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Comment by jenscow | Hacker News Reader

This is the #1 reason Windows is no longer on my kid's computers; it's too easy to install crap-ware no matter what security package you use.

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Recently I visited my dad and his laptop was just full of crapware. I noticed the only thing he uses is the web browser, maybe editing the occasional word doc. So I just wiped the machine, put on ElementaryOS and hopefully there will be less problems. Haven't heard any complaints so far.

He sounds like the perfect user for Chrome OS.

A lot of the time the perfect user for Chrome OS is too scared by how different it is. I tried it with my father and sister, and they both wouldn't use it. They were too confused by it and how cloud-based it was (even though they stream all their music and keep all their photos only on Facebook), and stopped using it. I tried Ubuntu, and just telling them it was Linux was enough for them to be scared, and blame that for any problems. I eventually settled on Elementary OS for my sister, and told her it was Mac OSX, while my father still uses Windows XP. (Sigh.)

I did this for my sister this Christmas. Every holiday she visits and hands me her laptop to be fixed or reformated. So I got fed up, installed eOS and the tweaks plugin, got Netflix and mp3/aac support working, and told her I had installed Mac OSX on her laptop.

If I had told her it was Linux, she would be too scared to touch the thing, but she honestly believes she has a Mac now (in a Dell laptop), and hasn't complained at all so far.

Absolutely, that was a huge reason I decided to make the switch to Linux. Coming home and getting a stack of laptops from family and friends, becomes a hassle. I didn't come here to spend my day reinstalling Windows!

After I reformatted the machine, I just handed it over and didn't even mention that it was running Linux, just to see if there be any reaction like, "this is not Windows!" and the only question I was asked was "what is the password to unlock the screensaver".

It's a real drag having to go to like Dell to find and download all the drivers, and then download and install things like Java, Flash, etc.

Having a package manager is a huge win, I can write a ansible playbook to configure the machine and make sure the packages are always up to date with something like unattended-upgrades and then call it a day.

I'm just glad my parents don't use online banking, so I get some peace of mind there.

That's the #1 reason ALL the computers in my house aren't windows but Ubuntu.

Ubuntu is bundled with crap-ware , too; it's just more subtle.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ubuntu-spyware.html

http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/09/ubuntu-bakes-amazon-...

I wouldn't call it crap-ware. Sure, it's turned on by default but there is an option to turn them off.

fixubuntu.com ?

...Piping wget into bash? Really?

NO.

(I mean, at least it's HTTPS, but still.)

Funny how people complain about piping wget into bash, but will happily install and run random node/ruby/whatever packages downloaded from a random github repository.[1]

The truth is that program isolation sucks terribly on all operating systems that one might reasonably use for a development machine. Fixing that would be so great, but a lot of work.

[1] Perhaps you're the lone wolfling who doesn't do that, but I have seen this kind of behaviour from people on the don't-pipe-wget-into-shell bandwagon.

Certificate pinning helps with Github, but doesn't help with <random website that I've never visited before>.

(Still doesn't help if the software package itself - that is the canonical copy - is malicious - but prevents MITMing from anyone that doesn't have that particular certificate, at least.)

That being said, you have a (very) valid point. Modern OSes are... not exactly secure.

The question I have is why it's turned in by default -- and why it's there in the first place? If it's there for revenue, then Ubuntu really isn't free.. You're paying by essentially leasing your computer to this revenue generating 'stuff'. Your 'payment' isn't monetary, but it's still a payment. Why can't we just buy stuff with actual money instead of going through the illusion that it's 'free?'

I honestly don't have much experience with Ubuntu or this sort of thing, so I really don't understand it.

A bit of everything. The dash' online component will search amazon etc for products while you type, but it will also search Wikipedia and seemingly every online resource under the sun. If I want to search Wikipedia I go there, so for me it's just annoying, but I can see it being useful to some.

I'm not judging the Ubuntu stuff, I .. don't use that.

But your comment could be equally applied to the crapware installers? Most stuff could be opted-out of - if you're actually careful and ignoring the UX dark patterns (like small print, grey skip buttons etc).

On Windows there's usually a option to remove the crapware, too. On both OS, this function is well-hidden.

I think you mean Unity. And that's what I use on my computer, but the rest of them are running lubuntu.

That's the #1 reason ALL the computers in my house aren't Ubuntu but Debian.

Yeah, I still prefer any Ubuntu LTS release and 10 minutes of post-install tweaking to Debian. Plus I like Unity. And lubuntu is very well suited for the rest of the ex-windows users. It has been 4 years. Nobody complained, apart from a couple of guys on HN. Certainly not the users, and they are who matter the most.

You can disallow software installation on any OS. Heck, corporate IT admins have been doing just that for decades. But hey, you might be a non-technical user, in which case, I agree with your choice.

I do look upon myself as a technical user but if I'm still not technical enough to figure out how to prevent even less technical users from installing crap on their computers (without hindering their usefulness) then that is a fundamental fault of the OS.

You shouldn't have to be a technical user to avoid crap-ware being on your PC - but I'm glad you agree that Windows isn't the best option for us non-technical people.

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