Messing With My Computer (continued)

I took a couple potshots at Yahoo! last week for messing with my computer by taking control of my media files when I installed Yahoo! Music Engine.

I got the following comment from Ian at Yahoo!:

We didn't do anything intentionally evil with the grabbing of types. We'll look into it and see if there's a bug of some sort we need to address, or if we just need to make this easier.

He then sent me a private email and copied the product manager and they said that Yahoo! Music Engine does ask permission to take over the media files during the install.  That is a distinct possibility because to be honest I don't remember the install process that well.

Ian went on to say in one of the emails:

I agree this shit is annoying.  I remember in 1999 when I was at Nullsoft and we first started having to play this game.  Real was playing dirty and unless we wanted to be pushed out we had to get in the mix.

I totally agree with Ian - "this shit is annoying".  I would like all of the companies that develop software to play media files of one type or another to sign a "non proliferation treaty" that says they won't try to override each other and will not try to change a user's preferences on install.

Comments

[chris]

Hi Fred,
Google has a "Software Principles" page that addresses some of these issues, although it doesn't seem to address the "arms race" of vendors associating (and re-associating) their software with certain file types.

Software principles page

As for Real Software (the Yahoo engineer mentioned Real), I stopped installing their software about 5 or 6 years ago when they did this crap to my system. Same for Yahoo Instant Messenger, which set my default search engine to Yahoo, about 4 years ago.

[scott partee]

I second the comment about Real. I stopped installing their products when Real took over all my preferences for file types *without asking*. Real violated my trust and I will never install their software again (not to mention that Real actually is (or, at least was) the worst of the 3 "big" players in media players). They may have improved, but I won't give them the chance to prove it.

I don't use Rhapsody. If a video is in Real Media, I simply skip it until I can get it in Windows Media or Quicktime.

[Jason]

What I think is most amazing about this post is how it underscores the power and importance of blogging.

It's a really cool idea to me that important people at Yahoo! read your blog, became aware of a (seriously annoying) aspect of one of their products, and took the time to contact you about it.

That makes me like them, and that's publicity you can't buy. (Dell - I'm looking at you...)