
I don’t want to be patronized and much less by a software vendor - ognarb
https://blog.bembel.net/2020/04/i-dont-want-to-be-patronized-and-much-less-by-a-software-vendor/
======
xyzelement
It's funny how his tone is condescending and superior through the post as he
googles (sorry, uses "search engine of choice") for obvious hacks to remove
this file, then at the end there's an update that he just didn't bother to
find a checkbox in settings which disables the functionality :)

~~~
winkeltripel
I mean, he found the checkbox in KDE's settings, which should have been
respected, and several other technical ways to disable it from starting by
itself, all of which should have been respected. It's still a shitty way to
operate.

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user5994461
So the guy tried every Linux hack he could think of to prevent Skype from
starting to no success. Until another user pointed out that there is an
autostart checkbox in the options tab. Marvelous.

~~~
rumanator
If a software doesn't use standard features tondo standard stuff, and in the
end forces users to go through wild goose chases, then obviously there is a
problem with the software.

~~~
jbob2000
Putting settings in a settings menu is non-standard? It takes two seconds to
click the menu and check.

~~~
jorams
The thing that is non-standard is the fact that it's a setting at all. It's
not up to the application to decide when it should start, it's up to the
system. And it should most definitely not override the settings of the system.

~~~
perl4ever
This is the sort of thing that's typical since time immemorial of software
running on an OS that isn't its "preferred" choice.

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ducaale
This is the same feeling I got when I discovered that I can't remove[1][2]
dropbox's "send with transfer" option from the context-menu in Windows 10. I
had no choice but to remove it from my computer.

[1] [https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-installs-
integration...](https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-installs-
integrations/How-to-remove-a-context-menu-that-move-to-dropbox-in-
windows/td-p/305768)

[2]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/dropbox/comments/drlt50/how_to_remo...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dropbox/comments/drlt50/how_to_remove_send_with_transfer_from_context_menu/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

------
jokoon
When it started, skype was p2p, and it wasn't anymore after microsoft acquired
it.

There are alternatives to skype, obviously. I don't understand why most of
those alternatives have a hard time becoming more popular. I'm not even sure
those alternatives are p2p.

Because it doesn't require a lot of bandwidth to run a p2p chat/video system,
so it seems like it's pretty cheap.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
"Tried to be p2p".

Most of the time, our routers/APs defeated that. Skype would 'fall back' to
using a server, which I believe it did 90% of the time.

~~~
strictfp
I'm not convinced. It would use every trick in the book to punch holes; stun,
upnp, sip, it's own protocol on top of udp, it would even send data over port
80 or 443. And if that failed Skype would use a third Skype client to open a
port, or even route the calls through the third party.

I always thought this was the major reason why Skype was so successful. It
would penetrate almost any workplace firewall and "just worked" for most
people. Shady, yes, but it worked.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
And all those tricks either worked for you (your endpoint), or they didn't. No
middle ground.

I worked 8 years in this environment (collaboration tools) and it was our holy
grail to get p2p connections. We tried all those tricks and more. It worked a
fraction of the time (at that time, 8 years ago).

~~~
strictfp
I guess most holes got patched. I worked with the same things around 2007.

------
pbasista
Keybase uses a very similar approach for keeping its autostart enabled. It is
necessary to explicitly turn it off in the application's settings, otherwise
it would always try to overwrite the autostart file.

~~~
Datenstrom
Now that I think about it Keybase autostarting has never bothered me at all,
but I recently installed the alpha release of teams for Linux and I have just
been waiting for the time to tinker and find a way to disable it autostarting.
Says a lot about my trust for each.

------
ujjain
This is a part of normal human behavior. People often do corrupt things, as
they seem beneficial to them. I wouldn't get angry/emotional about it. People
often don't care that much about you, unless it benefits them.

Acceptance is important. We all have a human mind with an ego vulnerable to
corruption. We think we are the solution to the problem, but we often aren't.

Nobody really likes Skype and Facebook anymore, but I guess short-term it
boosted their numbers. Most applications send annoying notifications. The
application owners will rationalize and say anything to look good and imply
they are trying to improve society. It's just a rigged game, stop engaging
emotionally.

------
Normal_gaussian
Two days ago I went through a wild goose chase stopping Skype from
autostarting on windows 10; the app didn't have any "autostart" checkboxes
inside of it (though it does on my partners laptop).

After bouncing around Task Manager -> Startup, Startup Apps, various startup
folders, and some more silly duplicate places, I ended up downloading
Microsofts Sysinternals tools and using one of those to stop everything I
didn't like the look of.

I _think_ I've put an end to it, but I'm starting to think it might re-appear
if I launch it once...

~~~
BenjiWiebe
Next time you could check msconfig on the Services tab, or else services.msc.

------
estebarb
I was remembering Pulse VPN... I had to install it on my own computer when my
work laptop died. Now I have to tolerate it everytime I log on, although I use
other user account for job related things.

~~~
vuln
Pulse VPN continues to be actively exploited in the wild.

[https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/aa20-010a](https://www.us-
cert.gov/ncas/alerts/aa20-010a)

------
dangus
> I feel being patronized by a large SW vendor who forces me to automatically
> run his software on my system after each login.

I know this isn’t really related, but we should really get rid of the nasty
habit of genderizing people and companies.

In this sentence it would be more appropriate to use “their software,” not
“his software.”

A large software vendor most certainly isn’t a “he.”

Edit: every time I point this out on a threads I get downvoted. That’s fine, I
don’t really care about that. But it disappoints me to see that because it
reflects how so many people are that much against a really simple way to be
inclusive. So, I want to emphasize that this is just a polite suggestion, not
an inquisition.

~~~
einpoklum
Fair enough, but FYI: In some languages, _all_ nouns are genderized and there
isn't a gender-neutral form. e.g. in Arabic, "table" is grammatically female,
while in Hebrew, it's grammatically male.

