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Windows Bods
Gormagon
Posts: 1,473 Forum Member
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http://www.howtogeek.com/198622/heres-what-happens-when-you-install-the-top-10-download.com-apps/
Windows bods, please be very careful where you get your downloads from, and please, read every little dialog popup box carefully.
Windows bods, please be very careful where you get your downloads from, and please, read every little dialog popup box carefully.
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The article shows that these sites are a trap for the unwary, especially if you don't have an ad blocker.
Of course if it somehow became mandatory that these boxes should be unticked by default I suspect some other means of getting the crapware onto peoples computers would be invented. One that perhaps makes it even more difficult for those of us who actually take notice of what the installer boxes are saying to avoid all this garbage.
Of course, its not only malware installation due to ticking/unticking boxes that is a pain.
I hate it when you register on a website say, and you get a tick box and the website says something like "don't tick box if you want regular emails" i.e. use of a negative to attempt to confuse people,
Worse still is use of double negatives e.g. "don't tick box if you don't want regular emails". This really starts to confuse people.
And believe it or not, I have even seen triple negatives e.g. "don't tick box if you don't want regular emails not to be sent to you" - try working that out!
Any reputable web page e.g. a major UK commercial retailer should agree a code of conduct and not use negatives i.e simply "tick box if you want regular emails", and by default (preferably) unticked (that's probably an unrealistic expectation).
I suppose one common sense approach is that by default, the site will always try to send you crap, and so if box is ticked, untick it and vice versa (I say this slightly tongue in cheek - you have to read the small print carefully of course).
One of the advantages of Ubuntu-based Linux distributions is that you can get safe access to tens of thousands of programmes from the Ubuntu Software Center so you're not troubled by any additional promoted rubbish. With Windows, you have to take care about just what exactly you're downloading.
I'd love to see some civil or class action (I know that's a US term) suits, that would soon shut down these swines! At least the ones that currently get right up at the top of the search engine rankings.
User education is another part of it, like others have said, those that will fall victim to this won't be the sort that browse here or watch technology content, so those articles and these threads are going to have a limited effect.
There are some places down the Old Kent Road like that. Full administrator access to the computers in there, so you can imagine how frigged up they are! All the PCs are wrecks.