
PlayPanel – Find new games - nefarioustim
http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/playpanel.html
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jmount
Again disappointed by the traditional meaning-warp mod change of title from
the original warning claiming that Flash force installs PlayPanel without
notice (something I admit I have not directly confirmed, as I don't intend to
risk it) to "PlayPanel - Find new games." The original claim was supposedly a
direct observation that the Adobe Flash update installs PlayPanel (with or
without a hidden check-box). I don't value the "documentation doesn't mention
PlayPanel" comments as having much value (as it would be actually nice if
Adobe warned about such things).

I'll admit: I have a fairly strong anti-Adobe prior (actually a posterior
learned from previous interactions with Adobe and Adobe products). But I still
think that is better than the "eager to speak comfort to power"
shills/defenders. Also, in this day an age can we fairly test this claim: what
if Adobe is running an A/B test on forced install (which would cause some
fraction of people to see no forced install)?

Why do I feel I have a stake in this? Because I am the stupid asshole who is
going to have to try and uninstall this from family computers after it breaks
something (Adobe being historically very clumsy). It isn't really relevant to
my experience if my relatives were forced into it or merely tricked into it.

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stevenh
The original title claimed that PlayPanel is automatically installed with the
newest Flash update. In reality, it just tells you about PlayPanel and
encourages you to go download it elsewhere.

There is no need to dilute the large body of legitimate Adobe criticisms with
lies.

~~~
quinndupont
Can someone confirm this? Does it offer it as an optional install (a la
browser toolbars)?

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praeivis
From the:
[http://www.adobe.com/products/playpanel/faq.html](http://www.adobe.com/products/playpanel/faq.html)

Q: I do not have a Facebook account. Can I use Playpanel?

A: To use Playpanel, you may use your Facebook account or your Adobe ID
account.

Q: What are the system requirements for Playpanel?

A: Playpanel works best with Windows® XP, Windows Vista®, Windows 7, and
Windows 8 (classic mode) operating systems.

~~~
davidcollantes
I am surprised they list Windows XP.

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drzaiusapelord
This is a pretty big problem with dying proprietary solutions. They'll bundle
and do other dirty tricks to keep revenue up. Heck, you can't even install
flash without nagging for a slew of add-ons like some mcaffee crap. Now
they're just putting the add-ons on without asking?

~~~
giancarlostoro
You can usually just untick "McAffee" when you download the installer. Unless
they removed this ability, most people don't read when they download software
I suppose and install McAffee on their machine.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Fun bug I discovered. Install a new Win7 machine. If you have IE8 or 9 on
there, which you will because its fresh install, and you visit the flash
install page before moving to IE11 you'll see the 'install mcaffee/chrome' box
unchecked. Except it is checked but its rendering unchecked. You can verify
this by clicking on it and then nothing happens visually, but now it is
properly unchecked. Also the install size on the page will change to a smaller
value.

I doubt Adobe has much incentive to fix this bug.

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_nickwhite
Is there any documentation out there on disabling this in the installer via a
flag/switch? The current Administration Guide doesn't say anything about it.

~~~
WorldWideWayne
If you only want to use Flash from within Chrome or IE10/IE11 then you don't
have to install Flash from Adobe because it comes bundled with those browsers.
So, the installer should not run at all for those users.

Other than that - I don't see an option to install Flash without PlayPanel.

~~~
ghacks
I just updated to Flash 14 on Windows 7 both, other browsers and IE, and the
PlayPanel was not installed along with it.

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digdigdag
The death rattle of a bygone platform.

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basicallydan
Bizarrely, the link to download this thing is at download.macromedia.com. A
remnant of the past...

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jamesbritt
Where on that page does it say that updating Flash installs PlayPanel?

~~~
jamesbritt
Ah. Downvoted because my comment (which I cannot now delete) refered to the
original editorialized post title, not the current corrected title. The
original title claimed that updating Flash auto-installed this extra app.

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kimba
Ugh.

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ghacks
Which update did you install and on which system?

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huskyr
"This webpage has a redirect loop". Interesting...

