Arizona Uber crash driver was 'watching TV' - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44574290 <comment><USER3> Uber should get charged with manslaughter. I don't say that lightly. This isn't an example of programmer error, where a alpha-version self-driving system failed. That would've been unfortunate, but not grossly negligent. Here, Uber put a "driver" in control of the car that _by design_ wasn't able to avoid collisions with pedestrians. According to the NTSB, Uber disabled _Uber 's own_ emergency braking system (not just the built-in Volvo one) "to reduce potential for erratic behavior."[1] That rises to gross, criminal negligence.

It is no defense to say that Uber also told a human driver to be present. If Uber had directed a five year old to drive the SUV, with a back-up driver ready to take control, I think everyone would agree that qualifies as gross negligence notwithstanding the presence of the back-up driver. (To be clear, I think some risk in the name of progress is acceptable. But it's one thing to use testing on public roads to work out the kinks in the software. It's another to put vehicles on the road that _you know_ cannot perform the basic, essential functions of driving.)

[1] [http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-uber-arizona- nts...](http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-uber-arizona- ntsb-20180524-story.html) ("However, Uber also disabled its own emergency braking function whenever the test car was under driverless computer control, 'to reduce potential for erratic behavior.'").

<comment><USER4> Criminal negligence seems to me to be more appropriate than manslaughter. They disabled safety features and replaced them with their own which failed to function correctly. They whole testing program seems to have been rushed and corners were cut.

<comment><USER5> The devil is in the details, so they say, but what you describe is not negligence. They didn't disable a safety feature and do nothing, they replaced a safety feature with something else. You'd need to make the case that this something else was somehow deficient in some material way _and_ management shipped this feature knowing it was materially deficient for this to be negligence.

Why don't we instead start with the individual who was supposed to be monitoring the road and the vehicle's systems? It's well known at this point that they in fact _were_ negligent in their duty.

<comment><USER6> they disabled both the built-in emergency braking system and their replacement emergency braking system. they absolutely did disable a safety feature and did not have anything in its place.

<comment><USER5> They still had a person in the car who was supposed to be operating, in effect, as an emergency braking system.

<comment><USER3> As you acknowledge, the human was only the secondary driver. That meant that Uber put a primary driver in the car that was _designed to not stop for pedestrians._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > The Tempe police report said the crash was "entirely avoidable" if the Uber > operator, Rafaela Vasquez, had been watching the road while the car was > operating autonomously.

And thus should end the bewildering "but you couldn't see her to the last minute and I don't understand how bad cameras are in low light"

<comment><USER8> Yes I don't understand why so much focus has been put on the failure of the technology rather than the failure of the back up driver. We all know that self-driving technology does not exist yet, that is why the back up driver is there. If you have driven at night you will know that a human can see much further than what is shown on the video footage of this incident and so it should be clear that the human back up driver was to blame. Unfortunately for her, the fact that she was not only not watching the road but distracted by a TV show makes any claim that she was not negligent very hard to defend.

<comment><USER9> >Yes I don't understand why so much focus has been put on the failure of the technology rather than the failure of the back up driver.

It was well known all along that humans are poorly equipped to remain actively engaged in situations that require split-second reactions, while exerting zero effort or control for hours on end.

Air traffic is as safe as it is because the accident analysis always pushes past "pilot error" as the root cause. If one pilot can make the error, why won't another? Did the system set them up to fail? Even if it didn't, could the system be enhanced such that the failure (or class of failures) could be prevented?

In the case of the human in Uber's self-driving car, they were set up for failure. And in such a well known way that makes any claim Uber was not negligent very hard to defend.

<comment><USER10> I believe all other driveless tests work the same way, with sensors but requiring human driver at all time. Would you also consider Waymo, Cruise, et al, negligent?

The technologies are not ready. They are being tested. Aircraft get to such a safe state like today after so many iterations and improvement, both in technology and process.

A terrible tragedy happened in this case. Hopefully it will help save a lot of lives in future.

<comment><USER3> There is a difference between putting technology out there that is "not ready" and putting technology on the road that fundamentally doesn't do the basic things that a car must do, such as brake for pedestrians. It's an unfortunate but avoidable tragedy if a self-driving system fails due to a computer bug. Here, Uber _disabled_ the self-driving system's emergency braking function: [http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-uber-arizona- nts...](http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-uber-arizona- ntsb-20180524-story.html). As far as I know, Waymo at least is at least theoretically capable of braking for a pedestrian in autonomous mode.

<comment><USER11> The overwhelming majority of vehicles on the road today don't break for pedestrians. Just a few models of cars sold in the past few years have features to automatically engage braking.

[https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/where- automakers-...](https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/where-automakers- stand-on-automatic-emergency-braking-pledge/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'd suspect that it's harder to take over and avoid a colision in a self driving car, than a car that you're continuously in control of. You first have to recognize that the system is failing or about to fail. And that has to happen well in advance for you to take appropriate action. Doesn't seem like a reliable failover procedure, even if the person behind the wheel is paying attention.

<comment><USER13> > You first have to recognize that the system is failing or about to fail

For that to work, I'd like that cars that have features like this show you what they're seeing. Tesla does this a bit by showing all the cars it has detected in the dashboard. But it should go further and other car brands should do the same.

Without that, you're right, you can not be sure if the car is going to react to something on its own.

<comment><USER14> I'm legitimately surprised nobody has a HUD that simply displays all detected objects/potential obstacles. They have this data, just pipe it up to a HUD.

<comment><USER15> If you are watching a very complex display, why not present it in a format the driver will understand without training, such as a processed video image. Here [1], [2] are some (very optimistic) mock-ups. There was another one released in the last few days but I can't find the link. Showing anything like the raw data with rapidly changing risk annotation would get tiring very quickly, especially as it masks the view the human is actually able to understand, the raw view.

[1] [https://futurism.com/self-driving-car-video/](https://futurism.com/self- driving-car-video/)

[2] [https://next.reality.news/news/augmented-reality-cars- compan...](https://next.reality.news/news/augmented-reality-cars-companies- tech-driving-us-into-future-0182485/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> A related BBC article[1] states:

 _" A toxicology test carried out on Ms Herzberg after the accident returned positive results for methamphetamine and marijuana.

She did not look before crossing the road in a poorly lit area and was wearing dark clothes, the NTSB report says. And the reflectors and lights on her bike were at right-angles to the Uber car's path."_

Even though, the self-driving software failed to recognise her, and also totally not excusing the lack of attention of the Uber driver, you cannot rule out that under normal circumstances with a non-automated car, the pedestrian would not have been hit.

Although this is a sad event, the pedestrian does carry a certain amount of blame here. It also shows that the biggest blocker to effective self driving vehicles is people, not technology.

\---

[1] [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44243118](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44243118)

<comment><USER17> Why are we treating the jaywalking here with such a light touch? If the pedestrian had crossed at a crosswalk, we wouldn't be having this discussion at all.

<comment><USER18> Jaywalking shouldn't carry a death sentence.

If the car can't handle a jaywalker, it can't handle a toddler running into the street. That's a problem that shouldn't be hand-waved away.

<comment><USER19> Can a human driver handle those things?

I had a near-collision when I was headed to work one day. I was going the speed limit on a major four lane road. I noticed ahead of me that a car was stopped in a neighboring lane. It wasn't clear if it had broken down or what, so I started slowing down. Cue a group of kids jaywalking, and running in front of my car causing me to slam on my brakes.

Had I not seen or reacted to the already stopped car (or had it simply not been there), I probably could not have stopped in time. Not that I wouldn't have absolutely tried my best, but physics dictates that a compact SUV going at 45 mph doesn't come to a stop immediately.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't evaluate whether Uber seriously messed up and should face dramatic consequences - it certainly seems like they disabled a critical safety system that would of saved the pedestrians life.

Rather, we shouldn't make such grandiose statements like "Jaywalking shouldn't carry a death sentence" which don't really touch on the facts of the case. We should instead ask, "Did Uber's negligence cause this to result in a death when it shouldn't of been one?"

<comment><USER20> > Can a human driver handle those things?

I'll point out that in this case the crash was "entirely avoidable" according to the official police report.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Contrary to many here, I feel that it's perfectly reasonable to have a backup human driver _if they are trained to act accordingly_.

The Japanese pointing-and-calling technique comes to mind as a good example of keeping drivers engaged: they would have to continuously, actively point at dangers and at the car's appropriate response.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LmdUz3rOQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LmdUz3rOQU) (quite fascinating to watch)

Combine this with short sessions (not driving around for hours with nothing to do), and I think the driver would have had a reasonable chance of preventing this accident.

<comment><USER22> > I feel that it's perfectly reasonable to have a backup human driver if they > are trained to act accordingly.

Agreed. I think the right analogy is an airplane pilot. Operating an airplane and an autonomous car require special training and require professional operators. Replace car crash with plane crash. My judgement is predicted on - did Uber train their drivers? Did Uber evaluate their drivers before allowing them to operate on their own? What policies did Uber have in place for drivers? What punishment did drivers typically receive for violating policies? Did Uber occasionally review footage of the driver to verify driver compliance?

It's hard to expect a layperson to pay attention for hours on end without input, but somebody appropriately trained should be able to do so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> > The Tempe police report said the crash was "entirely avoidable" if the Uber > operator, Rafaela Vasquez, had been watching the road while the car was > operating autonomously.

Absolutely no surprises there. Everyone who has ever taken a picture in the dark should have known this after seeing the footage from the car.

<comment><USER24> The videos shot in the same location by another camera give another version of how well-lit those roads are:

[https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/police-chief-said- uber-...](https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/police-chief-said-uber-victim- came-from-the-shadows-dont-believe-it/)

Visibility looks considerably better than what the Uber video portrays.

<comment><USER25> I live there, that road is well-lit. The Uber video is misleading.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Proposed solution: it should be an offence for the manufacturer to describe a car as "self-driving" or "autonomous" if it is not capable of doing so _entirely_ by itself. Systems which rely on the car driving 99% of the time and then throwing up its hands in order to make the human responsible for the crash are a ridiculous abdication of responsibility.

This system would have to be described as "driver assist".

<comment><USER27> Do you actually think a single line of description are going to change human behaviour?

<comment><USER28> YES!! Unfortunately people take marketing buzzwords at face value. Since the industry is not yet ready to release a true "autopilot" then they should not be using these words. People die so that Uber, Tesla and others can ab-use these words.\

Someone died that day because that "safety operator" was watching TV? Imagine how 'extra happy' the cyclist's family is right now.

<comment><USER29> We already have plenty of evidence that this is true, too: people have died using the Uber and Tesla systems while nobody has taken the Volvo safety system Uber disabled as absolving them of responsibility for driving, and those systems have been in the hands of drivers for a number of years by now.

Not calling it an "autopilot" is a huge psychological queue that it's an emergency safety measure rather than something you should rely on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Any vehicle that is not the highest level of autonomy (ie has no steering wheel, or no need for one) should have systems in place to verify that a human driver is alert, in charge of the vehicle, and able to respond immediately - eye focus cameras, steering wheel sensors, confirmation prompts, etc.

Is there a valid reason this should be law?

<comment><USER31> Then what's the point? Might as well just drive a car the way we always have then, and avoid all this complicated crap.

<comment><USER32> The point is to improve the vehicle until it _is_ at the highest level of autonomy.

<comment><USER31> Well fine, but I'm gonna run old vehicles that havent been infected by this until then.

Having to babysit the self driving car is a no starter

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Another facet of this is how quickly people adopt new technologies - <USER2> they're proven to be safe (or good) or not. Personally, I've evolved into not trusting technology, not trusting the people behind most of the technology being produced today.

In contrast, this woman was so quickly at ease (I wonder what she was told beforehand, during her training) that she felt comfortable enough to watch TV. I also wonder, as this kind of tech progresses, how it will be sold to the public. Perhaps the same: "we take your security seriously"...

</comment><comment><USER34> Paying a "safety driver" to sit in the car seems like a small price to pay if it means this (minimum wage?) person takes the manslaughter charge instead of Uber.

<comment><USER35> >> minimum wage?

Lol. You can get a real non-robot driver for that price. The whole point is to get some sort of contractor non-employee to work below the minimum wage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Can we put this issue to bed once and for all? Humans are not sufficiently equipped to act as a 'backup driver' in emergency situations and any system which relies on such a thing for safety is inherently unsafe.

Doesn't matter if you glue our hands to the steering wheel and hold our eyes open, if we're not doing anything 99% of the time we won't be ready to react with split second timing to recover from some failure.

</comment><comment><USER37> The NTSB preliminary report directly contradicts this article.

[https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press- releases/Pages/NR20180524.as...](https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press- releases/Pages/NR20180524.aspx)

On scene police reports are often unreliable. This is why the NTSB does not speculate before the investigation is completed.

</comment><comment><USER38> I had an Uber driver who was watching an extremely graphic and violent movie in his phone setup directly in his field of view. I had him drop me off early and reported it to Uber. Apparently it's becoming more and more common talking to friends.

</comment><comment><USER39> This incident reminds of a post Nicholas Carr wrote. We are offloading critical activities to automation but at critical times human expertise is needed to resolve dangerous situations. The driver put too much confidence in the automation and watched a TV show on her phone.

</comment><comment><USER40> So they'll drop it on the driver?! The whole setup was an accidental waiting to happen. Uber executives should be held responsible or this will happen again and again.

<comment><USER41> Right, Uber's position will be / is, simultaneously, one - "it's not our fault, that's why we had the human driver there", and two - "in order to cut costs, we used to have a human passenger there to record anomalies while driving - we axed that and require the human 'driver' to do so, whilst being responsible for the safety of the vehicle".

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Why manslaughter though? Wasn't the victim the real offender, crossing a road on unmarked spot without paying attention to oncoming traffic? It's a safety failure of a self-driving car tech surely, but the offense came from the victim. Especially given how some human drivers can't avoid similar situations either (see some videos of Chinese driving)...

<comment><USER43> Maybe it's different where you live, but where I live the only place where a pedestrian doesn't have right of way is a motorway.

<comment><USER44> One of the most jarring things about visiting Niagara Falls in Ontario was a big sign at the crosswalk warning that vehicles, rather than pedestrians, have the right of way. I don't see any good justification for making things this way except to basically give a free pass to anyone who kills a pedestrian.

<comment><USER45> It's always made perfect sense to me that vehicles _should_ have right of way on roads. They're intended for vehicles. Giving pedestrians the right of way on the road makes about as much sense as giving cars the right of way on the sidewalk.

<comment><USER44> The crosswalk is made for vehicles? How is anyone ever to cross the street? Why shouldn't the person operating the dangerous machine requiring a license be subject to greater responsibility, for that matter?

<comment><USER42> [http://www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/pedestrian- cross...](http://www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/pedestrian- crossing-50-state-summary.aspx)

"Arizona: Vehicles must yield the right-of-way to pedestrians within a crosswalk that are in the same half of the roadway as the vehicle or when a pedestrian is approaching closely enough from the opposite side of the roadway to constitute a danger. Pedestrians may not suddenly leave the curb and enter a crosswalk into the path of a moving vehicle that is so close the vehicle is unable to yield. Pedestrians must yield the right-of-way to vehicles when crossing outside of a marked crosswalk or an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection. Where traffic control devices are in operation, pedestrians may only cross between two adjacent intersections in a marked crosswalk."

<comment><USER44> This particular incident concerns Ontario.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Recycled Cardboard Bicycles For $9? - <AUTHOR> http://nocamels.com/2012/07/recycled-cardboard-bicycles-for-9/

<comment><USER2> "In an interview with Newsgeek, Gafni said that the production cost for his recycled bicycles is around $9-12 each, and he estimates it could be sold to a consumer for $60 to 90, depending on what parts they choose to add."

Assuming they're talking US dollars, that's roughly the price of a bike from the supermarket. Granted, it'll be a truly dreadful bike, but it'll be OK as basic transport. I don't understand the emphasis on cheapness. Making cheap bikes is a solved problem.

Don't get me wrong, I think a cardboard bike is cool. I'd be particularly interested to hear about what they've done about things like bearings and attaching tyres.

The green side of it is interesting, as is the idea of an explicitly disposable bike. If it's easier to manufacture locally, or on a small scale or whatever, that'd be something. But a bike for $60-90 is not a new idea. They're out there right now.

<comment><USER3> It's interesting, I suppose, to know that his production cost is $9-12, but that's really pointless, isn't it? The important figure to know is what it's going to cost me to get my hands on one. That's the $60-90 figure. Which makes bizarre the later paragraph about it being pointless to lock up a cheap bike like this, because the lock is going to cost more than the bicycle it purports to secure.

Excuse me? I'm sure bike locks exist that cost a Century or more, but I've never bought one. The locks I buy cost $10-20, which is still well below the purchase price of one of these cycles. And even if I could somehow buy one for the $12 production cost, I'd still lock it up. Because in addition to the annoyance of having lost my $12 possession, now I also have the inconvenience of having to call someone for a ride, or pay for cab fare.

<comment><USER4> Maybe you don't live in a city with a big bike theft problem? Here in DC, where I live, there are kids who wander around with bolt cutters lifting bikes from bike racks, and at least in my experience, they're just as likely to go for a cheap bike as an expensive one, so you pretty much have to have a bolt- cutter-proof lock, regardless of your bike, if you don't want to get it stolen, which means a tempered steel U lock. I've never seen one of those for $10. It's especially frustrating because while the old rule of thumb was that you should spend 10% of the value of the bike on a lock, there's a floor of about $30, at least here, because of how easy it is to defeat cheap locks, which means you end up way over-spending on locks if you ride a cheap bike.

The goal here, as I understand it, is to make the bikes _so_ cheap that there's no resale market for either the bikes or the parts, which might mean a "keeps honest men honest" $10 lock would be good enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you look closely in the video, the front brake has never been used. There are no scuff marks on the rim, and brake pads always make scuff marks.

I suspect that if he used the front brake, it would crush the rim. This is one of the big engineering challenges for companies making rims out of carbon fiber: the compression forces from the brake pads can reach up to a thousand psi, because the brake levers provide mechanical advantage and the pads are so small. If that's not enough, the sheer forces can also cause the fibers to separate.

Building bikes out of cardboard is a very cool idea, and I wish him luck, but I think what we're seeing here is a very early and probably still unsafe prototype. There are many engineering challenges to be solved still.

I'd be interested in seeing a cardboard bike frame that was built from molded pieces rather than cut and glued prefab sheets. This is how modern carbon fiber bikes are constructed. I would think that a lot of that tech could cross over.

<comment><USER6> thats a big assumption to make from a video. I am not engineer, but isn't there other methods for brakes other than rubber on metal?

<comment><USER7> I'm sure you could use the actual drive chain (it looks like a cogged belt) to slow the vehicle down by removing energy from the rear wheel. My guess is that the front brake is only used for emergencies, and the bike works as a fixed- gear.

see this about stopping a fixed-gear bike: <http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Stop_a_Fixed_Gear_Bicycle>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _The primary use, like any bicycle, is to prevent pollution while encouraging physical activity and exercise._

I don't know about other people, but my primary use for my bicycle is transportation.

Edit: Also, does anyone else think that disposable bikes are a step backwards, not forwards, in terms of environmental responsibility?

<comment><USER9> For a "real" bike (the kind you buy for $500 US or more from a shop that basically just does bikes, or buy used): yes

For a "department store" bike aka "bicycle shaped object" (the kind you buy for $100-$300 from Walmart, Sears, Costco or another store that doesn't actually have anybody that knows how to properly assemble a bike): no.

Those department store bikes are estimated to average something like 75 miles of use in their lifetime (showroom floor to landfill) and are generally not made to be very serviceable.

So if we assume that a $60 cardboard bike is intended to compete with $100 disposable bikes, it's probably still a good step forwards.

<comment><USER10> IMO 500+$ bikes are far more about fun/ego than transportation. A cheap bike that let's you comfortably travel 3 miles and not really care if there stolen is worth a lot. A bike that weighs 10lb's less but is more likely to be stolen and costs 2-3 times as much is far less useful.

<comment><USER11> Even for short distances, a better device is more pleasant to use. Not sweating is worth a lot if you can't shower at your destination.

And what if you want to travel 10 miles? Or 50? Carry more cargo, climb steeper hills? I think you should adopt this moderate position from a competing industry: "your mileage may vary."

<comment><USER12> > _a better device is more pleasant to use._

A cardboard bike is probably not great. Bt getting people on bikes is important. If they have an okay experience on a lousy $10 cardboard bike then there's a chance that they go on a buy a bike and use it.

And, like everything else, there's a lot of nonsense spoken about bikes.

Most people do not need carbon fibre frames and titanium widgets etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This seems cool and fun, and potentially a great engineering exercise. That is, you have to build around the properties of your material. But from an environmental and economic perspective I am deeply unconvinced. A _simple_ but well made and well maintained bicycle can be quite cheap and perform extremely efficiently for decades.

I used to fix bikes and old Raliegh three speeds were just the most amazing machines I've ever dealt with. Replace the rubber parts, true the wheels, and tighten the brakes and they are good to go again... thirty or forty years after they rolled off the assembly line. _That_ is efficient.

</comment><comment><USER14> A very nice video and story, but I would just like to highlight something. He says that he realized "there's no real know-how about how to work with cardboard beside making packages out of it".

I don't know if to say it's standard, but in industrial engineering there's certainly knowledge about it. For example: [http://smarterware.org/890/the- office-made-entirely-of-cardb...](http://smarterware.org/890/the-office-made- entirely-of-cardboard)

<comment><USER15> Static structures VS Dynamic Ones I guess. That said the video doesn't show details about transmissions, gears, etc..

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'd be interested if cardboard is easier to work with than metal. I have this vision of a huge machine that basically eats waste paper and stamps out bicycles like paper cups.

You know, something that you could buy on a vacation trip for 20-30$ and just discard at the end. It would not need to be very durable. In fact, it would be fine if it lasted a few weeks. After that, it is biodegradeable paper waste.

<comment><USER13> But what is the nature of the failure? If the way you know the bike is ready to throw out is that it collapses underneath you, that's no good.

<comment><USER17> I imagine that for $20, the way you know the bike is ready to throw out is that you've been riding it for more than a week on vacation.

<comment><USER13> Sure, but why not keep it? Why not have them for normal bikes? Probably because they don't last. So _how_ don't they last? By getting mushy and hard to pedal? That's fine. By collapsing underneath you? That's not.

And if they do exhibit catastrophic failure and just _average_ a weeks lifespan, that's a non-starter, because maybe you collapse into the curb the second day you're riding one.

<comment><USER17> > Sure, but why not keep it?

Basically for the reason you gave: "So how don't they last? By collapsing underneath you?"

Planned obsolescence is a pretty old and valid concept. We specifically throw away many things before they get the chance to fail us catastrophically - drugs, brakes, etc.

> average a weeks lifespan

A week was a random number I pulled out of my hat, since that's a typical vacation length for me. Naturally the average would be much longer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There's a company in New Haven, CT that makes furniture out of cardboard. It's surprisingly strong but I wouldn't jump on it:

<http://www.chairigami.com>

My concern with cardboard is that there is going to be some lower breaking point (especially the fork portion of the bike) due to the stress of riding it on uneven surfaces, debris getting caught in the spokes, or because of user motion. Carbon fiber forks have failed before causing catastrophic injury and death. Depending on tests, it may be an accident waiting to happen.

</comment><comment><USER19> I wonder how much of the strength comes from cardboard and how much comes from the glue. Wood glue is stronger than wood, so is the cardboard just a lattice for a PVA shell?

I guess it could use a similar principal in carbon fiber reinforced polymer, with cardboard taking the place of the carbon fiber and glue taking place of the polymers.

It also reminds me of wood turners who "fill voids" with cyanoacrylate glue so much that the main material they're turning is the CA glue itself.

</comment><comment><USER20> My biggest concerns are how it handles impacts and how it stops. I can just see it folding just like cardboard if it ever hit something and emergency stopping, especially in the wet, could cause all kinds of painful and expensive problems.

<comment><USER21> _I can just see it folding just like cardboard if it ever hit something and emergency stopping, especially in the wet, could cause all kinds of painful and expensive problems._

To be fair, if you want to avoid painful and expensive problems on a bike, the only viable option is to not have the accident in the first place. If you hit something at any noticeable speed, you're going to bend your forks, and it's also pretty easy to bend your wheel beyond repair.

If you get into racing bikes, it _really_ doesn't take much for bits to break.

I've ridden mountain bikes with hydraulic brakes, and racing bikes with those tiny blocks. Whilst you definitely stop faster with the former, I didn't have any issues with the racing bike brakes, so I'd imagine that the brakes on these should be fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Stanford has been using paper bicycle design as an exercise for aspiring product designers for years now. ([http://www.stanford.edu/group/me310/me310_2011/fun.html?fid=...](http://www.stanford.edu/group/me310/me310_2011/fun.html?fid=4))

I admire the guy trying to make this concept into a product, though they ultimately may be to the bike world as IKEA is to furniture (accessible but unfortunately hugely disposable)

</comment><comment><USER23> Interesting topic, but Onswipe sites freaking suck. Do they actually test on the iPad? This Onswipe page crashes Safari on my iPad.

</comment><comment><USER24> this is interesting; I mean, it's not cheaper than a used bike, but buying a good used bike in that price range is a whole lot more work than a trip to wal-mart, and usually requires a fair bit of tune-up work before it's ready to go.

I recently had my mid '70s early '80s junk steel frame bike stolen from the parking structure beneath my condo. I wondered why someone bothered; I mean, when I put the bike away it had two flat tires and badly needed a tune-up; And it was stolen from a bike rack that was packed with mostly better-looking bikes.

I mean, two flat tires; it's not like they were just looking for a quick ride to the liquor store.

But yeah, there is value to a cheap bike I could pull off the rack and just use, something easier to get working than a used bike. (speaking of, I'm looking for another <$100 steel-frame bike if anyone is getting rid of something.)

</comment><comment><USER25> Where did everyone get the idea that it was "disposable"? All I got from the article/video was that it was made of recycled material.

I would like to know how durable this bike is, and how much energy is saved by using recycled cardboard versus a metal sourced by mining.

</comment><comment><USER26> The "Cheap as an anti-theft mechanism" hypothesis has interested me in a while. I don't know how true it is though.

I see the cost/benefit argument, sure. But then again, thieves come in all stripes.

<comment><USER27> The problem with the cheap-as-anti-theft means non-theft can be replaced with vandalism.

I've seen plenty of old worthless bikes lying destroyed by vandals, sometimes still chained to a fence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Non-swipe: [http://nocamels.com/2012/07/recycled-cardboard-bicycles- for-...](http://nocamels.com/2012/07/recycled-cardboard-bicycles- for-9/?onswipe_redirect=never)

</comment><comment><USER21> Is it right to expect this bike to be pretty lightweight compared to the normally quite hefty cheap bikes that are for sale at present? If so, that's quite a nice innovation in itself.

</comment><comment><USER29> This would be great if you were on vacation or just visiting a city, and wanted a cheap mode of transportation that you wouldn't feel guilty for leaving behind.

</comment><comment><USER30> I didn't see this in the article, but does anyone know how much the bike actually weights?</comment>


Juno – A Better Ridesharing Service - <AUTHOR> https://www.gojuno.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Two interesting aspects of their business model:

. Low Commission - Competitive pricing and discounts.

. True Partners - 50% of Juno's founding shares are reserved for drivers.

I have no affiliation, just saw it mentioned the other day off the back of my 'GNUber' wisecrack.

</comment><comment><USER2> As a stupid sidenote, for irish people, 'a ride' is slang for sex.</comment>


Amazon Wants to Replace the Enterprise Data Center - <AUTHOR> http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2015/04/09/amazon-wants-to-replace-the-enterprise-data-center/ <comment><USER2> Working at BigCo doing work with our internal enterprise data centers that are spread globally a few concerns would come up.

\- How secure are the AWS offerings in comparison to a company's internal offerings?

\- How cost effective is it? If a company's internal cost is the same monthly rate, roughly speaking, transitioning from internally hosted to AWS would be a huge effort and could take many years. Case in point is Netflix transitioning to AWS took a few years and they are "new" compared to larger older companies.

\- A huge amount of re-architecting applications would need to occur to work on AWS for nearly any company. These are critical apps that were written a decade ago but keep the bits flowing on old technology.

The plus side for a big company would be for new projects. It takes eons to get infrastructure and storage for something - like months. If I could fire up VM's and storage in a day or two, projects would move insanely faster.</comment>


Differentiable Dithering - <AUTHOR> https://www.peterstefek.me/differentiable-dithering.html <comment><USER2> A great read on dithering: Lucas Pope's development blogs while working on Return of the Obra Dinn.

It's an incredible dive into how he created the game's remarkable and unique look, featuring a wonderful and unexpected mathematical contribution from a forum member. If you're not familiar with the game peek at a trailer to see what an achievement it was.

[https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.msg136374...](https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.msg1363742#msg1363742)

</comment><comment><USER3> On dithering, the original Playstation had built in support for dithering. On CRT televisions it helped provide a better looking visual and it's a huge part of the "look" of the system.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi- Wzl6BwRM&feature=emb_titl...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi- Wzl6BwRM&feature=emb_title&ab_channel=ModernVintageGamer)

</comment><comment><USER4> I've recently done a few things around dithering, and found this site good to experiement:

[https://ditherit.com/](https://ditherit.com/)

It's open source: [https://github.com/alexharris/ditherit-v2](https://github.com/alexharris/ditherit-v2)

<comment><USER5> Hi, thanks for using Dither it! I built it, and would gladly receive any feedback, suggestions or further praise!

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow exciting! I tried to use ditherit to get some baseline comparison images for my post! Is there anyway to both control the number of colors in the palette and have it auto pick colors at the same time?

<comment><USER5> That feature does not currently exist, but that is a great idea. I have added it to the list (which is just the github issue tracker, and contains no other items). I like that it auto-analyzes the palette when the images loads without requiring any further user input, but maybe an option after it loads to "auto- detect X colors" as a little dropdown thingie.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > A pipedream would be an entirely differentiable image compression pipeline > where all the steps can be fine tuned together to optimize a particular > image with respect to any differentiable loss function.

Neural Image Compression? [https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.08988](https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.08988)

<comment><USER7> I fear that you might end up with hallucinations in your images ...

<comment><USER8> Similar to imagining Ryan Gosling is in your background [https://petapixel.com/2020/08/17/gigapixel-ai- accidentally-a...](https://petapixel.com/2020/08/17/gigapixel-ai-accidentally- added-ryan-goslings-face-to-this-photo/)

<comment><USER9> Ryan Gosling? That's quite a stretch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's a very interesting approach, however once you have the probability distribution for each pixel, independent random sampling produces a poor dither pattern compared to Floyd-Steinberg or other error diffusion approaches.

I think once you have the target distributions then maybe you can combine the sampling with some error diffusion approach. The idea is to make the sampling of neighboring pixels negatively correlated, so the colors average out at shorter length scale.

For a sledgehammer approach you can try to have a blur in your loss function and try to sample from the combined probability distribution of all the pixels (ie. sample whole images). It would probably make the calculation even more expensive or possibly even infeasible.

<comment> 0-_-0 A differentiable error diffusion loss would dither the image with quantisation (like in the post), but then minimise the difference between the blurred dithered image and the blurred original, instead of the dithered image and the original. This would tend to distribute errors so that the average colour in an area is the same in the dithered image as the original, similar to Floyd- Steinberg.

</comment></comment><comment> Const-me Last time I did dithering was for Polyjet 3D printers. The problem is substantially different from what's in the article.

The palette is fixed, as the colors are physically different materials. The amount of data is huge, an image is a layer and the complete model has thousands of layers, because 3D.

I implemented a 3D-generalization of ordered dithering [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordered_dithering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordered_dithering) The algorithm doesn't have any data dependencies across voxels, the result only depends on source data, and position of the voxel. I did it on GPU with HLSL shaders, it takes a few seconds to produce thousands of images.

</comment><comment><USER11> Fun. I never considered differentiable dithering before.

Would be interesting to see results using a content loss function as defined by Gatys (2015), as opposed to the L2 loss as given. That should hopefully capture more long-distance structures in the image rather than optimising each pixel independently.

</comment><comment><USER12> Very interesting!

This seems somewhat similar to the recently published GIFnets[1]. However, I believe GIFnets is training a reusable network to a predict palettes, and pixel assignments, while this post is focusing on optimising the "weights" (i.e. pixel values) for a single image.

I wonder if the loss functions from GIFnets could be applied to this single- image approach to potentially solve the banding problem via something a little more "perceptual" than the variance term mentioned.

[1]: "GIFnets: Differentiable GIF Encoding Framework" [https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.13434](https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.13434)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's interesting! One thing I was surprised about is that they don't address optimizing the palette and dither pattern across time (b/c most gifs are animated). This feels to me like it would be really interesting and a hard problem for traditional algorithms. They do mention it as a possibility for future work at the end tho. They also seem to have separate losses for the palette net and the dither net instead of just adjusting both to optimize a general image quality metric (although it does look like they have some kind of perceptual loss, it's just not the only objective)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looks cool!

Two questions:

\- Is this approach also learning the palette? It is kind presented as a given here but it is of course very important for a good dithering.

\- The loss function might work better on spatially downsampled images. The downsampling causes a mix of the image colors making the dithered image look more like the original given a good dithering. This also naturally removes the variance that is now penalized in the loss function as this is blurred away.

<comment><AUTHOR> This blew up while I was asleep so I'll try my best to answer now!

1\. Yes the palette is being optimized for as well which is imho what makes it different from a quantization approach 2\. That's a good point. I cite a reference blog post which does use blur in the loss function towards the end of the post. Unfortunately I think pure blur would still produce a noisy image as it would remove variance in the eyes of the loss function but not the final image. I would guess something like the example I give with purple, red, blue pixels would still be a problem for blurred loss

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> What are the applications for dithering these days? I understand it was needed when we had 4 or 16 or 256 color limits. But now we have 8-bit/channel displays, and 10-bit is becoming popular.

<comment><USER15> Eight and ten bits are the full range of the image, but dark scenes only use a fraction of the range and often suffer from banding (and comically bad compression artifacts on certain popular streaming services). Clean, slight gradients as a backdrop often only cover a small distance in RGB, so again, very low resolution and banding is the result.

Dithering is vital. Just like dithering is vital for audio, even at 24 bits.

Also keep in mind that the "10 bit" you speak of is implemented by dithering on an 8 bit panel in almost every display. Similarly many cheaper 8 bit displays are actually 6 bit with dithering. Additionally, 10 bit is a very rare output format [1] and rarely used by applications apart from the handful of HDR games; even for content creation applications 10 bit support is uncommon, and it actually being utilized even less common.

[1] Just because everything is output and composited in 8 bit, doesn't mean 10 bit display output is entirely for naught. If you are using hardware gamma correction, which you are when you use tools like flux/redshift/... or most ICC display profiles, then 10 bit scanout of an 8 bit framebuffer still makes sense.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, since the day I noticed it on one YT video I can't unsee it in every dark one. I didn't even learn _why_ it's so bad for a long time.

Horrible huge squares/rectangles of slightly different black all over the place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A straightforward implementation of differentiable dithering consists in applying a large support band-pass filter to the image (so that it becomes of of zero-mean), and then thresholding it at 0. Sure, you lose the property that the average colors over large regions are conserved, but the image is perfectly recognizable, even with higher contrast than the original.

</comment><comment><USER18> Might be better with CIELAB color space, where "difference" is closer to "perceptual difference."

</comment><comment><USER19> Seems like the gains in pallete information is wasted in precise placement of pixels for dithering. Net loss IMHO, except for naive formats like bitmap. Interesting nevertheless but I guess we could do better by optimizing against the storage format. But then we are at the state-of-the-art

<comment><USER20> Lower bit depth/palette encoding has not been a state of the art option for compressing natural images like this for decades, and nobody is claiming it is.

If you're doing this, it's either because your medium is limited (retro games or 8-bit equivalent embedded systems), because you can't afford the CPU power to decompress something more complex (unlikely these days), because lower bit depth _is_ ideal for the rest of your image (e.g. largely UI graphics with no gradients, and just a few small graphics), or because you just don't care.

But given those reasons exist, there is value in researching better dithering algorithms. Also, to some extent, these things also apply to non-palette formats (dithering to lower bit depths), and that is still relevant today when e.g. converting HDR content to typical 8bpc (24bpp) formats.

<comment><USER21> Also note that some cheap displays are not even true 8bpc and employ temporal dithering to emulate 256 color steps.</comment></comment></comment>


IBM Reveals "Staggering" New Battery Tech, Withholds Technical Details - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/environment/ibm-new-seawater-battery-technology <comment><USER2> " Na says IBM has built prototype pouch battery cells in the lab which give her group confidence that they could develop a commercial product for limited applications (e.g. portable power tools) within one to two years. Developing the technology to compete with industry-standard lithium ions for electric vehicle powertrains will take, she says, a "longer time.""

</comment><comment><USER3> Instead of whining about lack of disclosure, decent journalism would take what info they have and compare it with existing battery tech. And if there's nothing to say in that vein, don't write the article.

I don't have any issue with opinions, or bias, per se, but don't make the whole damn article about your opinion regardless of how valid it is. If this invention is garbage and the press release too, fine, don't write the article.

"our battery demonstrated hundreds to thousands of cycles with 80 percent retention of its original capacity"

Fine, so _given_ this information, is it (or how much is it) definitely/possibly better than normal production lithium batteries?

Maybe someone who didn't want to write the article was forced to? That would explain a lot of journalism these days.</comment>


What Happens When You Install the Top Download.com Apps - <AUTHOR> http://www.howtogeek.com/198622/heres-what-happens-when-you-install-the-top-10-download.com-apps/?PageSpeed=noscript <comment><USER3> And this is why Apple created Gatekeeper and made the Mac OS X App Store so ridiculously onerous for developers[1]. The software world is, for all intents and purposes, a thin sheen of gold flecks and diamonds atop a _veritable cesspool_ of shit.

You can just imagine the conversation at 1 Infinite Loop:

        Marketer: The Panic guys are considering pulling
        out of the App Store. Maybe we should reconsider
        our App Store strategy to make it more inclusive.

        Product Manager: Have you seen the top 10 downloads
        from Download.com? They literally destroy your
        operating system.

        Marketer: ...

All that said, I'm disappointed with many of the restrictions that Apple places on iOS and OS X developers, but, after reading an article like this, I'm reminded why these restrictions exist, and that it's our own fault.

[1] and sandboxed iOS apps, and made the iOS App Store the only way to install iOS apps without jailbreaking your phone.

<comment><USER4> Ironic, considering that Apple did exactly the same, when you installed QuickTime on Windows. They tried to trick you into installing iTunes and Safari and set them as default apps.

Also, it stinks that Apple has nailed iOS that shut that even as a knowledgeable user you are not able to bypass it. They did not yet dare to do the same on Mac OS, but who knows when that comes.

<comment><USER5> Apple are quite happy to trash another company's OS. The Windows iTunes experience was _terrible_ : it ate resources, was opaque in operation, didn't always sync properly and could occasionally wipe your devices. It used to be required for OS updates.

The "nailing shut" is an increasing problem for anyone that believes in a free market in software. Which isn't helped by all these sites shipping value- negative software.

<comment><USER6> If you have an ssd and more than one Apple device, each device you synch eats up about 10gb of space or more. If you have a spouse with an iPhone in addition to yours, a kid or two with itouches, then that can easily eat up 50+Gb of an ssd drive. This can be a very significant percentage of your drive!! And there's no way to change it to anything by the c drive on windows.

<comment><USER7> There is a complex method of changing the backup drive by setting up symlinks.

It is user-hostile of Apple to force use of C:\

<comment><USER8> If you have a Mac with more than one hard drive, one of which is an SSD, you probably know how to set up symlinks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Download.com is just the beginning of this crap. At least a lot of people now realise that download.com is shady. Google is just as bad as download.com, but people still think of Google as a reputable site. Even in this discussion people are recommending just googling the product name to find a download. Please don't tell people to do that. It's dangerous.

If you type terms like 'firefox' into google search much of the time the top result (which is actually an ad) takes you to a site offering a version of firefox bundled with toolbars and god knows what other malware. The story is similar for other popular windows downloads. I've even seen these ads crop up for things like Chrome in the past.

For example, here is a search I did just now for the term 'download firefox'. The top result is an ad leading to malware: [http://i.imgur.com/Ote9c2k.png](http://i.imgur.com/Ote9c2k.png)

Imagine having to explain to an inexperienced computer user how find to firefox or other common software, without clicking on any of these landmines google carefully disguises right at the top of the results.

I've been bringing this up on HN for a while now and nothing has changed. Many of the sites are the same as they were a year ago. Google does manual review of adwords sites. The domains of these sites have been the same for at least a year. Google knows _exactly_ what is going on, making them just as bad as donwload.com in my view.

Google search ads are probably one of the biggest vectors for malware these days, along side the kinds of big download button ads you see on software sites (many of which are also google ads).

Previously:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7335401](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7335401)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7971201](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7971201)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7089727](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7089727)

<comment><USER10> At least the actual, genuine result is visible without scrolling. A few years Google were paying computer manufacturers to set a special version of Google with more prominent ads as their default search engine. The net result was that if you got a new computer and searched for Firefox using their default, Google-supplied search the genuine result was actually below the fold in some cases.

<comment><USER11> Can you back that up with a citation?

<comment><USER10> Not trivially, unfortunately - I didn't save the information at the time and don't seem to be able to find details because it's buried under articles about Google's newer changes to increase the number of ads and the (equally ad- heavy) redirection page for URL typos they were paying OEMs to bundle at one point.[1] Basically, there's too much discussion of other bad practices for me to Bing or Google this one. Sorry.

[1] See [http://blog.opendns.com/2007/05/22/google-turns-the- page/](http://blog.opendns.com/2007/05/22/google-turns-the-page/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I had to install the DirectX user runtime recently and was pretty shocked to see Microsoft has loaded it up with lots of crapware. First when you click download from its page at [http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/download/details.aspx?id=35](http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/download/details.aspx?id=35) you're prompted to set MSN as your homepage, download the malicious software removal tool, and download IE11 (if you're on Windows). Then after you skip that you get the download and when you run it it will try to get you to install the Bing bar in the installer. Overall just a really shady and crap experience, especially coming from Microsoft.

Also agreeing to set MSN as your homepage with the install bloats the download size from a svelte 286kb for the DX web installer to 2.4mb (just to set a homepage!?). Way to completely defeat the purpose of providing a small installer by bundling in crap.

<comment><USER13> I stopped trusting Microsoft installers when Windows Update listed the Bing Desktop as a Critical Update.

<comment><USER14> The accusation has been around for a while and is not true.[1] Amazing how the story has morphed from "Optional Update" to "Critical" in 1 year's time. And it just sounds untrue. Why would you believe that?

[1] [http://www.dasmirnov.net/blog/bing-desktop-won-t- be](http://www.dasmirnov.net/blog/bing-desktop-won-t-be)

<comment><USER13> In the off chance you ever come back to read this, this is my bad.

I never saw any articles about it at the time. I just remember it always being in my Windows Update list and I was sick of it. Windows Update in my mind should generally be for OS and software updates, and not for software that Microsoft is looking to push.

Which is funny, because I'm a Windows guy who works in the Microsoft stack.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Mobile computer tech, here. War story follows.

I handle high single-figures of these adware and/or potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) infestations every week.

Mostly it's Windows 7 and 90% adware/PUPs-centric, occasionally ransomware. In the huge majority of cases, the following will get a computer back up and sorted in a sensible amount of (billable) time:

First, bring known-good copies of AdwCleaner, Junkware Removal Tool, RKill and ComboFix on a thumb drive. Same-day downloads are preferred as some detect out-of-date versions and don't play nice. Shut down computer. Restart in safe mode with command prompt. Run explorer.exe from command prompt. USB typically works as usual, even in safe mode. Run each of the applications above as administrator in the order they are listed. Some will require a reboot to complete their work. The reboot should be in normal mode, subsequent restart(s) to run other cleaner(s) should be in safe mode with command prompt. Diminishing returns will take place after the third of fourth cleaner, and allow 15 minutes for a typical infection.

The longest it's taken me to completely clean a computer of was 7 hours, comprising around 18GB of tat. If it's a severe infection, I will recommend a rebuild from known-good factory media after a Windows Easy Transfer export, assuming there's not too much in the way of user content.

As an up-sell, I also offer a better-than-factory reset where there's a clean Windows 7 installed and no vendor-specific junk on there. Computer vendors aren't as bad as free-to-use software vendors, but there's a reason why a adequate Lenovo laptop can be bought in the UK for 230GBP (including sales tax at 20%). Install, updates, and Windows Easy Transfer will typically be around 2 to 3 hours. It's a hard sell with a cheap laptop, especially since some clients are already preparing to buy a new laptop rather than fix the old one.

<comment><USER15> Addendum: I save a ninite.com installer to their desktops, renaming it to `Run this every Wednesday`. If they see any `You need to update Flash Player` dialogues, I advise them to close them and _only run the desktop icon_ \- this in and of itself saves most people from reinfection.

Edit: typo and formatting.

<comment><USER16> I cannot say enough about ninite. They are brilliant. I moved to the Mac a year ago, and I miss it dearly. I wish they had a Mac version. It's so convenient. And safe. And easy. I paid them for something just because I wanted them to be successful. Single best product I used on Windows!

<comment><USER17> That's so nice to hear. Thank you!

I'd love to make a Mac version someday, but the problems are so much worse on Windows so we're focusing there.

<comment><USER18> Wow, the co-found of ninite :D

I can't thank you enough! That program is _always_ the absolute first i download on every windows machine, period.

I think i've told all my friend about ninite by now, and everyone is super impressed.

Would you care to elaborate on how it works? do you download from each software homepage, or do you constantly have to download latests versions and then serve from your own server?

Any way you could make a free or cheap one-time pay, for a version that can use a private server to host, and then deliver programs to it this way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> In 2012, YC invested in a company InstallMonetizer[0] which, from my understanding, helps align software products with bundling other installers for additional revenue.

[0] [http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/installmonetizer](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/installmonetizer)

<comment><USER20> That's by far the worst company they ever invested in.

See here for PG's take on this:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711)

<comment><USER21> I dunno, there's a few contenders. Scribd was pretty bad. RapGenius was pretty bad in terms of the people.

Edit: Oh, and Quora, even if that wasn't much more than YC lending its name.

<comment><USER14> What was wrong with RapGenius? I actually like them. Simple idea executed well. I still use Genius regularly.

<comment><USER9> People disliked them because the founders acted like obnoxious fratbros, but the specific claims of wrongdoing were over blackhat SEO ( [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6956658](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6956658) ) which ended up getting them penalised by Google.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > _Because when the product is free the real product is YOU._

I disagree with this conclusion. Also, I have a related issue with some of the opinions I hear e.g. on HN that confuse me.

Many a person says in defense of ads - "but surely authors have to support themselves, otherwise there'd be no site/software", "TANSTAAFL", etc. But this seems to me to be in disagreement with observable reality.

What I see is a strong and direct correlation between amount of ads and crappiness/dishonesty. For websites, it is usually "the more ads there are, the more likely content is wrong/crap/nonexisting and the author is there to take your money". For applications, similarly - more ads means crappier downloads, and - if it's the author's site that's full of banners - <USER2> program is most likely shit.

What I observe is that there are two reliable types of sources/downloads: 1) linked on author's site, free and free of ads - they signal that the author actually cares about the content they're providing (see "the toilet-paper companies"[0]) and 2) linked on author's site, that ask you to pay up front - here it signals that the author is honest.

So do the authors really have to "support themselves"? Or is it that the honest ones either do it for free (because they care, and they get money needed to support it elsewhere) or sell in clear terms? And the ad-dependent money makers have no business being on the Internet in the first place?

That's why I also feel no guilt for browsing with AdBlock on - neither the ads nor the ad-serving pages are a good deal for anyone in any way.

As for the Downloads.com, CNET, et al. - I hope that the introduction of Windows Store/package manager will shut them down for good. They're evil, they deserve to be down.

[0] - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8319102](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8319102)

<comment><USER23> I've always considered the assertion that quality content is only created if there is financial reward to be a flagrant lie.

Expectations of ads fully supporting websites are relatively new even to the world wide web, let alone the internet. 10 years ago, you might at best hope that your ads would offset a bit of the websites hosting costs.

The really good content is put up by people who are in it because they care about the content, not the money. The same is true of software.

My experience is that if you are offering quality, you either give it away for free, or insist on up front payment.

Pay by ad, pay by data and in app purchase are all business models of people who want money and don't care about the content, but know their product isn't good enough to sell.

<comment><USER24> There is certainly a lot of great content created by people doing it for the love, but love only gets a person so far. To do real in-depth reporting takes quite a bit of time, way more than anyone but the independently wealthy have at their disposal unless they are working (and being paid) as professional reporters.

Consider the work on the Snowden files. Snowden handed his huge collection to professional reporters, who then spent weeks and months carefully reading it, confirming what they could independently, working with experts to understand what was most important, working with lawyers to understand what they could and not publish, and finally, writing and editing the articles.

Or consider investigative journalism pieces like the work that revealed the problems at the U.S. Veteran's Administration, or the Washington Post's series on civil asset forfeiture:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/06/st...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/06/stop- and-seize/)

The Post and other news operations need to make money somehow, so that their reporters can afford to spend the time to keep doing this work. So far, ads are the only revenue source that seems reliable, although a lot of news ops are experimenting with online subscriptions as well.

<comment><USER22> Ok, but on the other hand consider the remaining 95% of content created by news sites, which is lies, clickbait, and total&utter crap. I very much apperciate investigative journalism for both the entertainment value and the function it provides to society - but that's a very, very small part of what gets published in papers, and the rest of what gets to the front pages of news sites is what makes them an example, not an exception, of my rule.

I applaud the work of professional journalists who care about stories they do and providing value to the public. So I want to support them, but not the other 95% published under the same banner. Because seriously, I get much better value from HN and Reddit comments, which not surprisingly, are both free and written by people who care.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Instead of dowloading from Sourceforge (loaded with ads and its own devious 'installer'), CNET, Download, etc, there are no-crapware alternatives that offer more management tools as well (remembering your list of apps across machines, automated updates, discoverability):

Ninite: nice, simple, installer: just select apps and let the installer do it all for you.

AllMyApps: all the apps, no crapware (at least for now).

chocolatey: a command-line package manager for Windows

[https://chocolatey.org/](https://chocolatey.org/)

[https://ninite.com/](https://ninite.com/)

[http://allmyapps.com/](http://allmyapps.com/)

Ninite is clean and great for managing deployment on multiple machines, although it offers a limited number of curated apps (but they tend to be very common).

AllMyApps has tons of apps and the most user-friendly. I could give that to my mum. Only had some minor issues sometimes when it fails to recognise versions to update. It will even recognise and update apps that were not installed through its manager.

Chocolatey has lots of packages and you can create your setup to make it easy to deploy across machines. It's getting more secure and the authors are putting a review process in place to guarantee quality.

I've used all three and they all offer something useful. All allow you to manage your own deployment across machines.

<comment><USER22> A nice list. How long they're all around?

I still can't shake the feeling that it's only a matter of time before Moloch gets to them and they'll start serving crapware like any others. I'd love to be wrong on that.

<comment><USER17> Ninite Co-Founder here.

Our pro-version SAAS business model works great.

Plus we started Ninite because junkware enraged us so much. It's just punching down at non-technical users. I'd kill the company before doing that.

Anyway, we'll be around and junkware free until the world moves to platforms where everything's signed and sandboxed.

<comment><USER22> Thank you for your reply. I'll definitely check out your product then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I regularly get called by people complaining that their computer no longer works. Pretty much every time it turns out that their machine is loaded with crapware. It amazes me how people just put up with random browser windows popping up and having to search via some random search engine that has been imposed on them.

At the minute I just have to put up with spending a few hours removing the worst offenders and then running several different adware removers. It generally keeps them running well for a few months.

I would love to set up a VM so whenever things start going wrong they could just delete the VM and start fresh. Currently VMs are a bit too heavy weight, a lot of people struggle with the concept of working in multiple Windows let alone knowing which machine they are actually working in. I am looking forward to Microsoft implementing containers ala Docker. It will be interesting to see what possibilities will be available for making it seamless and quick enough for a computerphobe to browse within a container.

<comment><USER27> I feel your pain. Whenever family ask me to look at their computer I spent an hour deleting spyware and such. The worst bit is they do have antivirus and Windows defender, but they do nothing to stop it :/

The common advice to stop it before was "don't use IE". Everyone uses Chrome now, and so that's now where everything installs itself (check the extensions and there is usually something dubious). Google even have a tool to remove this stuff: [https://www.google.co.uk/chrome/srt/](https://www.google.co.uk/chrome/srt/)

<comment><USER28> I had to deinfect a adware infested computer of a colleague recently. In my oppinion, most adware is _very_ eager to include some proper way of uninstalling, just to not be classified as a trojan/virus/... Even if this is completely leaning to persuade the customer NOT TO INSTALL it:

"You will loose precious functionality, your computer will get slower, the locusts will invade your country: Are you SURE to deinstall CrapToolbarAdMakeComputerFaster2000? [NO!] [NOT AT ALL!] (yes) [CONTINUE USING ADWARE]"

I guess it's done that way so that Microsoft would look like to impair a earnest software business' operation, would they choose to include it in their "evil monopolistic" antivirus software.

<comment><USER26> It is that 5% that refuse to go away and then reinstall themselves when you finally work out how to get rid of them that takes up 95% of the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I see a lot of comments here about Mac & Ubuntu. I run Ubuntu myself, so no disrespect intended.

That said: If we all do and make everyone else do as we say, replace Windows with Ubuntu & Mac, guess what happens next? The next shitwave of shitware will come to our favourite platforms, and they will find new exploits and new creative ways to fuck us over too.

This is a social problem and technology alone wont solve it. Either users must be taught to avoid things like this (flying pigs be damned) or it must be banned by law. Law which unfortunately knows geographical limits and universal lack of uniformity & coherence.

What's the general opinion on that? I'm obviously all for banning crapware, but lets say the majority was for banning it, and we found a solution for the "global" laws thing... How would you define it, where would you draw the line for what is just poor software and what is actively harmful?

What about remote-control/support-tools? Obviously they can be used for good, but in the wrong hands they can be used for espionage and surveillance and ransomware.

I suspect such a ban would cause quite some debate, even among techies.

<comment><USER30> It's already happening on OSX. The other day a non-tech-savvy co-worker of mine wanted to install some kind of Samsung Sync software for his mobile (KIES or something?) - instead of the official site he went with the first Google result. That colorful and large download button inspired confidence after all. The downloaded app installed...something, but it wasn't Kies. It hijacked the browser, installed MacKeeper and changed all kinds of settings and preferences.

He told me after the fact and since the machine was just freshed setup with few things changed (apart from the crapware) I told him to do a clean install since you never know what you missed when you try to clean it up manually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> That's a major indictment of CNET. They're in the crapware/adware/spyware business. Some of the crapware downloaded even bears their logo.

The two programs frantically fighting over the browser home page was amusing.

</comment><comment><USER32> Even the Windows Java client installer tries to get you to install the Ask toolbar (or at least it did; I haven't seen an update recently). I imagine it must be quite lucrative for Oracle; either that, they stopped caring about Java's reputation as a user-facing technology for web content or desktop applications, or users just don't notice these things.

<comment><USER33> There was a discussion on here recently. Apparently Ask.com makes something like $400+ mil per year. Mind boggling.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8762663](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8762663)

<comment><USER34> Oracle makes $billions per year. There's no reason to bundle Ask. Despicable.

<comment><USER33> Yea but it will be attempts to make business subgroups self funding that led to this. Under sun java was the cherry-on-top of their hardware / gateway drug to their server side hardware. I doubt oracle look at it like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is why I moved my mom to a Mac and then to Ubuntu in, IIRC, 2007. The last time I had to clean up her Windows machine, everything was so completely contaminated with all kinds of malware that I simply gave up. I backed up her most important data (customer data, proposals), cleaned it thoroughly (Office documents can be infected - thank you, Microsoft) and just moved her to a Mac I no longer used. When she started complaining the Mac was slow (it was no longer up to the task of running a modern browser with Gmail in it) I moved her to an IBM desktop with Ubuntu she uses to this day.

She even updates the machine herself through the package manager GUI.

And she's 79.

<comment><USER36> My grandfather had the same problem, now with Ubuntu he is happy :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> This timely article appears the weekend I erase & install OSX having clicked the wrong download button on CyberDuck. The Google DoubleClick banner is prominent on the page, the actual software download is "below the fold". I should know better, but I clicked the big green "Download Now" next to the big Yellow duck, and underneath the same-Green Donate button. I ended-up downloading something wrapped in Genieo's InstallMac software, nothing to do with CyberDuck, who I wouldn't even mention except the banner is so prominent on the page. I also, dumbly, entered my admin credentials before aborting the install when it started downloading more components. Within seconds my search engine on all browsers was changed, start-page reset and other configuration including a process left running.

The installed files and modified files were not easy to find, apple provide good help but it's hard to trust the computer once it's executed malicious deceptive code with root privilege.

Clearly this was all my own fault and poor decision making.

<comment><USER38>
      > Clearly this was all my own fault and poor decision making.

Don't blame the victim!

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Unchecky is a useful defense against this. Uses about a megabyte of RAM and runs in the background, blocking most offers.

[http://www.unchecky.com/](http://www.unchecky.com/)

Install it on all computers that I get given being the family/friends 'IT guy'.

<comment><USER40> Wow, this is brilliant if it works well. If anyone from Unchecky reads this, you should repeat this experiment with your software installed and post it on your blog.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> _Free software vendors make so much more money by bundling other software than they do by selling subscriptions that it's pretty much the only business plan that anybody can consider using. At least Avast is bundling something good, so we can't really argue with it.

Because when the product is free the real product is YOU._

His use of the term "free software" kinda bugs me here. Yes, "freeware" are harmful, but just because something doesn't cost anything doesn't make it bad. Because his article is intended for a general audience, I think he should offer links to legitimate free software vendors. Instead of going on a crusade against "free (and open source) software" he should go on one against "suspicious free (of cost) software sites".

KMplayer does have an option to add an Ask toolbar, but it doesn't have Search Protect. I really don't think that a lot of the big-name software containing trojans on Download is uploaded there by the project developers, but that's just the dreamer in me talking. On sites that let people upload executable files with little-to-no moderation, or on sites that are in and of themselves harmful, malware is unavoidable.

<comment><USER42> Most people versed in the English language will think "free software" means "freeware", because the other meaning is approximately as comprehensible as "educated toasters". Software can't have freedom. People have freedom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I think in general, this is what happens when companies start failing. CNet used to be a great company, but these days people don't go quietly off into the night. Corporations hire useless MBA types who want "synergy" with the "ecosystem" and "streamlining sales process for customers" (by customers I mean the malware companies, not the website visitors) and other nonsense euphemisms that usually means "we're going to screw someone".

In a saturated s/w market it seems like the only money that's left is in places where people didn't want to go before because of the "that's kind of a dickish thing to do" self-awareness that companies used to have.

While in theory, this is not Microsoft's fault, practically I don't feel comfortable recommending Windows to any family member these days. OSX is good, but a lot of OSX crapware is starting to come with kernel extensions and Launch Daemons/Agents, etc.

</comment><comment><USER44> The higher level of trust I place in free software is one of the motivations for my increasing use of Linux. Even Java comes with crapware on Windows, the app store has the standard creepy more permissions than needed business model.

I remember when download.com was a resource and there was good stuff to be had for free. But bad drove out good a long time ago. The official Windows ecosystem is permalogin appStores and what lives outside the walls is a massive web of bad actors who thrive on Google's self-serving disinterest...Why do download.com and Cnet show up in results? They are less benevolent than content farms.

It's not that I hate Windows or experience viruses. It's that I've tired of being paranoid on the one hand and updated by apps on the other. Psychic weight and distraction are two things of which I want less.

\---

Clarification: Windows has a great ecosystem for commercial software and in a business context often has the best options for solving domain specific problems.

</comment><comment><USER20> Download.com took an executable I made, unpacked it, added a whole bunch of spyware and malware to the archive and re-packed it. I hate them with a passion.

</comment><comment><USER45> The article, while informative, feels like a subtle Avast advertisement. It's mentioned 16 times in the damn article, and the author even vindicates it for not preventing problems and also compares it to AVG saying its better.

<comment><USER46> it's almost like he's covertly bundling it into his article

<comment><USER47> My world has just been shattered.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I had to use download.com recently. More than anything the experience solidified to me that using Windows is unpleasant. Finding and installing software is a bit like going on an episode of "the dating game" knowing that 2/3 of your bachelors keep a rag and a bottle of chloroform handy in the glove compartment.

</comment><comment><USER49> This is the #1 reason Windows is no longer on my kid's computers; it's too easy to install crap-ware no matter what security package you use.

<comment><USER50> Recently I visited my dad and his laptop was just full of crapware. I noticed the only thing he uses is the web browser, maybe editing the occasional word doc. So I just wiped the machine, put on ElementaryOS and hopefully there will be less problems. Haven't heard any complaints so far.

<comment> squeaky-clean I did this for my sister this Christmas. Every holiday she visits and hands me her laptop to be fixed or reformated. So I got fed up, installed eOS and the tweaks plugin, got Netflix and mp3/aac support working, and told her I had installed Mac OSX on her laptop.

If I had told her it was Linux, she would be too scared to touch the thing, but she honestly believes she has a Mac now (in a Dell laptop), and hasn't complained at all so far.

<comment><USER50> Absolutely, that was a huge reason I decided to make the switch to Linux. Coming home and getting a stack of laptops from family and friends, becomes a hassle. I didn't come here to spend my day reinstalling Windows!

After I reformatted the machine, I just handed it over and didn't even mention that it was running Linux, just to see if there be any reaction like, "this is not Windows!" and the only question I was asked was "what is the password to unlock the screensaver".

It's a real drag having to go to like Dell to find and download all the drivers, and then download and install things like Java, Flash, etc.

Having a package manager is a huge win, I can write a ansible playbook to configure the machine and make sure the packages are always up to date with something like unattended-upgrades and then call it a day.

I'm just glad my parents don't use online banking, so I get some peace of mind there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> The thing is you don't actually know what these programs are doing behind the scenes. Hijacking browser home page is the most innocent thing.

<comment><USER52> A colleague managed to get one of thse toolbar things on his computer. It was a nightmare. It installed a second hidden browser plugin to keep re-installign the toolbar and re-setting your default search engine every time the browser restarts. Then there was a startup exe installed to re-install the plugins and toolbar on system restart. Then there was something else rooted in there somewhere that kept downloading and re-enabling that if you disabled it in msconfig.

We had to do some serious registry hacking and manual system32 folder cleanup to finally kill the blasted thing.

Not that I've had to deal with anything like that at home since 2007. OSX all the way baby! I've probably got back a couple of weeks of my life over the last 7 years, when you add in time spent messing with device driver version issues and general system tuning.

<comment><USER22> On Windows, Restore Point are (still) a good one-stop solution against this kind of crap.

The most annoying malware I've removed this way was one that automatically killed any instance of cmd.exe and regedit.exe that you opened.

<comment><USER53> Malware routinely hides in the restore points – it avoids anything which is configured not to scan them (this was surprisingly widespread a few years back, although I hope it's improved) and might even get someone to reactivate it if you restore for any other reason.

Trying to bolt security on after the fact like this is a losing game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> Anthony-G Soon after I got my first computer in the late 90s, I figured out that free (gratis) / shareware proprietary software can't be trusted and that I should be wary of sites such as Download.com. After a couple of years, I moved to GNU/Linux as my regular OS but I'd still use Windows in a work environment and after working in an Internet cafe, I became an expert in removing malware.

Since then, the situation has got much worse: you used to be reasonably safe downloading FOSS software but nowadays you can't trust Windows binaries from Sourceforge. Even serious software producers such as Oracle have been bundling Ask.com crapware with Java updates. I feel sorry for new Windows users who want to get more functionality out of their PC.

I thought the battle of the malware to dominate the home near the end of the article was funny.

</comment><comment><USER54> The VLC team experienced the same kind of crapware in 2013 but on Sourceforge and decided to move away.

[https://blog.l0cal.com/2013/05/02/rethinking-vlc-mirrors- inf...](https://blog.l0cal.com/2013/05/02/rethinking-vlc-mirrors- infrastructure/)

</comment><comment><USER55> The irony of the article is that it gets even worse if you're not in a VM. Some adware companies try to detect that for fraud-preventing purposes.

</comment><comment><USER56> Relevant discussion about YC-funded "InstallMonetizer" from 2 years ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711)

</comment><comment><USER57> Can somebody tell me again about how awful web apps are? I've used hundreds of those of the most dubious provenance and they have never done anything to my os.

</comment><comment><USER58> When my relatives get confused by IE or Firefox I tell them just to use Chrome, partly because they ALWAYS already have copy installed due to tactics like this.

</comment><comment><USER59> Funny, at the bottom of this article there's a Google Adsense Ad for a "Free Malware Removal installer". Even their own site needs monetization and is part of the problem.

This article shows pretty well how polluted the Windows software ecosystem has become, it is a huge problem for Microsoft. I hope the Windows Store situation will improve with the next version of Windows.

</comment><comment><USER60> > And no matter how technical you might be, most of the installers are so > confusing that there's no way a non-geek could figure out how to avoid the > awful.

Or even a geek who is in a hurry. I came very close to accidentally installing crapware when I was downloading things from Sourceforge the other day. It's no wonder regular end-users end up with all this crap.

<comment><USER61> I installed crapware on a brand new laptop a few weeks ago. I searched for "chrome" in IE, clicked the _top paid link on bing.com_ \- malware. Unbelievable.

System restore worked well to fix that screw-up.

<comment><USER61> By the way, I just checked and this is STILL happening on bing.com:

Top paid result for "chrome" is the following crapware site:

[http://google-chrome-uk.download-assist.com/](http://google-chrome- uk.download-assist.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> For the first time in 10 years, I just ordered a Windows 8.1 laptop (I live in a small town, I want to start teaching some free classes at our library, and thought I better also have a Windows laptop).

Someone commented on Amazon that he had to spend 2 hours removing crap-ware from the model I ordered and said he wished he would have bought directly from Microsoft. I looked, and Microsoft sells the same laptops with "signature" branding: this means that they sell you a crap-ware free system. So, I stopped the Amazon order and for the same money bought from Microsoft. I intend to only install Java 8, IntelliJ, git, ssh, and probably Pharo Smalltalk when I receive my new laptop.

A little off topic, but a few weeks ago I wiped my MacBook Air clean by reformatting the disk, did a fresh install, and just installed what I need for writing and development work. Now my MacBook Air runs faster and I recovered a lot of disk space.

</comment><comment><USER63> With so many Windows users and developers how come there is nothing like Debian's apt? With zip-like packages instead of executable files, signed by the maintainers and with a uniform installation ui. The closest thing I know is Chocolatey and it doesn't even comes close.

Even if only open source applications used it, it would be so useful.

</comment><comment><USER64> And sometimes the crapware is bundled with legit free/open-source softwares :( (I ranted about that some time ago: [http://blog.httrack.com/blog/2013/11/24/i-do-not-want- your-s...](http://blog.httrack.com/blog/2013/11/24/i-do-not-want-your-search- bar/))

<comment><USER65> Oracle is bundling the Ask toolbar and McAfee Security Scanner as "optout adware" with java runtime updates, the whole windows 3rd party software ecosystem is nothing but a cesspit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> I really wonder why people prefer some other websites to download the product instead of its own website. When you type "ccleaner", "kmplayer" etc on google, the first one is always the product website. The second and third ones are the websites distributing product with adware/spywares.

<comment><USER67> Maybe they're looking for a trusted curator or the "user" reviews give them a sense of reassurance. As an exercise, try to find the right download button on Imgburn's own website:

[http://www.imgburn.com/](http://www.imgburn.com/)

Even during installation, you still have to navigate the "Uncheck spyware" minefield.[1]

[1] [http://www.jdhodges.com/blog/safe-version-imgburn-without- op...](http://www.jdhodges.com/blog/safe-version-imgburn-without-opencandy/)

<comment><USER68> I installed imgburn, I was careful to uncheck everything, yet I still ended up with OpenCandy. I -probably- fucked up, but I don't see why someone who is shady enough to bundle OpenCandy wouldn't also be shady enough to ignore what people choose during installation as they will usually only blame themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> The moral of the story is that average users shouldn't use or have access to the administrator account, but that's nothing new, is it?

Oh, and that words like "client", "program", or "utility" are dead. Too bad. I'm surprised they don't call malware "malapp".

</comment><comment><USER70> I agree that there is a lot of useless software, malware, and annoying bundling on download.com and in the Windows software ecosystem at large.

But seriously, it's not hard to avoid installing a lot of bundled software. I'd be more interested in what happens when you install the Top Download.com Apps _without_ the obviously bundled crap. And I'm certainly not interested in hearing complaints about what the programs do (it's just distracting), considering that you picked them arbitrarily and some of them seem to be doing exactly what they say they will do.

If we're going to bash a software ecosystem, let's at least try to do it intelligently.

<comment><USER71> How is it unintelligent to point out that downloading a few apps from a (formerly) reputable source of free apps results in your computer being basically unusable? What the article showed shouldn't happen, and it did despite download.com's assurances that it wouldn't.

<comment><USER70> The article is objectively misleading. The title reads "What happens when you install x", but instead they proceed to install x, y, and z. Is it so surprising that when you "click next to install program y", that program y is installed? Download.com doesn't promise not to bundle software, it promises not to install bundled software without the user's consent, which is obscured in this demo. I'm not saying that Download.com is doing the right thing; _I 'm saying that this article is failing to isolate where the problem really is._

Furthermore, they complain about things that aren't related to Download.com at all. For example, they install YAC and then complain that YAC is installed and working as advertised. Again, it obscures the actual investigation. Consider that this isn't Download.com's recommended apps; it's simply the most downloaded applications. Just because a lot of people download something isn't an assurance that it does something useful. Go to the Editor's Picks for that, which includes many useful and clean programs. Or even the Top Downloads of all time, rather than Last Week.

By obscuring the results of the demo and failing to distinguish between things that should happen and things that shouldn't, HTG makes it harder for us intelligently discuss the Download.com ecosystem. They fail to educate users about bundled software and how to avoid it. Instead, we're just regurgitating vague opinions that the Windows ecosystem is terrible.

The title should read something more like "What happens when you blindly install applications a lot of other people installed" which makes it much easier to discuss whether Download.com is really at fault here, or who/what is. For example, does Download.com have a responsibility _not_ to report and index statistics such as most downloads last week, so that users can't be tricked into thinking that Download.com recommends they install those programs arbitrarily?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> Microsoft dropped the ball with lack of App Store. With all app store's drawbacks, that's the place where regular user can pay easily without thinking will someone steal his/her credit car number, the place where applications should be harmless, and the place where (and this is important) the user can compare prices between similar applications.

Windows doesn't have the app store. And nobody (read: very, very small percentage) is willing to type the credit car number on some unknown site to pay for some utility. So shareware died, and shareware authors went to the dark side.

<comment><USER73> The one who dropped the ball is CNet. _They_ could have used their good name to establish a curated software marketplace and done subscription, app sales, freemium... anything at all other than giving their reputation a giant flush for a few bucks and earning themselves a 127.0.0.1 in the hosts file of computers I work on.

<comment><USER49> Back in the day, I probably would have made use of that - instead they made developers bid to have their products higher in the listings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> Driver booster happens to be very useful for what it does. It's the only driver updater that ever worked for me.

Most are useless, and try to charge money, but not Driver Booster. (And you can find a pro key for free if you look around, but even non pro is still pretty good.)

And that stuff in the linked article about drivers updating from Windows Update: many driver updates take a long time to make it there, if at all. I've seen many times that a driver has an update from the manufacturer but it doesn't update automatically.

</comment><comment><USER75> Could remove all of this malware with Malwarebytes Anti Malware. Buz still had zo reset the proxy settings, because they had been changed. The change was also removed but i had to unclick a checkbox so it doesn't use a proxy anymore. It is so frustrating. I don't know if Windows can sustain it's software model like this. It is just unbearable. Ninite and chocolatey would be great solutions i think.

</comment><comment><USER76> That makes me wonder why anti virus software does not have crapware detection. That would actually be a good task for them.

</comment><comment><USER77> How can these be legal?

<comment><USER22> I don't know. But I wonder how is that those sites haven't yet ended up on Chrome/Firefox "Malware-serving Site" blacklist?

<comment><USER78> Google itself pays to have Chrome installed as bundleware. I for got which, but it comes with either Adobe Reader, Flash or Java in some geographical locations.

<comment><USER79> Google has also bundled Picasa in the past.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> Reading this makes me well up with empathy for the unfortunate person who installs one of these bundles.

Sites like download.com are fraud sites, which install programs that are essentially viruses. I'm surprised Google doesn't crack down more heavily on them the way it does on warez sites.

</comment><comment><USER81> It would be fairly humorous if the #1 download.com app, Avast, then proceeded to block every other download.com link (instead of just a few of them, which in itself is funny).

</comment><comment><USER82> Unchecky ( [http://unchecky.com](http://unchecky.com) ) should be auto- installed by Windows.

</comment><comment><USER83> They are doing it for years now especially after 2009 or something, before that download.com is not so much awful as nowadays.

</comment><comment><USER84> Selling to private persons is a bureaucratic nightmare in EU! If you managed to market your app and managed to get paid, you now have to be registered for VAT in the country you are selling to. And there are tons of rules like 10 day money back return that are enforced by law in most countries.

If you serve adds (or crapware) instead, you get a monthly paycheck witch require minimal accounting work or customer support.

</comment><comment><USER85> Did anyone else noticed how quickly this story was buried off the first page of HN?

:)

</comment><comment><USER86> ninite.com does bundle anything with another application.

</comment><comment><USER87> Just plain nightmare

</comment><comment><USER88> Who still installs those standalones?

</comment><comment><USER88> Nevermind.</comment>


Join us next week for NFTE Launch: help mentor aspiring entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://www.humbledmba.com/join-us-next-week-for-nfte-launch-help-mentor

<comment><USER2> NFTE is a fantastic organization, I've done a bunch of work with them over the years in their Boston office as part of their advisory committee and actually was in the NFTE program as a high school student over 10 years ago.

This is the first time I've seen NFTE Launch, I just reached out to the New England folks to see if we can do something similar here.</comment>