Since it seems like I’m the only one who didn’t participate in a raging debate on a list or forum, or blog about this, I shall do so now.
For all the hype and outrage, I think this is not such a big deal. The funniest thing for me is that this has probably been going on for some time now, and I bet most of you, the foremost Flash developers in the world, never noticed until you saw a thread about it.
Why is that? Because the player you get when you buy Flash does not have Yahoo in it. The player you get when you automatically upgrade your player does not have Yahoo in it. The player you get when you go to Macromedia’s download site using Mozilla or Firefox, etc. does not have Yahoo on it. The only time you are going to encounter it is when you go to the Macromedia site using IE/Windows.
Secondly, if you do wind up there, it’s not like it’s being snuck in there on you. It’s pretty bold and obvious before you even click the link.
Third, and most important, and I bet most of the screamers don’t realize this, is that you get to choose whether to download Flash Player with or without Yahoo. It’s not like you download it and then it asks you if you want to install. You choose before downloading. There are two radio buttons – with or without. You don’t want Yahoo, you don’t get it. If you get it, you chose to get it. It’s a pretty blatant choice.
Now, whether or not this should be occuring at all is another story. But I think it hardly warrants the mass outrage that’s going around the net this week.
Keith,
I haven’t participated in the debate either and I tend to agree with you in principle. The option to install the Yahoo toolbar or not is clearly marked.
I think the bigger issue lies in your last pharagraph: Should downloading or upgrading your Flash Player be bundled with additional software?
I think not for a couple of reasons.
1. It deflates the established brand of the Flash Player as a reliable product. With this comes the risk of potential loss of distribution and ultimately a lesser demand for Flash work.
2. It distracts from the goal of delivering a seemless web based, user experience.
3. For clients seeking to deliver streamed, OS/platform independent content it is not ideal to have visitors presented with a completely unrelated brand promotion…Yahoo is a strong brand and having it presented as a part of your own presentation is not good, no matter what you are trying to sell.
4. Customer awareness of addware/spyware and the risks posed are increasing dramatically these days. Bundling the player with third party software will discourage the average user from installing newer versions of the player in many cases out of simple concern for the security of their system. Better safe than sorry sort of an approach.
So – all in all – it seems to me to be a rather grave misjudgement on behalf of MacroMedia. Most likely a lot of $ were involved, but I’m not sure it is worth it for them in the long haul.
I’d gladly pay an additional 5 bucks or so for the next version of Flash to help keep the player plugin from being bundled with third party software.
Well…that was just some random thoughts on this. Ultimately, I think the debate is good. I also think MacroMedia has made a potentially expensive marketing mistake.
Thanks for letting borrow the mike.
🙂
-Bo
>It’s a pretty blatant choice.
I beg to disagree. Anyone can see that, that’s a trick to make uninformed users download bundled 3rd party software unintentionally, because it’s opt-out.
>this has probably been going on for some time now
Does that change the current facts? It’s for IE/Win users today, suggests it will be for other users tomorrow. If Yahoo had a toolbar for Firefox, probably it would be there for Firefox already.
>But I think it hardly warrants the mass outrage that’s going around the net this week.
Agreed. Still, I think better sooner than later. Macromedia should fix this.
Best regards,
Burak
Burak KALAYCI
http://www.asvguy.com
Sign the petition : http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/badmacromedia
Well for me the main problem has to do with the way big companies set policies regarding the internal use of software like the Flash Player. Most of the content management systems that we develop are based on flash. In the last two years we have made important work towards the acceptance of this technology inside big corporations including one of the largest insurance companies and one of the largest banks here in Austria. But it has not been easy, and the bundling of the Yahoo toolbar, even with all the arguments you mention, is NOT going the make it any easier.
Everyone’s argument seems to be that this will make Flash look bad to the general public, yet it is the Flash developers who are causing the biggest uproar about this. The general public didn’t even notice until we started screaming about it. It hit one list early in the week, then a few others, then by yesterday it was on everyone’s blogs and “slashdotted”. Now, thanks to our complaining, the whole world knows that “Flash is evil and contains spyware”.
Hi Keith,
Of course the player when you buy Flash the authoring tool isn’t relevant. It is the one that your user’s download that is important.
But your statement above about it not being on macromedia’s download site isn’t correct.
Go here with IE and click on the flash player
http://www.macromedia.com/downloads/
You will see that it is the case.
I suppose it’s fair to say that I am one of the screamers, though I have yet to scream or be discourteous. But I am confident that most of the screamers (slashdot excepted – I haven’t read that, but don’t have high expectations for it) do actually know about the chance to opt out of this “valuable” offering.
But we have also seen bundled marketing deals as being up there with spam and viruses as one of the three or four major things to hamper computer use over the past 10 years.
Do you remember years ago how compaq and hp used to have their custom programs for everything wrapped on top of the os? It created a configuration nightmare. Dell didn’t do this and it became known as the place where you could get a windows computer that worked. Then 3 or 4 years ago they started bundling things and now when you get a brand new configured machine the first thing you need to do is spend a few hours getting rid of all the marketing crap.
In the past 3 months I’ve had to remove spyware from the computers of three different relations.
When my puzzled relatives say that my nephew or one of his friends just installed AOL IM or some such well known program when it happened all I can say is. “You just can’t trust free software anymore It doesn’t matter if it’s from a big name. They can’t be trusted. It’s sad but it’s true.”
If Macromedia can’t be trusted then my software that I create with it can’t be trusted so the implications are much greater than the specifics of the yahoo toolbar.
I may not be very important, but I’m not going to “get over” it either. I shouldn’t have to point out to a company like macromedia the good economics of being courteous to one’s users, but if I have to, I will.
I don’t know much about Yahoo toolbar or if it is ‘a bundle’ or ‘spyware’ but it reminds me that I might develop a Flash application today, and find that next month my users are being forced to download spyware to use it.
Macromedia needs to give a plausible guarantee that Flash will always be available spyware free. Until then, Macromedia’s options are open.
I appreciate everyone’s concerns. It’s just that looking at the volume of outraged posts about this over the last couple of days, I feel like a group panic is starting, which in the end will do a lot more damage than the original situation.
>which in the end will do a lot more damage than the original situation.
In the very short term yes; otherwise absolutely no. Better sooner than later… Better later than never…
What we are talking about here is Macromedia being unethical. That’s very very important. If Macromedia fixes this swiftly, the damage will be minimal.
If the users are not actually tricked in downloading the 3rd party software, it wouldn’t matter for Macromedia to make it opt-in, right? Just that small change will fix this. It will be a sponsored ad on the download page, not ‘bundled spyware’…
BTW, Yahoo! toolbar for Firefox is currently beta…
Best regards,
Burak
Burak KALAYCI
http://www.asvguy.com
Well I dont feel any mass hysteria about it, yet, but I feel like the reason we are seeing this fuss is because we ARE of course all the first people to notice it. And a lot of developers are getting scared, probably a little early, but hey we care a lot.
These folks I do jobs for, the general business population in my area even, still think kazaa is so cool, and think their new 2 ghz pc with DSL is just supposed to be slow. So if thats the usual out there too then its not an immediate big deal because Yahoo is a huge name and doesnt look like a big threat.
But No 3 above is a huge reason the Flash Player has come to its current success and penetration, especially business clients. Some System Admins are completely irrational and in control of thousands of machines.
booty man bad bad!! Macromedia not nice!
you c’mon let booty man in!
Well, I appreciate your opinion that we should “get over it” but the fact of the matter is it’s not us that needs to get over it. It’s our customers and companies that need to be informed.
And you may be correct in the fact that most of us didn’t know that it was bundled in until somebody posted about it. Doesn’t that make you think? I personally think that something like this should have been a lot more publicized instead of being what seems to be “snuck in on the side”.
Ah well.. to each his own I guess. 🙂
Peter, I completely agree with you on this one. This is being made into a bigger deal than it is. The download page including Yahoo Toolbar with Flash was up about a month before all the complaints this week. The general public won’t really care much about this issue.
the yahoo toolbar association is in poor taste and could be an indication of future moves by macromedia. they clearly have a friend in yahoo. google seems to have shunned flash in favor of dhtml. it’s in both yahoo and macromedia’s interest to push yahoo content.. so expect more of this.
Hi Keith,
It’s not really surprising that Flash developers are the first to complain about this: We are the ones that have the most to lose by this. Our clients have a choice of technologies including HTML/Javascript. Does the latter offer them the ability to create online experiences that even remotely match what is possible with Flash? No. Does the manager at Company X who can barely fire up a browser really care about anything other than what he perceives to be a potential security/adware/competition (with Yahoo) issue? No. Do we want people to have 100% (not 99%, not 98.75%) trust in Macromedia? Yes.
This move is eroding trust in Macromedia. The blind faith that made people click on the Download button without giving it another thought is being eroded. And it’s not just Macromedia: I noticed that try my best not to use/view PDFs now since I downloaded the latest version of the player which looks like an adware beast from the late 90s with its Yahoo search and garing purple “Try Acrobat for Free” button on the toolbar.
Regarding the comment that “the general public won’t really care much about this issue” — you may be right. But then again, the “general public” very rarely pays for Flash development. Follow the money and you may find that those who hold it *do* care about this.