That's Windows specific, I understand the frustation and I am sorry you have to ...

pjmlp · on Sept 8, 2014

Funny, my Ubuntu box shows an update dialog almost every day.

nitrogen · on Sept 8, 2014

The Ubuntu update dialog is unified and has zero risk of tricking less savvy users into installing spyware. I'm sure you've seen Windows machines with five different updaters popping up at boot, competing for attention (e.g. Flash, Java, Apple, MS Update, MS security alerts, etc.)

pjmlp · on Sept 8, 2014

Your point was being harassed by updates.

As for spyware, oh it is so easy to convince Joe user to install it, even on UNIX systems. Social engineering makes wonders.

nitrogen · on Sept 9, 2014

I'm actually not the one who made that comment. My mention of spyware was in reference to the Ask toolbar installed by the JRE on Windows. Installing such things is not a normal part of the Ubuntu update process.

pjmlp · on Sept 9, 2014

Nor it is from JRE, if you bother to take it from the proper place.

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/inde...

Oh, I don't know, just bother to read what the dialog says.

nitrogen · on Sept 9, 2014

The official JRE really does prompt to install the Ask toolbar. First Google result: http://www.quora.com/Java-programming-language/Why-does-Java...

I've mentioned elsewhere ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8285065 ) that I really don't mind Java, and FWIW I have liked the Jetbrains IDEs, but the consumer JRE installation and update process is really quite bothersome.