Oh, hey! Ask Toolbar installed without asking.

[Falcon]

I've seen the threads, hell I've even argued against this Ask malware 'til I'm blue in the face. And I did say I'd said my last hoorah about it as well. And I've held up on my end of the bargain... well, until the ImgBurn installer didn't hold up on its own.

 

But this time, the very reason I'd been holding off on installing ImgBurn on my new laptop, actually came to fruition. Ask Toolbar actually did, in fact, slip in without so much as even a prompt.

 

Take a look. I think just having this Ask Toolbar in my programs list at all is perfect proof that it slipped in under the radar (take a look at the install date in relation to ImgBurn). I would never have left that box checked. And I was actually keeping an eye out for the checkbox, or the delay in the wizard. Curiously, there was no page prompting me to install Ask. There was a slight delay between the page just before installing, and actually installing, though. It seems like the logic for the page just figured that last button I clicked would apply there too!

 

So I dunno. Just take this as a bug report. I'm fuming pissed that Ask infected my computer, but at least it didn't hijack my Firefox (from what I can tell... yet. I haven't restarted it). From what I understand, some changes have been made to place the inexplicable delay at the installer startup (so for no good reason, it'll take a few seconds to open, in which time the user will likely re-launch the installer) instead of in middle of the installer... for a malware installer that nobody wants anyway (grr).

 

See attached screenshot.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

If you didn't see the page then maybe something else already installed it? I see a few entries with the same date in that screenshot and that's without scrolling down.

 

Code wise, that's the only way it wouldn't be displayed (because the 'checker' program tells me not to).

 

The logic is all there in the script, I'll even show you it if you like!

 

Clearly I didn't write NSIS (the installer I use for ImgBurn) and it's possible that it's messing up and doing things it shouldn't be doing. There's nothing I can do about that.

[Falcon]

Well, I do think that EAC prompted about Ask, but I (obviously) unchecked that. I did install EAC before ImgBurn (in the order it's shown there)... but the odd thing is, I installed Audition before any of those.

 

I suppose there is the possibility that Ask was installed elsewhere, but that other possibility is one that I remember actually unchecking

 

And, really, I'm quite surprised (and quite a bit saddened) by the fact that so few people have come complaining about Ask... =(

[LIGHTNING UK!]

I guess people have better things to do, can handle/live with unticking a box (for 99.99% of people that don't want it, that must be working) and feel they have no right to complain in the first place.

[Falcon]

It's just that nobody legitimately wants Ask software on their PC, and it's sad to see ImgBurn even offering it (let alone by blind default). That's the whole thing in a nutshell. Nobody wants it.

 

It annoys me in a similar way that ordering a combo at Carl's prompts the upsell phrase "Would you like that medium or large?", and if I didn't know better, I'd take one of the two upsell offers instead of "Small, thanks". Except in this case, it's more like "Would you like your Carl's ad-box as an MP3 player or a stereo?". Might look good on the outside to the novice - hey, play music! Except that you can't turn off the ads. And if you throw it out, it's already reprogrammed your phone, your car, and your computer to play you Carl's ads. Only someone that knows that the upsell is a bad one (and nothing but a bad one), and that it can be declined, would say "No thanks" to the offer. But the big question to ask is, why is Carl's even offering these ridiculous ad-boxes with their items to begin with - let alone shoving them down peoples' throats by default?

 

Ask is a plague infecting *far* too many good software products... I find it quite disturbing that it's voluntarily taking over good products, and that people are just lying down and taking it. I mean, isn't it just a slap in the face to the people that have donated to ImgBurn and stuck by it for all these years? The one clean, pure burner that keeps computers clean of Nero and Roxio bloatware, now comes with Ask?

 

Baahhh... rantmode off. Just makes me really sad. =(

 

edit: Oh, and "... wow, this really bugs you, doesn't it?" is the question, "yes" in the answer.

Edited June 1, 2010 by Falcon