istartedsomething

Paul, I'm one of the two people you're indirectly addressing with this HN post. (The second is Long Zheng.)

I wrote here: http://www.withinwindows.com/2013/01/16/installmonetizer-quietly-starts-editing-privacy-policy/

Long zheng wrote here:
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20130115/y-combinator-is-funding-the-future-of-spam-in-windows-drive-by-crapware-installers/

I'll respond to each of your items individually.

1. OK.

2. Maybe. Or more likely users are mistakenly installing these applications because the offer screen is made to look exactly like the EULA acceptance dialog seen in every other installer.

But we don't expect this to be fixed. Anti-malware vendors have stepped in and are improving their definitions to catch this garbage but it's very much a cat/mouse game. (IM has been detected a few times, btw.) IM is very aware of this "threat" and designed their system around random domain names to mitigate detection issues as they arise. (Think about it -- Does IM, a legitimate company, really need to use fcgoatcalear.us and fcvalcsoi.us domain names? Come on.)

3. No idea where you got this information, given InstallMonetizer bundled software shows no actual EULA. The only EULAs shown during install are ones provided by the package author and the offer advertisers. Can you clarify this point, please?

4. Wrong. Existing IM bundles out there still send PII in the clear. This isn't something they can just flip a switch on and fix. (I saw IM edited their privacy policy…

This is hardly an apples for apples comparison. The quality and implementation of these features are more important that ticking the box labelled "voice recognition".

Tellme is very similar to the original iPhone voice commands, requiring certain key words and syntax to be adhered to. Siri on the other hand allows for quite a bit of flexibility in how instructions are given, or in many cases instructions aren't given but a situation is stated. e.g. "I'm drunk" will prompt siri to bring up the number for taxi services in the area.

Despite that difference the voice recognition in siri is also (in my opinion) far better, a culmination between it being very fast and in my experience suitably accurate.

You won't see microsoft comparing them side by side, because it's a dismal race, but someone else did, read it here: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20111124/tellme-on-windows-phone-vs-siri-on-iphone/

In some Vista betas, where Aero wasn't finished yet, Aero's glass was a lot more transparent. This video shows some of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCDcekzU3cQ

There were parts of Vista that were mostly glass and they still looked fine. The widget picker comes to mind: https://istartedsomething.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/gadget_1.jpg

What Apple demonstrated in their first OS demo is not yet finished, and I'm sure they'll add some more frosted glass efects for legibility and such. What they show off in the video looks fine to me, and the explanation that comes with the visuals show that at least from a designer point of view, all of the weird stuff that jumps out in the macOS demo was violating the design principles.

I loved Aero and I bet once Apple adds the diffuse glass to the places it need to for legibility, I'm sure this will look great too.

Microsoft seems to be the biggest current proponent of flat design, and I must say it's not so great for usability.

When I see this: http://www.istartedsomething.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/windows8metrostart.jpg I have no idea what is and is not a button. I suppose it's all a button. But there are zero affordances in this UI.

This is now finding its way to Microsoft's websites. On outlook, I can't quickly find the buttons to do key tasks: http://cdn-static.zdnet.com/i/story/70/00/001893/eb-new-outlook-three-panes-620.jpg

I think the reaction to excessive skeuomorphism is well founded, but removing all affordances isn't the proper way to move forward either.

YCombinator itself invested in bundleware.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130115/17343321692/why-are-y-combinator-andreessen-horowitz-backing-drive-by-toolbaradware-installer.shtml

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20130115/y-combinator-is-funding-the-future-of-spam-in-windows-drive-by-crapware-installers/

And pg justified it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711

>The apps that get installed are "crapware." This one seems a matter of opinion. A lot of the world's most popular apps and sites seem like junk to us. But the users are choosing to install these things.

The users are choosing to install the original app, not the bundled crap. This is sad.

The author brings up several good points and examples about the way some British newspapers twist headlines and stories (I am assuming the headline is intended to make fun of the topic the author is writing about, as opposed to a generalization about all British newspapers).

A more positive side of the British journalism tradition is that they can be far more skeptical, pushy, and hard-hitting when it comes to dealing with corporations and governments -- which is a good thing, IMHO. There's a brief example here with Apple's Phil Schiller from a few years ago that illustrates this point:

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20071117/taste-apple-public-relations/