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Comment by protospork | Hacker News Reader

> First off, the Flash updater on Windows works quite well on modern Windows systems.

Speak for yourself; I only ever see it on system startup. I only reboot once every few months (and it doesn't respond to waking up from standby), but there's a new Adobe security panic every two weeks or so, so that's not really acceptable. Plus it opens as a pop-under window for some reason, so I'm generally unaware of it until I've opened a browser, which I'll then have to close and reopen.

The 'stealing revenue' argument is definitely valid, but in Adobe's case it's such a hateful method that I can't sympathize at all.

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Adobe lost any credibility in this argument when they 'accidentally' pushed out a Flash update that sideloaded McAfee.

I thought that Adobe's rolling out automatic updates for Flash Player might finally end my having to (endlessly) maintain it on my parents' computers. No dice... (It doesn't work -- at all, it often seems, or at least consistently nor in anything like a timely manner.)

After some horrible experiences with Adobe Support, I've decided that Adobe as a company is crapware. I am sorry for e.g. some of the engineering talent there that may be doing good work. But, they (you) seem to exist these days within a horrible company organization.

Also, you have to remember to uncheck McAfee every time. Even I have missed that option on one occasion.

> The 'stealing revenue' argument is definitely valid, but in Adobe's case it's such a hateful method that I can't sympathize at all.

Is it? If their (Piriform, as in the original example) model is based around providing a service for a product they release for free, but someone else can provide that service better, then perhaps they need to re-think their business model. Either be way cheaper, or provide something that Ninite can't or won't. Maybe even partner with Ninite and explain that your product can't exist without that revenue, so why not just integrate deeper and share a bit of revenue, rather than having it fail and upset customers of both parties.

In addition to this, the updater alway starts the default browser.. while not opening any new page.

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