Last night, I had the dubious honor of helping my mother with her AOL account. The advertisements on her email screen made it look like some garish mixture between a third world candy store and a bordello.
Why in the hell should she have to look at these ads? She pays for AOL.
Anyway, StopBadware doesn’t like AOL 9.0 much. According to an article today in Infoworld, a report is to come out today that:
…blasts the free version of AOL 9.0 because it “interferes with computer use,” and because of the way it meddles with components such as the Internet Explorer browser and the Windows taskbar. The suite is also criticized for engaging in “deceptive installation” and faulted because some components fail to uninstall.
The main problem is that AOL simply doesn’t properly inform users of what its software will do to their PCs, said John Palfrey, StopBadware.org’s co-director. “We don’t think that the disclosure is adequate and there are certain mistakes in the way the software is architected in terms of leaving some programs behind,” he said. “When there are large programs, some of which stay around after you’ve thought you’ve uninstalled them, they need to be disclosed to the user.”
Because AOL has taken steps to address StopBadware.org’s concerns, the group has held off on officially rating AOL 9.0 as badware, Palfrey said.
Link here.
Alex Eckelberry
(With copious thanks to Catherine)