Google will stop bundling its apps on Android phones in response to EU fine

[Sarmat89]

Originally Posted by Pulpmeister

Updates ... so many times they are not for the benefit of the user but the company.

Yes indeed, the eeevil developers protect you from viruses and hackers, how dare they?

After an XP update I found it took ages for the system to stop churning so I could use it, followed the "processes" lists down, and found that all the Windows 10 spy stuff was now in XP

What processes?

And then, cream of the jest, another update caused my Dreamweaver 4 software to stop working.

Is it the developers' fault the 20 year old software is depending on bugs in the OS?

[Pulpmeister]

"Processes": see Task Manager "Processes", "show all processes", and right down the bottom was all that MS reporting stuff, working frantically as soon as I fired up.

Re Dreamweaver: Hardly a bug in the OS: just some of the call routines thought to be redundant, no doubt, legacy stuff no modern software uses, including the one Dreamweaver 4 of fond memory used. Naturally MS can't cater for all obsolete software; I don't expect it to. But the system is opaque. There can be, and are, unintended consequences. There is never an explanation for what the updates do. And of course coming immediately after the reporting implants hassle, it certainly pushed all my cynicism buttons.

In some umpty years of constant PC use, since Windows 3.1, I have never been hacked. I use good third party protection. I have only once had a virus, and it was a minor one, not stopped by MS but by my third party protection.

Not all Windows updates were for my benefit, as I said. I can see no benefit to me whatsoever in the suite of reporting modules that were added to my system without me knowing until I investigated incredibly slow startups, and intensive uncommanded hard drive and internet activity, when I was doing nothing at all. I was lucky there were people around on the internet who not only knew about it but knew how to kill it too.

Whether the reporting to MS was good or bad was irrelevant to me. The reporting process itself meant that it slowed down my PC disastrously on startup, just when I wanted to get some work done. (I do not and never have left my PC running overnight.) Once I killed off that reporting process, startup returned to normal.

I now check "Processes", "show all processes", regularly, and the reporting module has not returned. I believe, however, it is because I have blocked updates on XP. The first time I went though the lengthy process of eliminating it, which including among many other measures uninstalling a cluster of update numbers, the very next update re-installed the whole lot. The update process, it seems, scans for "missing" update numbers and re-installs them...

Happily, I have Dreamweaver 4 on an ancient XP laptop which hasn't been connected to the internet for many years, and it still works perfectly there. I just have to shift my website stuff over to my working machine by sneaker net whenever I need to monkey around with the frames. No biggie.

[johnnyb]

Originally Posted by leebase

Google gives away Android. Manufacturer's can use a completely google app free Android...for no cost. But Google pays a big cost to make Android. What ungrateful twits.

Google has placed a realistic and fair line of profit...if you want to use Google's apps in addition to base Android, you have to use all of them and place them prominently. That's fair and reasonable.

But the Europeans want to take the Android OS for free, AND they want to use Google's apps....except the ones that make money for google. Those they want to replace with apps that make money for themselves.

I called this years ago when this issue came up. I was wrong only in thinking Google would charge for Android.

This is like when European news organizations were upset Google was making money linking to their (European news) content. So they forced Google to stop linking to their content....only to learn that nobody would go to their news sites anymore. Then they demanded Google link to their sites!

[Sarmat89]

Originally Posted by Pulpmeister

right down the bottom was all that MS reporting stuff, working frantically as soon as I fired up.

Re Dreamweaver: Hardly a bug in the OS: just some of the call routines thought to be redundant, no doubt

Do you realize you are committing a defamation now? There is no "MS reporting stuff" in existence, even less in Windows XP. What "processes" were that?

As there was no API changes in Windows XP updates, your Dreamweaver is most likely corrupt by viruses.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Pulpmeister

Updates are always a pain, because so many times they are not for the benefit of the user but the company. I'm using XP still, right now, because I didn't want to have anything to do with the 10 spy system. So guess what? After an XP update I found it took ages for the system to stop churning so I could use it, followed the "processes" lists down, and found that all the Windows 10 spy stuff was now in XP, working overtime.

What Windows XP updates? Windows XP, as far as I recall, went EOL in 2014 and you can count the number of updates since then rather easily. One emergency update in 2014 for Internet Explorer and one emergency update in 2017 for a vulnerability being used by WannaCry. Even updates to the older Office versions are increasingly rare.

Or perhaps you are working for one of those rare sites which paid for continued support for Windows XP?

Originally Posted by Pulpmeister

It;s nice to grumble occasionally.

Too true.

[Pulpmeister]

Just checked my OS and it's Windows 7 Home Premium. XP is on the laptop.

I'm no techie, just a user. D'oh!

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Chromecast users who couldn't access Prime Video and Fire TV users who couldn't access YouTube would beg to differ. That happened before there was Alexa. Maybe it only affected you when the speakers were released.

I solved the Fire/Chromecast issue by buying a Roku.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Pulpmeister

Whether the reporting to MS was good or bad was irrelevant to me. The reporting process itself meant that it slowed down my PC disastrously on startup, just when I wanted to get some work done. (I do not and never have left my PC running overnight.) Once I killed off that reporting process, startup returned to normal.

My old XP laptop (Dell Latitude D400 from about 2003) ran the first version(s) of XP fine. Choked a little on SP2 and then became utterly useless by SP3. (If I had known I could shut reporting off I would have done it.) I had been dual booting but, when SP3 took fifteen minutes to boot up, I just removed Windows altogether and ran Linux Mint. Still using that computer with Linux Mint (Mate flavor).

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I solved the Fire/Chromecast issue by buying a Roku.

Yeah, I use a Sony Blu-ray player with WiFi. It's easy to have access to both. That old post you quoted was specifically about the Google/Amazon feud.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by Pulpmeister

As for my android phone, it's just a mobile phone. I don't use it for anything else at all. Oh, sorry: I do a little texting, but not much.

Then why bother with an Android phone? Get a dumb phone and enjoy the week-long standby times

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Yeah, I use a Sony Blu-ray player with WiFi. It's easy to have access to both. That old post you quoted was specifically about the Google/Amazon feud.

I know. I had a Chromecast. I remember the feud. I thought it was stupid back then and that's one of the reasons why I bought the Roku. (Besides the fact that the Chromecast was kind of a pain.)

[Pulpmeister]

Originally Posted by mbovenka

Then why bother with an Android phone? Get a dumb phone and enjoy the week-long standby times

It was a gift, so the price was right.

I'm just not a phone person. I used to have a flip-phone, then a Nokia classic, when I needed one back when I was working, but they were rarely used. Handy in an emergency is all. And now the smartphone is useful for contacting the one relative of mine who lives by texting, hasn't mastered email or actual computers.

[GtrsRGr8]

I didn't read anything about Great Britain in any of the posts.

I don't read or watch the news much, anymore. The last that I heard Great Britain was going to leave the EU ("Brexit"). Maybe that's a done deal now?

Do any of ya'll know if Great Britain has followed or has plans to follow the EU's lead on this particular matter?

[Apache]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

I didn't read anything about Great Britain in any of the posts.

I don't read or watch the news much, anymore. The last that I heard Great Britain was going to leave the EU ("Brexit"). Maybe that's a done deal now?

Do any of ya'll know if Great Britain has followed or has plans to follow the EU's lead on this particular matter?

You might want to look at some news. You may be surprised by what you last heard.
Apache

[sydmalicious]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I can attest to the Pixel 2 having very little bloatware. I was very pleasantly surprised.

Apple allows you to uninstall most of their core apps, those that the system doesn’t rely on like Camera, Photos, and Safari. You can delete the rest.


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