It dawned on me as I was installing the latest version of Java that most people will not check the option to NOT install the offered toolbar or other software bundled with the product.
Then I thought, "What if a person installed the bundled toolbars for all the freeware stuff that I use or recommend?"
With that, I fired up my Virtual Windows XP session and proceeded to download and install all the freeware apps that I normally use, this time, using the default installations on all of them (thus, installing the bundled toolbars for each).
I installed the following applications using the default options, always choosing the most current version (if applicable):
- Spyware Terminator - Spyware protection
- PDFCreator - Print to PDF and other formats
- Java JRE - Just one of those things you need for various applications to work (OpenOffice.org, for example)
- CCleaner - System cleaning/maintenance tool
- AVG - Antivirus
- WinAmp - Media and streaming audio player
- Alcohol 52% - Mount ISO and other image files as a virtual drive
- Windows Live Writer - Blogging tool (not only installs a toolbar, but installs Mail, Messenger, Photo Gallery, and the required Sign-in Assistant)
- Azureus Vuze - Bittorrent client
Again, these are all applications that I use or recommend.After the toolbars were installed, my IE's viewable browser space was reduced to about 50-60%, using 1024x768 resolution. Of course, this doesn't include toolbars which actually have a special function and are installed on purpose, such as the Ebay toolbar, StumbleUpon, UPromise, etc.
Do we really need all these toolbars? I mean, the casual user will not know to uncheck the boxes for the search bars and other options. As a result, they will end up with a slow browser that offers only a portion of optimum viewing area.
Next, I decided to go all out and install as many toolbars that I could find that were actually useful/non-malware to some degree.
So, I added:
- Stumbleupon
- Ebay
- Del.icio.us
- Digg
- AOL
- Dictionary.com
...I couldn't install any more toolbars. I tried to install the Skype toolbar for IE, and although it does appear in the add-ons listing, I could not see it - the same went for the UltraEdit toolbar. Perhaps IE will only let you install so many toolbars? I topped out at 16! IE ran ridiculously slow, and it crashed Explorer a couple times, but I was able to get IE to open - - eventually.
Screenshot goodness:
So, please, software vendors...could you set the default option to NOT install your bundled toolbars? I know that you've made some agreements with Google, Yahoo, etc, - - but really...It's OK to leave the option there to select if we want it, but most people don't know any better.Maybe someone could offer a toolbar that combined all the other toolbars? :)
9 comments:
ROFL!!! That second screen shot is AWESOME.
(long time reader)
Now this is funny !
Maybe it would be a good idea to provide an extension that wuld move selected toolbars to the side pane or a button to quickly show/hide any toolbar (except the default), Stumbleupon does have a button to do this with there toolbar
Actually, in Firefox you can move /combine toolbars. In some cases you can only move the whole thing, in others you can move the individual buttons. Several toolbars have a toggle button (i.e. stumbleupon),and surely there is a FF extension to do the thing pawoli mentioned
He, he, he. The lesson is: never use default installation options. In Firefox it's easy solve the problem, use keyconfig! But I don't have that sort of paranoia...
Ug, I hate toolbars. I was at my parents house on a trip and on both of their computers they had 5 toolbars. Normal users don't look for the check box to not install a toolbar. At my work I fight toolbars all day long. Co-workers call me and say that suddenly something doesn't work that worked before. Sure enough there is a toolbar there blocking popups or something. 9 time out of 10 its an adware supported toolbar and gives them popups. Even just installing Adobe Reader or Flash gives you a toolbar unless otherwise specified.
this is common scene with any pc having some decent number of necessary programs installed. One way is to install the program without its default options or disable them in the browser.
Groowe Toolbar for Firefox users is a good alternative for major search engine toolbars having the more features than what they offer.
if the user is not able to use his brain and to read only a bit before he/she is clicking on ok, i can't see the problem.
(as most computer problems are sitting 60-80 cm in front of the monitor)
but the pix are nice ;-)
and yes, i hate toolbars too.
Bundling toolbars must be one of the worst fashions to happen to software for ages. I also have to struggle with this problem at work (as sysadmin) and with friends.
For me I class it in the same ranks as adware.
With modern versions of IE and Firefox you can do most of their functionality through the inbuilt search bar. It would be nice if when you opened up IE or FF it said
"Some bright spark has tried to add a toolbar to your browser where would you like to place it a) top, b) sidebar, c) delete"
I don't think we will see them disappearing anytime soon as software makers can generate loads of extra web traffic/revenue their way from enabling them by default
Wow.... Good post!
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