|
This might just be a personal irritant for a small portion of AfterDawn users (including me), but since I'm in that group and I haven't found any other suggestion to this effect, I'll take the plunge and start a discussion thread on the above topic.
First, I REALLY HATE stub installers -- small(ish) files that once downloaded and executed, then proceed to go online somewhere unknown (could be legit, could be a bit of malware impersonating a legit software update) to download a much larger file which then begins a new installation process once that download is complete. With some legit companies (Adobe, are you hearing me?) the stub installer calls a 2nd file which can and does include a variety of crapware that I simply do NOT want and will NOT have installed on any of my computers, and although Adobe will usually ask during the installation whether the user agrees to install some additional program that's bundled into the installation file, that's not always the case 100% of the time.
Now, perhaps I'm just an old crank, but long ago in the days of very slow dial-up I began following a simple protocol for common updates of downloading once to a thumb drive, then installing from that thumb drive onto multiple machines instead of wasting a lot of time and tying up the Internet connection/telephone line to process the update sequentially on each machine directly unless required for the OS flavor. It's a habit that I still follow and still find very useful because there's an archival version of the more recent updates which can be handy for re-installing if there's a need to go back to an earlier restore point due to some OS glitch.
So, after scanning over the latest AfterDawn newsletter I was taking the opportunity to download a few updates and discovered that one of them (the Tweaking.com v1.9.7 update) was in fact one of those stub installers -- stopped the download and used the link provided to go directly to the author's website in order to obtain the full version. Problem solved, and maybe not that big a deal but that's not the point -- IMHO AfterDawn shouldn't be linking to some stub installer at all, but to the relevant full installation file for whatever OS flavor might be appropriate which has no (and I mean ZERO) crapware associated with it.
|
