 | An Article from Aaron's Article ArchiveSoftware Annoyances - Adobe Flash Player, Apple Updater, and Oracle/Sun Java Photo: Shinob Kibe PaintbrushIPv4You are not logged in. Click here to log in. |
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Here is one of my web log entries, perhaps from my Yakkity Yak page, What's New page, or one of my Astounding Adventures from my Geocaching section: Software Annoyances - Adobe Flash Player, Apple Updater, and Oracle/Sun Java
Wednesday, 23 June 2010 11:34 AM MDT
Yakkity Yak
Whenever I have to update Windows systems to the latest version of Flash Player, I find it very annoying that Adobe's Flash Player download page does NOT offer links to directly download the installer files for later offline installation, both the Mozilla Firefox-based plugin as well as the MSIE version.
Another pet-peeve: Software udaters or installers that automatically add desktop icons. NEVER never NEVER never NEVER add an icon unless you ask me and I authorize it, foolish software installer writers! And when I went to update Java (JRE) on a Windows box today, lo and behold, it wanted to auto-bundle a toolbar with the UPDATE! At least they gave me a choice (I declined as always). But here's a good idea: if it's an UPDATE, use the SAME SETTINGS/CHOICES that I picked when I FIRST INSTALLED YOUR CRUMMY SOFTWARE. That means NO desktop icons, NO "extras" like toolbars. It's annoying how many software installers add one or more new Windows services always running in the background consuming RAM, CPU, and some minor bit of network bandwidth. Here's another hint, software developers: GIVE ME A CHOICE and let me choose to NOT have that junk installed. I will always manually check for updates to your software when I choose. I don't need an updater process. Nor (Apple), an iTunesHelper or mobile device service on PCs that I don't use iPhones/iPads/iPods with. Today when I ran Apple's, Software Updater, it politely allowed me to update iTunes/Quicktime (but it annoyingly added a desktop icon for iTunes—BAD Apple!), but it also auto-checked the install option for Safari. Thank you for at least giving me a choice, Apple, but once again—USE THE SAME CHOICES AS LAST TIME! That is, don't by default enable the installation of software that I did not explicitly enable and install the last time I ran your installer or updater. REMEMBER my CHOICE and HONOR IT!!! Most people probably wonder why I rant about such minor annoyances. Well, when you end up being the go-to person for your family members who rely on you to keep their computers up-to-date with the latest software versions and security fixes, perhaps you'll understand why it can grow so VERY very OLD to have to constantly clean up after software installers that don't give enough choices and don' honor those choices. Now, for my own use, here are the links I usually end up using for Adobe Flash Player [UPDATE: These links are for the older 10.x versions as of Oct. 2011]:
Adobe Flash 11.x Offline Installers:
[UPDATE 4: 24 April 2012 - And Adobe of course DID change at least some of the addresses. Needing to update Flash on a Mac running OS X 10.6, the above links failed. So:]
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