the other hand has no community and is kind of an multi-cultural wasteland where everything goes thus will tolerate more BS.

Not sure I agree with Gruber's conclusion though, if Mac had a large uptake in market share then that community would become diluted.

As it stands the random Grandma that uses a Mac without understanding computers gets a sort of herd immunity because there is a larger percentage of more nerdy and vocal users who won't tolerate BS.

If grandmas become the overwhelming majority of Mac users they lose some of that because the crapware vendors know that grandma is very unlikely to read the blogposts condemning their software.

It's low market penetration which explains the difference between OSX and Linux on the one hand and Windows on the other.

The iOS and Android app stores are full of crapware. Yes, that crapware does not have all the features of it's counterpart in the Windows ecosystem. Yet, much of it provides little value or functionality and even functional applications collect vast amounts of data not necessary for that functionality.

There is now a modest obstacle -- Apple's walled-garden app store approach. The default settings of the very latest OS won't allow a novice user to run a crapware installer, and Apple's app store won't feature them (unless the harried reviewer glances away from his monitor to drink some water or something).

HOWEVER, Mac OS X has never had this problem, and before the app store there was nothing inherently harder about writing crapware that bundles whatever creepy garbage could be monetized.

So actually I really wonder why OS X and Linux never had this problem (to any major extent). Is it merely the awesomeness of single-digit market share? In that case, Ubuntu's safe but Apple better start worrying about it.

Personally I suspect it's more complicated than that, but my ideas are half-baked.

A lot of OS X apps are installed by dragging the app to /Applications, no installer involved, it may be one of the reasons.

Not familiar with the OSX installation procedure, but I assume that dragging the app into the folder runs some installer script? Are there perhaps restrictions on what can be done via these scripts that would require 2 distinct actions to install say a browser toolbar and application?

Most OS X applications are usually a folder that behaves like an executable (has a custom icon, will run the app when you double click on it). So no, it's not running an installer script, it's just copying a folder, and the app runs with just what's in the folder, no install process needed.

For things that require changing system components, other apps etc. there is a normal install wizard.

The cool thing about Mac applications is they are self contained. Very rarely do you see an actual installer. Uninstallation is usually just deleting the application from the Applications folder.

I wish other operating systems did it that way. It's very convenient.

The problem is it leads apps to include their own copies of libraries - which then get out of date and have bugs. I remember when a vulnerability was found in zlib and just to update all of apple's first-party programs with the fix required something like 2.6gb of updates. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were still some more obscure third party mac programs shipping the old, vulnerable version.

Well the alternative (dynamic loaded libraries) have their issues as well. After "DLL hell" and various issues on Linux in the past, I'm not convinced one side is fundamentally better than the other. 3 gig is nothing these days.

It isn't. Since every library the application needs is inside the bundle, you load multiple versions of the same lib on memory. Also counting the installer, the bundle and Brew or MacPorts you have a tons of way to install an app.

Not every. The ones that are distributed with the OS X base install usually are dynamically linked against.

My current project I'm working on links against the standard Cocoa frameworks, zlib, Core Audio, Audio Unit framework and the Accelerate framework. Yet the Frameworks directory in the app bundle is empty.

Well, if I'm not mistaken, Windows linking usually involves re-calculating offsets in the library code, so several versions of libraries are kept in Windows too. The only thing that is theoretically saved is disk space.

How often do you really have multiple third-party apps using multiple copies of the same third-party framework? How many third-party frameworks maintain binary compatibility between versions so that apps linked against different versions could still share a single installation of it?

MS-DOS did it, but on those days things were a lot simpler.

No, no setup scripts are run, you are just copying a folder inside /Applications. All setup an application needs (typically creating configuration folders and associating mimetypes) should be done the first time the application is launched.

Dragging an app into /Applications does just that: it copies a directory (hidden with an .app extension) that contains resources and executable. No script.

Some apps however come with an installer, but that's for apps that do more (e.g. need to install drivers, etc.). However, it's Apple's own installer which I think is provided by Xcode. So, no way to mess with it and install crappy things.

You can run arbitrary scripts in the installer, so you can install anything you want.

You can even (if you are iTunes 2.0, or a hater) delete the user's entire home directory!

Nope, no installer script. If a program needs installer script (to install drivers etc.), you get a package installer (like on Windows), however, they are rather rare and I've never seen any crapware in those so far.

No, it's just copying the bundle.

> Is there something about OS X that makes bundleware more difficult to develop or is it just easier to monetise an OS X app without bundleware?

MacOS apps very rarely have an installer, so there's little opportunity to install this sort of thing.

Installers are (rightfully) rare on OS X, but that doesn't preclude installing any random crapware you want. Your app can do it on first launch (or hey, tenth launch to make it less visible). Lots of apps have a first-launch screen where they confirm some options and maybe even ask for an admin password for housekeeping.

Hmm, Monetizer.framework?

Users are trained to just accept whatever in installers, however, while popups on first launch demanding admin passwords will often be treated with a little more suspicion.

Yes, I changed my UAC settings under Windows to require the admin password before sudoing (or whatever MS calls it).

It was just too easy to me even as a relatively experienced user to knee-jerk click the "Allow" button.

OS X applications are usually distributed as disk images (.dmg) containing the app itself, a symlink to /Applications for easily copying the app there, and maybe supporting files. Installers are unusual, except for huge software packages like Office or odd things like preference panes, which are not as easy to get to the right place.

I presume that people using Macs tend to be 1) wary of downloading any programs from random websites and 2) wary of having to run something like an installer. The Mac App Store means that people will only do these things less going forward.

>I presume that people using Macs tend to be 1) wary of downloading any programs from random websites and 2) wary of having to run something like an installer.

If only. Last time I did a "check up" on my sister's macbook she had managed to install a toolbar and some other evil shitware that would hijack her google searches to collect her info and redirect her to bing.

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