Face Me And Scream

Written by: Michael Enger

What is this? I didn’t ask for this!I recently reinstalled my operating system (giving Windows Vista another try as linux is beyond my abilities) and as such had to re-download and install a lot of programs that I use, something I love to do as it gives me ample opportunity to try out new things and avoid unnecessary things that I have learned to live without. One of the programs I installed was Adobe Photoshop CS3, as I have an almost sexual need to attach my head onto the bodies of ugly women, and I was surprised to see that the installation process took almost an hour. 90% of the time was taken up with installing “shared” aspects of the program and taking a look at my start menu revealed that I had gotten more than I paid for.

Let’s take a look at what I got:
Adobe Bridge: Organizer for media files.
Adobe Device Central: Program that integrates parts of the creative suite for development for mobile devices (whatever that means).
Adobe ExtendScript Toolkit 2: Not sure what this does… not even google can tell me. It’s probably for making extensions or something.
Adobe Photoshop: Used for manipulating photographs and creating simple drawings.
Adobe Stock Photos: An image database for stock photographs.

Click to enlargeI can’t even uninstall the unwanted components…So I got 5 separate programs of which I wanted, and will only use, one of them. Sure, I can understand that the rest can be useful for people (I have a friend who used Adobe Bridge to publish photographs to flickr), but I don’t want it and I can’t seem to find a way to remove it. During the installation I was asked where I wanted them to install the program and then it went off to do what it wanted without me. This process is very subversive and devious, making me doubt if their intentions are good in offering me all these other programs.

I experienced the same problem when I installed iTunes. Because of some fluke with the updater when I was running XP (after updating it refused to run) I had stopped using iTunes and had opted for the firefox-based Songbird instead. I thought that now that I had a different OS, perhaps iTunes wouldn’t fuck up as much so I gave it another try. Many months had gone by and I had slowly gotten used to Songbird’s interface so now iTunes seemed sluggish and confusing, despite their similar appearances, so I ended up uninstalling it. Then I noticed that it had installed 4 other components onto my computer which I wasn’t even aware of. After doing my best to rid myself of all the unnecessary garbage I was still left with an untouchable folder called “Bonjour” on my hard disk that I, the system administrator and only user of this computer, wasn’t allowed to delete.

Click to enlargeI CONSUME ALLAll of this is reminding me of another program that I had the misfortune of seeing in my younger internet days: Bonzi Buddy. It was bundled with other software so you weren’t always aware that you were installing it, it was there to “improve” your computer experience somehow and it was hard to get rid off. The term “bloatware” has been thrown around concerning both iTunes and Photoshop and I am starting to understand what they mean. I appreciate that developers take the time to bundle software together when their uses intertwine and it would be beneficial for me as an end-user to at least be aware of these programs and their applications, but when I don’t get a choice to install them or even a notice telling me that they are going to be installed then I start having a problem.

There is a trend that is settling on the computer world, driven hard into the minds of computer users by the likes of Apple. The idea that you should remove as much of the background information as you can to streamline a user’s computer experience. Installation programs simply say “installing” rather than letting you know what its doing, a bouncing icon or splash screen has replaced the loading bar and you are given less and less choices on where to install your programs and what features you want. Even the options menu for certain programs are hidden away so that you have you actively search for them to be able to change anything. This is presenting the idea that programs shouldn’t be customizable which in turn will fuel a general disinterest for customization which will inevitably end with programs provided with one standard setup and no chance of any changes (the evil “i don’t care, leave me alone” cycle).

Alright, I admit that it might have been a little dramatic to say so, but it’s disturbing to see this trend gain strength when it does nothing to help consumers. When I experimented with Linux I was amazed at the amount of things you could do to change and personalize, from the visual appearance of some programs to the viscosity of Compiz’s wobbly windows. Even Windows had a great degree of customization at one time, but now you have to employ certain hacks and manipulate system variables using the registry just to do simple things like auto-start a program; you’re not supposed to want to change anything.

Well, I do and I doubt that, when given the choice, people would prefer to leave it out of their hands. However, since I don’t have the knowledge or courage to attempt to run Linux again I just have to make to with what is provided for me, simply deleting the shortcuts to Adobe’s myriad of pointless components so they don’t clutter up my start menu. That damned “Bonjour” folder is annoying the hell out of me, though… perhaps I should just format my hard disk and start over, this time avoiding iTunes like an unwanted pregnancy.