Petition: Stop bundling crapware with Java

https://www.change.org/petitions/oracle-corporation-stop-bundling-ask-toolbar-with-the-java-installer

by lagerstedt • 13 years ago

317 153 13 years ago

speeder2• 13 years ago

Can anyone please tell me why Oracle is doing that? I don't get it, it seems to me that the amount of unhappy people would eclipse any penny they might earn with such cheap tactics, it is not like this would give them a 10% profit increase.

josephagoss2• 13 years ago

Oracle don't care about happy people, and a lack of happy people dealing with Oracle has not stopped their massive profits so why would they start now?

I think this is extra worse than normal bundling, because its a friggin platform! A basis for applications, it smells as bad as Microsoft asking to install a toolbar during the OS install.

yankcrime2• 13 years ago

By bundling advert-ridden applications with their latest OS, Microsoft aren't really all that far off the mark from your comment.

speeder2• 13 years ago

I just remembered that Ubuntu ships with Amazon ads on their OS search bar...

Seriously, how worse stuff can get?

I imagine a future.

A bright future.

A future where everyone sees data, with Google Glasses like technology and beyond.

And thus, where they have ads in front of them all the time, you arrive home, look at your daughter in the crib, and suddenly your entire vision is plastered with a semi-transparent ad for diapers, and you blink, it goes away, and another shows up, a ad for automatic cribs with quad core processor and capable of singing and telling stories on its own.

arocks• 13 years ago

I rarely install Java on a new machine because of their installer. It feels too maleware-ish to me. In fact, I would go out of my way to find a non-Java alternative for most software I need.

jcromartie2• 13 years ago

There is a standalone install.

Surio4• 13 years ago

[Somewhat relevant, somewhat off-topic]

Commission collections and ethics aside, I actually cannot understand the venom towards Ask (its search results). I believe in keeping web searches open with multiple choices made available to users, so I actively support all viable alternatives (meaning I use Ask, Blekko, ddg, lycos, yahoo (bing) among others instead of Google for regular everyday searches). Ask search results are very much comparable to Google's, i.e., the search is not "inferior" as claimed.

As for ads, google's adsense ads are just as much in-your-face as the others (ymmv), so don't think this point is such a big thing either as claimed.

yo-mf• 13 years ago

I agree that the vitriol towards Ask is unwarranted, though I do find the inclusion in the Java install to be very much in the realm of crapware.

michaelt4• 13 years ago

I'd never used Ask, so after reading your post I compares a search for "cuda device to host memory copy" [1] and [2]

On google I saw no ads, and the links on the first page of results usually contain the search term.

On Ask there are ads, and they look very much like search results - there's no coloured background to identify them as such - and the search results contain irrelevant links to other Ask properties like "Can I Copy From Youtube? | Ask Jeeves" and "How Memory Stick | ask.co.uk/how"

Personally I won't be switching from Google to Ask.

I'll admit we might see different things - let me know if you'd like screenshots.

[1] http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=cuda+device+to+host+memory+... [2] http://uk.ask.com/web?q=cuda+device+to+host+memory+copy

Surio4• 13 years ago

Hi,

Good show. I checked your links on Maxthon [my IE without the IE baggage] and on Firefox (default browser with ABP add-on) for comparison.

1. On FF I have ABP installed, but there were no ads on Maxthon either for Ask. Is it due to "search bubble" or something else? Not sure. However, I too use uk.ask.com for my searches like you, so the 'bubble' should be the same for me as well. Hmmmm.

2. I got those two false positives also. But the rest of the search results were similar between both search engines (SO, rice.edu, stanford.edu, sourceforge, NVIDIA). I'll admit that I would have simply filtered those two anomalies visually and not given it a second thought. But wouldn't you say, search-for-search, the landing pages were pretty similar in the results returned (barring those two stupidities)?

willvarfar• 13 years ago

Ask gets money by tricking you to click on not-quite-relevent ads, whereas Google gets money by providing revelent ads, no tricking involved.

You can't really split Ask in half and talk about the quality of its search results vs the ethics of the company.

jarsj• 13 years ago

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/askcom-google-sign-35-bil...

nodata• 13 years ago

I already voted: I uninstalled Java from every Windows PC I have.

SquareWheel• 13 years ago

The beauty of cross-platform support is you can uninstall it from every device you have!

blibble• 13 years ago

I can sure see Oracle responding to a petition on the Internet!

WhaleBiologist• 13 years ago

Ah, internet petitions. The best way to feel good about doing absolutely nothing.

joeblau• 13 years ago

This is what I was trying to figure out. Say they get a quarter million signatures; does that mean Oracle will remove the Ask toolbar? I highly doubt it.

meaty• 13 years ago

You mean: stop bundling crapware with our crapware!

Note: I have no problem with Java on the server or client, just the applet and browser plugin model.

asveikau• 13 years ago

I remember a time when java applets were cool. I don't think it's a bad idea entirely, just dated, and eclipsed by other technologies.

camperman• 13 years ago

Perhaps eclipsed is not the best choice of words here :)

rsobers• 13 years ago

Enterprises will put up with almost anything, including this type of bullshit. The cost of switching is far too great. Same goes for lots of Java devs who make their living off the Oracle ecosystem. Also, probably most consumers that install Java don't realize how crappy this tactic is.

bigiain• 13 years ago

Maybe someone (and by "someone" I of course mean "not me!" - my own internet nerd-rage falls well short of doing this, not being much of a Windows user) should write, maintain, and SEO/social-media the hell out of a "Java crap-ware un-installer", which prominently advertises MS-SQL, SAP, and perhaps Postgres while it does it's uninstalling… Then get all the geeks to start telling their bosses "Oh, Java's hijacked your search again? No problem, just search for the "Java Bundled Software Uninstaller" and download it and run it!"

johnminter• 13 years ago

Crapware un-installer? Sounds more like a crapware exchanger with Postgres tacked on...

tobiasu• 13 years ago

On the contrary, please continue. Improve it by adding BonziBuddy and friends. Please please please ruin your already non-existent reputation, Oracle. Help ordinary people who have no idea what Oracle is, connect your name with spam and spyware (and security problems, ofc).

tatsuke95• 13 years ago

Hear, hear.

Oracle has the right to bundle whatever crap-ware they want. If that sullies their reputation or draws out alternatives, that's a good thing.

jtheory3• 13 years ago

Can we just wait until real alternatives exist before letting client-side Java completely self-destruct?

My problem is that as of now, they don't.

glogla• 13 years ago

I think Gator might be a good choice too.

monochromatic2• 13 years ago

Ordinary people won't notice.

bunderbunder5• 13 years ago

That's fine. Ordinary people never really realized how irritating Adobe was being about Flash, either, but that wasn't really a big deal because it was ultimately Flash's poor reputation among techies that brought it down.

Similarly, I think Java's worst nightmare scenario wouldn't be end users deciding they don't like it. (Heck, like with Flash most of them don't even know when they're using it.) It would be some massive headline-making Java-related security breach at a Fortune 500 company convincing IT departments around the world to start thinking that it's time to migrate to a less risky platform.

VexXtreme2• 13 years ago

I would love to see that. Java really deserves to die a death at this point.

sc0rb6• 13 years ago

Here we go again, another Java hater for no reason. What should we replace it with? someCrap.js? someOtherCrap.py?

You really have no idea what you're talking about. Killing Java would be a ridiculous thing to do. You live in such a bubble.

alpeb2• 13 years ago

Java bashing is the cool thing to do. And just to add more wood into the fire I'm gonna drop a quote from Larry Ellison himself that I think is spot on. He said something like the only industry more driven by fashion than fashion itself is IT.

nnnnni• 13 years ago

Go to http://www.ninite.com and get the Java installer from there. It's malware-free and streamlined.

UnoriginalGuy• 13 years ago

Only if you implicitly trust ninite.

eli2• 13 years ago

Personally, I'd take that deal.

swies2• 13 years ago

We're good guys, it's OK. :)

Seriously though, we'd lose all our Ninite Pro customers if we pulled any crap with our installations. Since the free version is our marketing department we'd be idiots to mess that up too.

urza3• 13 years ago

But does it solve the annoying java updater problem?

swies2• 13 years ago

If you're talking about those pop-ups users get on new versions our Pro version can turn those off: http://ninite.com/help/features/disableautoupdate.html

DrinkWater• 13 years ago

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell no, i am not going to sign this. Like what is it going to change?

drostie2• 13 years ago

"As you know people, as you learn about things, you realize that these generalizations we have are, virtually to a generalization, false. Well, except for this one, as it turns out. What you think of Oracle, is even truer than you think it is. There has been no entity in human history with less complexity or nuance to it than Oracle. And I gotta say, as someone who has seen that complexity for my entire life, it's very hard to get used to that idea. It's like, 'surely this is more complicated!' but it's like: Wow, this is really simple! This company is very straightforward, in its defense. This company is about one man, his alter-ego, and what he wants to inflict upon humanity -- that's it! ...Ship mediocrity, inflict misery, lie our asses off, screw our customers, and make a whole shitload of money. Yeah... you talk to Oracle, it's like, 'no, we don't fucking make dreams happen -- we make money!' ...You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower hates me' -- lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you, lawnmower can't hate you. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don't fall into that trap about Oracle." -- Bryan Cantrill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc

brudgers4• 13 years ago

This rant isn't even relevant to the complaint at hand...unless the point we are supposed to take away is that Oracle's attempt to collect data about its consumer market segment is mediocre. That is a legitimate critique.

Oracle's attempt is pretty lame in comparison to the methods of their tech peers. Apple, Microsoft and Google ship entire mobile operating systems filled with software to collect data and have built vast app stores filled with spyware that does not offer the user a chance to opt out.

But what makes Oracle's acts so lame is that the actually respect enterprise and don't bake the spyware in. Their peers, on the other hand, push BYOD.

drostie2• 13 years ago

I found it relevant because the link in question is a petition addressed to Larry Ellison about an Oracle business practice which was directed towards making money, at the expense of serving the userbase. I put it here precisely because it articulates why this petition might be, even moreso than other petitions, a futile exercise. The success of a petition fundamentally depends on two things: a receptive audience, and a bunch of people willing to make a little effort to say "me, too."

TazeTSchnitzel• 13 years ago

The Oracle bit of that video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=33m

warmwaffles• 13 years ago

His rant is entertaining.

kenj0418• 13 years ago

I'm reminded of the book title "The difference between God and Larry Ellison". (God doesn't think he is Larry Ellison.)

huhtenberg• 13 years ago

Larry is saving up for another Hawaii island. Every penny counts.

drivebyacct23• 13 years ago

Couldn't someone just build OpenJDK for Windows and offer it as an alternative install?

Because, I'll tell you what, I sure didn't get any crapware when I typed `sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jdk`.

calpaterson• 13 years ago

The problem is that the OpenJDK has problems with graphical toolkits, specifically Swing. Intellij (Java IDE with a lot of Swing) runs a lot worse under the OpenJDK than under the Sun's JVM. I might be wrong, but I don't think this has changed recently.

drivebyacct23• 13 years ago

I keep hearing this and I can't find any examples myself. I use IntelliJ occasionally and haven't had any issues using it with OpenJDK 7, though it does warn me IIRC. Similarly, with Minecraft, I've had no issues, though I'm not an avid player by any means.

Either way, it'd be a nice way to give Oracle the middle finger about this.

mdellabitta2• 13 years ago

For a while, using OpenJDK was the only way to get proper font smoothing on Linux in IntelliJ. It doesn't display any warnings anymore and works fine with OpenJDK now.

ghshephard• 13 years ago

OpenJDK isn't broadly supported by some important commercial packages. Atlassian, for one, requires the Sun/Oracle JDK.

https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRAKB/OpenJDK+is+n...

imglorp• 13 years ago

If you're reading this, you're probably too small.

I believe ORCL wants to drive off all their nuisance D and E customers, which is all the riffraff not paying them $50m/yr. After taking over Sun, they've moved all the good stuff behind a paywall, jacked the cost of legacy products and of supporting them, added onerous contracts with stiff penalties. For example, if you ever drop support, there's a big fine to rejoin. Another example is if you're an OEM they make it very very hard to simply sell their stuff. My $work is an OEM that also uses several products ORCL bought that used to be okay, but now we're getting off them before the sleaze and expense kills us.

So Java is probably one of those standalone business units they need but hope it will make a little profit of its own. The first attempt to monetize, sue GOOG, didn't go so good if you recall.

cmiles74• 13 years ago

I believe the crapware bundling was started by Sun, it predates acquisition.

eitland2• 13 years ago

Most of the time Sun just used it to advertise OpenOffice which was their own product.

Does anyone remember if Sun at any time bundled adware or other forms of crapware, esp. using deceptive tactics?

Eliezer• 13 years ago

Are you offering to pay for Java development and maintenance? I mean... someone has to. How is this not a case of demanding things for free?

If the petition were asking Oracle to establish a nonprofit that could support Java and offering to pay the first $10,000 toward it, I'd have a quite different reaction. But this seems to me no different from agitating for "free healthcare" without even mentioning who might pay for it, just, "it should be free!"

bornhuetter• 13 years ago

The petition doesn't ask for it to be free. Personally I have no problems with them including adverts, and they can make money by providing additional tools and services. The problem is that they are bundling borderline malware, using deceptive techniques.

omershapira• 13 years ago

To be fair, Oracle is (or was planning on) making heaps of money out of Java for business. Client-side Java seems like less than a portion of their plan to start with (anyone who mentions JavaFX here gets banned from the internet) - I mean, start with hiring a designer for the download page. This disrespect to users is exactly why they're treating it that way. If it's not that important to them, might as well import com.oracle.money-making-addon; No big deal either way.

Anyway, as someone who regularly writes software for artists and designers with Java, I lately find myself avoiding JVM-based workflow on the client-side. It's just too much of a hassle for anyone I work with.

skyebook• 13 years ago

Agreed, I'm a big fan of Java and have written client software with it but the annoyances are rapidly beginning to outweigh the benefits. Bad press, awful UI support on OS X, Web Start's seeming disappearing/reappearing act... What's the point anymore?

mikro2nd• 13 years ago

So maybe a petition to get Oracle to stop bundling JavaFX with the rest of the JDK...?

I mean, what the hell are they thinking anyway? That we're going to be so awed by it just because it's rammed down our throats? Nobody is ever going to use JavaFX any more than they're going to use Silverlight. They should get over it already.

fauigerzigerk• 13 years ago

First of all, distributing something for free doesn't make the installation of unwanted deceptive software any more legit.

Second, Java is the basis for a lot of very expensive Oracle software. Does the Java updater work differently on their machines?

andyjohnson04• 13 years ago

.net is free and doesn't come bundled with toolbars and crapware

natem345• 13 years ago

It's supposed to sell Windows licenses.

sc0rb6• 13 years ago

Except Windows is crapware.

Apreche• 13 years ago

Petition: Programmers, stop using the Oracle versions of Java. Too many of your Java programs only work properly with Oracle JVM, etc. Instead, standardize on another one of the Java implementations so that it can become the premiere implementation and really screw with Oracle.

jwr• 13 years ago

Some of us (especially in the performance-oriented crowd, or people using large heaps) really have no choice here.

mdellabitta2• 13 years ago

Zing? Not that that really stands a chance of becoming the new standard because of licensing costs.

pepr• 13 years ago

I'm curious, are other Java implementations (e.g. OpenJDK) really that bad? I mean, quite a lot of influential/resourceful companies are behind it, are they unwilling or unable to improve it?

jcromartie2• 13 years ago

Having done a bit of Clojure and some server-side Java here and there: what depends on an Oracle JVM? I think I've always used open versions...

fierarul• 13 years ago

Which other Java implementations? Apache's is abandoned. OpenJDK is basically still Oracle. What's left? IBM's JDK?

sixbrx• 13 years ago

I'm really a bit surprised that there's not a prominent fork of OpenJDK by now, concentrating on the VM and not the Java compiler ("OpenJVM").

Tail calls, value types, easier direct calls to C to process large regions of data without copying (e.g. lapack): there are many things which could benefit non-Java languages on the JVM like Clojure and Scala that are taking too long with Oracle stewardship (as they did with Sun's as well). Maybe these things are in fact too hard to implement for small or unfunded groups?

I hope not, I think it's high time.

brudgers4• 13 years ago

This petition is complaining about the neighbor on your left letting his dog crap in your yard, when the neighbor on the right is running a meth lab. We are carrying around phones filled with spyware to track what we listen to, watch and read an where we do it.

How hard is it to discern even our sleep habits? We put them on the charger beside the bed at night and tune in to Pandora. If our phones can't tell if we're sleeping around or alcoholics already, it won't be long until they can.

Like most petitions this one is a distraction. It keeps our energy focused on the wrong part of a larger issue and one where any leverage we have cannot create fundamental change.

freehunter• 13 years ago

And what do you propose Microsoft or Apple would do with the knowledge that I'm an alcoholic who is cheating on my wife? Why would they care? They're in business to make money, and there's not much money in extortion, not for long. If my phone called my wife automatically to tell her where I was and what I was doing, it wouldn't be long before no one bought that phone and Apple went out of business from the privacy lawsuits.

Yeah, we carry devices that are spying on us. Why do they spy? To sell us more stuff. They don't try to hide that fact. Your fearmongering is off topic here, and fairly irrelevant elsewhere too.

sp3322• 13 years ago

They will make money from your data regardless of whether it "outs" you to your wife or not. They have no respect for your privacy which means they will sell out some of their userbase (or other people they happen to have data on) if it will make them money.

brudgers4• 13 years ago

"Why do they spy? To sell us more stuff."

They spy because they can. They spy because the companies involved believe that the data they collect has value. They spy because the companies involved believe that the data they collect might have even more value in the future.

The companies involved aren't in the business of selling you stuff. They sell data about you to others. Sure that might be a retailer of Hello Kitty backpacks with scenes of unicorns shitting rainbows. It might be a presidential campaign. It might be a government - and in that case, the value exchanged might be trade privileges rather than cash.

Large commercial ventures willing to harm many people for the sake of profit are not unknown to history e.g. the East India Company and International Association of the Congo. Likewise, industries adopting standard practices which do so - e.g. tetra-ethyl lead.

I may be wrong. But I don't think that just because I live in the US corporations have any more respect for my human dignity than they do for the citizens of Honduras or Pakistan or Albania.

pconf2• 13 years ago

"Why do they spy?"

One big reason they spy because there are a lot of webdevs who either have no idea or do not care about PII. Why would someone put a link on their website, to Facebook or Twitter for example, basically giving them all of their extremely valuable web logs for free? These companies make big bucks from those unnecessary "live links" and go to great lengths to avoid questions about why they "need" to be live (and they don't).

JanneVee• 13 years ago

> Why do they spy?

You're thinking of this type of consequences: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230445860457748...

The problem is this type of consequences: http://www.newcreditrules.com/newcreditrulescom/2009/01/bewa...

Secret formulas deciding our credit limits and insurance premiums because spying gives them information is the problem. Not the information that we might pay more for a hotel room.

7952• 13 years ago

In a world in which computers chips are ubiquitous and connected it is almost impossible to avoid this kind of risk. We implicitly trust numerous companies who could have left back doors in a system. I trust Android more than the random ASIC in my phone or the proprietary software in my router.

brudgers4• 13 years ago

I am typing this on my smartphone. Obviously I accept some risk as well. I suspect we would agree that our acceptance doesn't make it less of a risk. I don't think that my acceptance such risks makes the petition any less of a trivial distraction from the broader and more serious issue.

Oracle is not the poster child for spyware.

Karunamon7• 13 years ago

>We are carrying around phones filled with spyware to track what we listen to, watch and read an where we do it.

That's some great FUD. In fact I think I've heard it somewhere before..

Isn't this the reason that RMS refuses to carry a phone?

Wilya• 13 years ago

Are you seriously believing nobody (be it a random app or your phone seller) has ever tracked your GPS history, looked at your media player library (which includes play counts), looked at who you have in your addressbook, etc ? Yet there are (or were) APIs to do all these..

You can care about it or not, but saying it's false is kinda bold.

Skoofoo• 13 years ago

This is just treating a symptom of a disease.

urza3• 13 years ago

Few days ago I was watching a movie and in the middle the java-wants-your-presmission-for-update popup just appeared over my movie.. Thats it. Enough is enough. Java is the most annoying and probably most unsecure thing on my computer.. I started removing programs that need java and replacing them with native alternatives.. the last one remaining is KSG client ( http://www.gokgs.com/ ) - it will be a tough one, I dont want to give up playing GO on my favourite server.. but.. as long as the java installer/updater behaves this way.. I will not tolerate it on my computer.

magoon• 13 years ago

1) Ask Toolbar is about as mild a bundle-in as it gets.

2) You can set Java update mode to manual.

3) Chrome (and possibly another browser) asks permission before using Java on any page, so I consider it a low-risk vector for drive-bys.

ihsw• 13 years ago

1 and 2 are opt-out while 3 is opt-in, they should all be opt-in.

Karunamon7• 13 years ago

Absolutely disagree on #2. The application should not have to ask for permission to update, especially given the security climate that Java lives in.

If you have to ask the average user for permission to update, updates won't get done. It's that simple.

Oracle should take a page from Chrome's book, here. Update silently in the background, and then notify if a restart or a relaunch is required to effect the change.

martinced• 13 years ago

With, what, 3 to 6 million Java programmers I think it's going to be very difficult to get 250 000 signatures.

alpeb2• 13 years ago

The latest JavaFX release, which is the new way of building java desktop apps, encourages you to bundle the java runtime in your app, which gives you a lot of benefits including avoiding the problem discussed here. It's a wonderful platform I encourage everybody to look into.

dschiptsov• 13 years ago

I think "with Java" is somehow tautological, and redundant.)

gtani• 13 years ago

for x86 Windows 32-bit (offline install), not entirely satisfactory if you need 64-bit but still

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5115058

foohbarbaz• 13 years ago

Meh. Let this kill the default Java install on Windows.

When I need to deliver an app written in Java to the end user I just include my own JRE. You have to do it pretty much anyway in order to guarantee that your app works regardless of quirks of particular system/installation.

csense• 13 years ago

How easy would it be for someone else to make an OpenJDK build with Windows installer and auto-updater, but no crapware?

Petition: Stop bundling crapware with Java

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