Can someone please tell me why software installers that alter the operating system in backhanded ways are still tolerated by so many people? In the past, it seemed like every application installer known to mankind made some sort of annoying modification to the settings for your operating system and its associated applications, and oftentimes this happened without your consent. Some installers were so vague about what they were doing that they tricked you into doing something hat you didn’t want to do.

You know what I’m talking about. How many times have you installed a program only to find that it ended up hijacking the start page on your Web browser, installing outside applications that cluttered up your desktop with icons, and gave you a bad case of the spyware shivers. Sneaky - real sneaky.

Granted, the situation isn’t nearly as bad as it was previously. Users finally began to put their foot down and demand that this behavior get cleaned up, and it’s amazing to see how much a lack of toleration does wonders for changing things. This was around the time when we realized that free doesn’t always really mean free when it comes to software. You may have only intended to download and install one program, but when you end up with five others and a couple of browser toolbars, then the idea of paying some cash doesn’t sound so bad.

Modern installers have changed their ways quite a bit, but a lot of the bloat is still out there, and they’re still doing some sneaky things, however, most of it isn’t all up in your face. Because of that, I can answer my own question that I posed at the outset by suggesting that people remain oblivious about what sometimes happens when they install software. Some interaction with the operating system may be required to setup certain aspects of the application, but anything beyond this cordial getting to know you stage of the application and operating system relationship can begin to get tricky.

What if the installer fails to fulfill the installation correctly? What if this failure opens the door to potential security risks that you know nothing about? As disturbing as that may sound, that describes exactly what’s been happening with installs of Adobe Version Cue CS3 Server on OS X.

As part of the setup process, the installer disables the firewall to configure the Version Cue Server, but at the end, it fails to re-enable the firewall. Can you say security breach? This may not be an intentional procedure, but it just shows that even a company the size of Adobe needs to work on ensuring that their installers interact with the operating system in a proper way. Most people aren’t even going to be aware that this is taking place, so they’re not going to know that they need to fix it. Ignorance definitely isn’t bliss in this situation.

If installers are going to perform a number of modifications to your operating system, then they should be completely open and honest about what they’re doing because I’m sure many users would be surprised to see what happens during certain software installations. All of this really makes you appreciate the installers that simply copy a number of files to a folder and call it a day.

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Tags: application install, open source