AIM Piles on the Bloat
Found on Broadband Reports on Friday, 09 April 2004
Apparently the controversy AOL generated when they added Wild Tangent to their AOL Instant Messenger client wasn't enough. Users in our Security Forum point out the company is now bundling Weather Bug as well. Both Weatherbug and Wild Tangent are now installed by default unless you specify otherwise. Wild Tangent got under the skin of many users because the uninstallation process is a twenty four step nightmare that requires a blow-torch, some fishing line, and a team of highly trained archaeologists. One would think that software makers would learn a lesson from Real's popularity plunge, and try to keep the bloat to a minimum.
It's kinda amazing that some companies don't want to learn from others. Like Einstein said: "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". I will just keep on using IRC and an old ICQ client. IRC has an open protocol and all the major clients are free of adware; ICQ can be made free of banners easily with a simple rule in your firewall. Besides, I don't really use ICQ for longer chats anymore.