Tuesday, February 12, 2013

ORACLE and ASK.COM have infected me again!

ASK.COM is an unpleasant little toolbar that desperately wants to infect your computer. It feels like an insidious plague on the world, to be frank. Their toolbar takes up space and provides nothing but a pain in your ass. I fricken hate that toolbar. And I hate Oracle today for slipping it past me once again. Java should not be a virus. It is just one tiny cog in the wheel, so these two should get over themselves.

Back story:

Two days ago I updated Java to run something on a web site. They pester you by popping up a toolbar until you give in and install it (scumbag behavior number 1.) They should just run it until it is truly incompatible (and that is almost never true since they offer “run this time” as an option.) My wits were about me and I refused the Ask.Com installation on the totally unnecessary wizard panel dedicated to infecting your machine (scumbag behavior number 2.)

Yesterday, Java popped up with yet another update for reasons I simply do not understand (scumbag behavior number 3.)

And I was rushed and tired and Ask.Com slipped by me because the default it to have it checked and to ignore the fact that I said no the day before. (Scumbag behavior number 4.)

Oracle and Ask are infecting your computer by using every trick they can to pressure you early and often to run their wizard and they slip it by you if you are even slightly distracted.

This is an evil behavior.

Update: Q: What would make the toolbar even scummier? A: Disabling your ability to get rid of it. Like this …

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