Dishonest marketing by Google
By Koalemos
@Asylum (47893)
Manchester, England
September 29, 2015 3:02am CST
It is a common and understandable practice for companies to promote their products in order to reach a maximum customer database, but there are some very devious practices involved at times.
For several years now Google has been the biggest culprit when it comes to using deceit to promote their wares. The company has a habit of attempting to force Chrome and the Google toolbar onto unsuspecting people covertly. This is usually done by packaging the utilities along with software from other companies, for which it is logical to assume those companies are financially rewarded.
Anyone who uses Avast antivirus will probably be aware that Chrome is packaged with it. During installation a page appears suggesting that you install Chrome and Google toolbar, with the option ticked by default. If someone fails to notice this then they will end up with these items whether they want them or not. I even encountered this practice recently while installing software for a new printer, which was supplied by HP.
When I originally purchased my Sony laptop, I discovered that the Microsoft desktop apps would not run and it took me a long while to discover why. Google desktop apps were installed and the Windows components had been disabled. Apart from uninstalling the Google apps, I had to edit the registry to enable the Microsoft versions.
Despite the popularity of these utilities, it is the choice of the user and should not be distributed in this way. Every time that I encounter this it annoys me.
3 people like this
2 responses
@LadyDuck (502148)
• Italy
29 Sep 15
I completely agree, I think that companies would not be allowed to tick by default the options they want to propose to the users. I double check everything before to install, I remember a day I ended with a stupid toolbar (I think to remember "What's Toolbar"), I spent two days searching the registry to remove everything.
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
29 Sep 15
There are still many people who never learn and end up reinstalling the same utilities time and time again. As you say, some of these items can be a real pain to remove, but the easiest approach is to turn the system back to the previous day.
1 person likes this
@cahaya1983 (11116)
• Malaysia
30 Sep 15
Apparently this issue is also true for cellphone users although the mechanism is a bit different. Wireless carriers would load the phone with unnecessary software that basically are impossible to be removed. It's annoying, really.
