Automatic updates
Posted on December 12, 2008 at 23:32:58 by chris
A lot of software these days seems to include a means to automatically update itself. This is good for fixing security issues (hopefully) before they become a big problem. However, there are some things I find annoying:
- First, on Windows, this means you end up with dozens of separate programs running just to check for updates, and occasionally popping up windows asking if you want to get them. Windows is slow enough without yet more things running. (On most Linux distributions, it's all done through the package manager so typically only one thing has to check for updates)
- And worse is when you're asked to read through and accept a long list of terms and conditions. Surely either:
- The terms and conditions haven't changed since when you installed the software originally, so it's just a waste of time having to read through them again
- They have changed, and you're then asked to agree to new conditions just for a bug fix (which is important to have, if it's a security issue). "Sign here or maybe your front door won't be as secure as you once thought it was."
Either way, I'm not very impressed!
Comments
1 Abigail (not logged in) says...
Posted 4:32 p.m. on January 8, 2009
Yep. Also, it's not very reassuring to find that you have twenty processes with mysterious names running at all times, and occasionally going into overdrive and taking up half your CPU for no apparent reason; and every now and again your firewall asks you if it's OK for "Automatic Updater" or "Scheduled Monthly Update" to have access to the internet. Which application is trying to update? Who knows...