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J
johnb37619452
Participant
January 23, 2019
Question

Forced Install of McAfee

  • January 23, 2019
  • 1 reply
  • 309 views

I wanted to view a website flash image and had to install an update to adobe flash (or whatever its called). the software did not ask me for my permission to install a product  and whatever from "McAffee" (don't know the spelling) that interrupted my work flow to sell me something or to install additional software for a trial period. I have used adobe products in the past at my work and do appreciate the free products offered like reader and flash but I do not appreciate packaging something that I have no other alternative to use with something I don't want that disrupts what I am doing.

I am continuously annoyed by this practice. I do not know if this bothers others but there is no way for me to get the message to Adobe, other than this forum, as I no longer have a product from them that offers a leve of support to get a message to them any other way. I wish they would stop this practice.

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    1 reply

    jeromiec83223024
    jeromiec83223024
    Inspiring
    January 24, 2019

    Thanks for the feedback.

    For better or worse, Adobe is a for-profit company, and the bundled offers pay the bills for our free products.  As you've noted, paid products aren't monetized with product offers, and they come with support entitlements.

    For what it's worth, there *is* an opt-out checkbox, but it's easy to blow past it when you're just trying to get something done.

    As a for-profit, publicly traded company, we don't have the luxury of just spending money without generating income, and the reality is that maintaining and distributing Flash Player is a tremendously complex and expensive undertaking.

    We pay business experts to research, identify and implement the most effective strategy for revenue generation, and the implementation that you see is the approach that yields the best results.  Those bundled offers keep me employed, and as much as I'd like to see us operate without the need for cost recovery, it would be disingenuous to just blame the business people.

    The truth is, a sufficient number of people find enough value in the bundled offers that they spend money with those sponsors, who in turn see value in partnering with us, which keeps us supplied with engineers, servers, bandwidth and coffee.  It’s an imperfect solution for an imperfect world.

    You actually have a few options at your disposal in terms of avoiding bundled offers:

    1.) Enable automatic updates. 

    You do not get prompted for background updates.  We actually forego the revenue opportunity to ensure that you're always updated with the latest security patches.

    2.) Use Google Chrome or Internet Explorer/Edge on Windows 8 and higher

    These partners contribute directly to the Flash ecosystem in multiple ways, and have license to distribute Flash Player as built-in components of their browsers.  There's nothing separate to download or install for those browsers, and Flash Player is automatically kept updated via either the Chrome updater or Windows Update, respectively.

    3.) Uninstall Flash Player

    While probably not the optimal answer, you can always opt-out of participating in the ecosystem by simply not using Flash Player and foregoing the content that it enables.

    I've included links to those uninstallers below, for your convenience:

    Uninstall Flash Player - Mac:

    https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-mac-os.html

    Uninstall Flash Player - Windows:

    https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-windows.html

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