It would seem the initial excitement of Vista has worn off... I'm starting to get angry at things that pop up in the OS.
Like the Soundbuzz icon on the Windows Media Player toolbar. I can't get rid of it. I can't imagine how much they must be paying (or is this company owned by Microsoft) to have it imbedded there, but FFS Microsoft - you already earn billions of dollars a year in profits, you charge the end user for your product (and this post relates to the 'Ultimate Edition', the most expensive of the lot), how can you possibly justify planting unremovable advertising in the OS? There's a word for software that does that kind of thing - spyware. There was a recent backlash against 'browzar', where it was labelled 'spyware' because it doesn't give you the option to change the search bar, hence delivering them advertising dollars. Isn't planting an unremovable link to Soundbuzz on the Media Player toolbar the same? Sure I can add more stores, but I can't remove this one.
It also seems that little has been learned from the antitrust lawsuits. Have a look at the Welcome Page. What's that at the bottom? 'Offers from Microsoft'. Now I can only hope that Microsoft isn't stupid enough to disallow 3rd parties advertising in that same space, but at what cost? How about the copies of Windows that aren't purchased via an OEM? There won't be anything non-Microsoft offerings in those cases will there!
What's next then Microsoft? An unremovable adbar in IE? An unremovable ad gadget in the sidebar? Forced advertisements when downloading Windows Updates? Ad technology built into the Windows Installer, so that ads are displayed in the dialog boxes during install? The progress bar replaced with an adbar and a number to indicate percent complete (inconspicously placed of course - wouldn't want to detract from the ads!)?
It's only RC1, and already I'm getting a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe it's time for that Ubuntu install after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment