Skype pushes gaming software down users throats Skype has further irked its users, already put out by an outage last week, by pushing a Windows add-on that installed itself on users' systems whether or not they gave it permission to install. Auto-update functionality was used to push an update to the EasyBits Go games centre towards Windows users who used Skype Extras …
If you actually read it properly, you'd know that it is a part of Skype Extras Manager (which you have to manually select to install during installation). This has been a part of Skype (regular version) since 2006. For those who had it installed, they were pushed an update which installed itself whether they let it or not, it wasn't pushed to those who didn't have it installed in the first place.
Business users wouldn't be pushed this as they would be using the business version which doesn't come with all the extra stuff, obv. So your statement is really silly.
In an ideal world, you're certainly right.
Unfortunately, the fact that regular Skype does conference calls along with the fact that business users rarely do more than that with it means that there is no special incentive to go to the business portal of Skype.
Meaning that, in any situation where the IT staff cannot be arsed to do it beforehand, the user will go to Skype.com and download the regular version - probably with all the free extras he can get.
... at least you do not need to be a Google user to communicate with Google Talk.
You can join any XMPP server you like, including setting up your own as I have done.
None of the other competitors come close to that level of openness and interoperability. Google Talk/Jingle will also interoperate with Asterisk... something Skype can no longer do.
We just need to get the open source clients to move forward with implementation of Jingle... I know Kopete was working on it... I'm monitoring the telepathy framework pretty closely, as it seems quite promising with its more modular approach.
http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/wiki/
I know we can all be smug but the one thing that people should have rammed down their throats is that one of the first things they should do after installing an application is to disable automatic updates(*).
Ideally it should be compulsory to ask during installation if you want this "feature".
Also, while I'm at it, any auto-update should respect the wishes of the original installation options and not install Google/*/etc... toolbar nor change your browser's start page just because you don't go through all the questions again.
(*)Completey useless with Adobe products as they ignore this setting.
"The utility is not malign even though users could easily be forgiven for thinking otherwise."
"Users were given the option to ignore or abort the installation but these selections were ignored."
The utility installs software even when clearly instructed not to do so and after purportedly offering the option to not do so? That's pretty malign.
"EasyBits GO is NOT a malware, it is a legitimate application distributed by EasyBits Media as part of our scheduled update."
If it looks like malware and acts like malware and does things without your permission like malware, guess what?
Good bye Skype. That was the proverbial straw.
I had the message a few days ago... I declined and it didn't install (I checked). Where's the story?
---------------------------------
Are you sure it didn't install? The message in the dialog box was asking for it to communicate with Skype - by that point it is already on the PC. Check your registry and Program Data folders, I'd be pretty confident that you will find that it is infact installed.
"EasyBits GO is NOT a malware, it is a legitimate application distributed by EasyBits Media as part of our scheduled update.
Unfortunately the user interface in the update installer has defects causing confusing user experience that leads to unintentional installations..."
So, I guess that means it's malware, then.
...and I might be stretching the definition a bit, here, but... if a piece of software pushes an installation onto your system without your permission -- and ignores your requests to abort the installation -- doesn't that sorta kinda qualify as malware? OK, the payload itself was technically benign, but, still...
"Unintentional installation", my ass. It was only "unintentional" because they were CAUGHT.
Kinda reminds me of my recent Firefox 3.5.8 unwanted auto-update experience. FF 3.5.7 was misbehaving, starting without presenting a new window and ignoring the "New Window" command, when I thought that perhaps a fresh reboot would solve the problem. So, I rebooted and restarted FF; after some moments' hesitation, Firefox presented me with a new window congratulating me for upgrading to FF 3.5.8. This bugged the hell out of me on a couple of levels; first, that Mozilla pushed an auto-update despite my Prefs settings to NOT auto-update and somehow managing to bypass LittleSnitch (despite my Prefs settings, FF still insists on trying to call home to addons.mozilla.org, setting off Little Snitch, to which I always reply "Deny Until Quit") -- and second, that this upgrade-pushing while ignoring Prefs setting smelled like a good old Microsoft trick.
Once I found out that skype was soon to be owned - run by Microsoft.
All consideration of it as a useful product or voip with video was dropped.
We use Linux in our company and are proud to say and show that Microsoft is a non starter for anything we do. Skype is dead for us.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
