Google Bundles Toolbar With Adobe Apps

grammar fascist writes "Sci-Tech Today reports that Google is paying a 'significant amount' to bundle Google Toolbar with certain Adobe downloads. From the article: 'The initial venue for the Google mini-app will be downloads of the popular and free Shockwave multimedia player. The move is seen by some observers as an effort to outflank Microsoft, especially as Internet Explorer 7 nears its formal launch this summer [...] Interestingly, Google's search toolbar will be available only when Shockwave is downloaded for use with Internet Explorer on Windows.'"

Google crazyness..

Next step will be start advertising in pdf files !

Re:Google crazyness..

Are you sure it was google desktop responsible for all those ads or perhaps it was all the p0rn sites visited with IE.

Pretty sure. Turns out it is a feature called "Alerts", which there is no mention of in the normal Preferences, or the documentation for Google Desktop, but if you enable the Desktop Sidebar and look in the menu for that, there is an extra item "Customize Alerts...", where you can disable them. Since I never use the sidebar, I had no idea this feature existed, I guess it got turned on by the IE Google Toolbar since it lay dormant until I fired up IE for the first time.

As for the mods that modded you +1 Informative, rather than Funny, and my original post -1 Troll, you need to stop smoking the Google crack guys.

Re:Google crazyness..

Google Desktop seemed to be working fine as a search tool, until one day I started Internet Explorer. All of a sudden my firewall started warning me of outgoing connections from GoogleDesktopDisplay.exe, and ads started popping up from my taskbar. Even after closing IE, this continued, and after searching the preferences and terms of service for Google Desktop and finding nothing about this "feature", I have now banished this Google spyware from my system.

I use Google for searches and for unimportant email, but I know the company is not my friend, as they would like me to believe. But I won't use other Google software that has to much access to my computer without necessarily telling me everything it is doing. And I won't run IE except in very rare circumstance when Firefox or Opera can't load a page I really ned to get to. I suspect Google will sell-out a lot of security or usability for ad revenue.

[Redacted] Space for sale!

They could sell ads that take the place of redacted text. But then the original text still is there though, and what would you advertise on an NSA memo?

Re:[Redacted] Space for sale!

They could sell ads that take the place of redacted text. But then the original text still is there though, and what would you advertise on an NSA memo?

"Click here to find Top Secret items at bargain basement prices!"

I'm all for it

As long as it works on Linux, with Firefox and will give me flash 8.

web -1.0

The WWW was initially all about information: it is a way so people can publish data, people can get the data and they can follow the right hyperlinks that lead to other related data. It is a distributed, cooperative, data sharing thing.

Now we have a new kind of WWW applications. It's applications that use the web browser as their GUI platform and run in the web browser. Such applications are, advanced word processors, spreadsheets, e-mail readers and eventually the Browser In The Browser secret project google's been working on. These applications have NOTHING to do with the concept of the WEB.

It is "scripts" for the IE/Mozilla program, like java programs for the JVM, C# programs for .NET, perl and python scripts, etc. The difference is that everybody has one of those two browsers, so the user does not have to download anything and that there is no need to install the application since it is downloaded and executed by visiting the URL. Some programmers have convinced some stupid venture capitalists, that this is the next big thing, and the news about AJAX circulates to attract more venture capitalists to spend more money to buy AJAX. Not a bad idea.

But for the users, the IE/Mozilla platform is the most insecure way to run their applications. Their application is constantly connected to the internet. Both browsers have numerous vunerabilities and new ones are discovered every day. The application downloads and "runs" new data, very often without the user knowing about it (through hidden javascript links and the flash player). The user cannot trace, debug or even study the AJAX code that runs on their IE/Mozilla platform. Through asynchronous javascript and flash, binary proprietary code runs on their PC with full priviledges. And to all these add that javascript is a terrible programming language and that the GUI in the browser was designed for forms and was never good for things like an interactive text shell. \paragraph

The result is that you get poor applications, that are slow, very insecure, do things without the user's control and it's a Mozilla/IE lockin.
That is Web -1.0

Alternatives

If the alternative is bundling the MSN search bar, I'm completely in favor of this.

Re:Alternatives

Oh, so it's alright if Google does it, but not if Microsoft does it? It's a pain in the hole either way.

Google are inconveniencing everyone through this. Acrobat Reader is already a 20MB download for reasons I can't imagine. Why bloat Shockwave in the same way?

of course targets only IE

Interestingly, Google's search toolbar will be available only when Shockwave is downloaded for use with Internet Explorer on Windows.

Of course it targets only IE. If somebody is smart enough to not use IE, then surely he is smart enough to not use msn search or any other crap. He might even conciously choose to not use google, but others!

as an example my search toolbar includes:

http://www.google.com/search?s [google.com]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=s&meta=site3Dgro ups [google.com]
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=s [google.com]
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&c2c %20off=1&q=define:s&btnG=Search [google.com]
http://packages.debian.org/ [debian.org]
http://ask.com/ [ask.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search =s&go=Go [wikipedia.org]
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/search/index.cgi?q=s [wolfram.com]
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=s [m-w.com]
http://freshmeat.net/search?q=s [freshmeat.net]

Already happening, really

We install Shockwave and Adobe Reader on all of the computer at work. Right now, Shockwave wants to install Yahoo toolbar and Adobe wants to install Google toolbar and desktop. I guess Yahoo's about to be out of luck?

this hurts ADBE more than it helps Google

This reminds me of the Yahoo-Toolbar in Acrobat7, this brings nothing for Adobe - but a slight decline in reputation as a manufacturer of high-end software tools.

Obnoxious

I hate bundled software - I find it annoying, and everynow and then I forget to unclick the box when I am quickly installing something. I know a lot of freeware and toolbar companies do it, but I always thought (hoped?) Google was above that.

Re:Obnoxious

I began looking at the comments for this story just to see how many comments will say it's a good thing or how many have excuses why it's acceptable.

I was disappointed there were so many.

Google Toolbar is a good program for those who use IE (I think it's totally unnecessary for Mozilla) but Google or not, bundled software is just obnoxious. It's sad to see Google going down this road. If I want to install Google Toolbar, I will go to google's website and download and install it. If I go to the shockwave download site, then I only want shockwave.

Google's contributing to the problem a lot of people have, where they have too many programs installed on their systems they never wanted. Too many programs installed even, that they don't even know are there.

Re:Obnoxious

A/C, I've made Flash applications that make HTML pages look bloated. Blame retarded designers and clients for oversized Flash. If i made a site with a hundred big JPEG images on the homepage you wouldn't blame HTML or the JPEG format, so get off your ass and email the offending websites and tell them to get off their asses.

Also, what other brilliant solution do you have for delivering multimedia over the web? Javascript? Realplayer? Windows media player? Give me a fuckin' break.

Actually the closest thing to it is Quicktime, but then that requires embedded flash elements for interactivity.

*sits back and watches his karma funeral pyre*

Thanks, but no thanks

Although it's nice of them to helpfully include carefully selected sotware from premier partners (where the careful selection process is making sure it's the highest bidder), even if they promise to be really, really, good [adobe.com] and not create a bloated installer, perhaps they could get the message that if I'd wanted to install X, I would have. If I'm installing a player so you can make massive profits selling people the encoder, I shouldn't have to look at ads as well. The fact that they've had to create a FAQ telling people why they shouldn't be annoyed suggests they know this.

I'm holding my breath...

... until Google helps Mozilla further develop the SVG implementation for Firefox 3, and switches Google Maps over to SVG, as well. Imagine being able to show and hide selected layers -- roads, highways, burger joints, bicycle paths, etc. dynamically, while zooming smoothly? The satellite imagery could just be another layer onto which the others could be placed. GMap-powered bike rides, anyone?

Business necesity

With all the cheating going on (scrappers, link farms, google bombing, etc...), maybe they push the bar so much because Google needs some extra information apart from links to build their pagerank results, and they get it from statistics gathered from googlebar users.

Is it

Is it time for an Open Source Search Engine?

We already have a *pretty* good free OS in the form of Linux, we already have *pretty* good apps for it. Why settle for Google or MSN Search or Yahoo search or whatever? I should think that a massively distributed OS search engine should do pretty well.

Forgive the semantics, focus on the idea.

Use a bit torrent style method of sharing bandwidth. Say one lonely PC can store 100mb of data, 15mb of which can be shared on the internet per day to save end-user costs x the number of Linux installs, prolly not a bad use for distributed computing and bandwidth sharing if I have ever heard of one.

Open Source Search Engine.

The time is now. :)

Re:Is it

I think that the FOSS Search Engine would die a quick death. Here's why: Part of making a search engine is obfuscating the algorithm used to produce results. Sure, we all know that be putting in key words, etc. in the meta-tags helps the spiders find and catalogue a site. However, there are measures in place to help reduce the amount of search engine spamming that occurs. This algorithm isn't 100% effective, but it does a pretty good job. Now, if you have that algorithm out in the open, the incentive for not only spammers, but those you honestly want higher results are going to leverage that knowledge to artificially boost their page ranking. This kind of defeats the purpose of 'organic' search results. This means that the crap ends up coming up at the top, translating into a dissatisfied customer.

Adobe as a Buyout Target for Google

Adobe's Portable Document Format [wikipedia.org] has the potential to become the dominant player as a universal format meeting some of the requirements of an ODF. If Adobe keeps the entry price for generating pdfs low or nonexistant it could sell the sizzle, bells and whistles to make pdf a potential Windows Office killer.

Agencies of many governments already use pdf and academica widely uses pdfs. The push for an Open Document Format could help Adobe advance pdfs as an alternative amenable to all.

If Google is going to move from it's base as a search engine cum advertiser it could do well to look at Adobe as a buyout candidate. IIRC Adobe just recently nixed a deal with Microsoft to have Word docs be able to generate pdfs. Google may be partnering up with Adobe with the intention of investing heavily in the company while positioning itself against Microsoft.

Maybe MS will embrace F/OSS by underwritting and developing LaTeX [wikipedia.org]:)

I wouldn't worry about IE7

It stands to be completely unusable for ordinary users. It can't even save downloads to the desktop anymore.

Its a major annoyance

Its one more program you have to keep an eye out for when installing otherwise "free" software from adobe and etc. I put it in the adware/spyware category because if you dont actively pay attention to your next/next/next clicking during install you will get a shitty google toolbar slapped onto your browser which is really annoying...

I'd rather...

No company adds stupid toolbars I'll never use to my machine.

Asking for trouble

After all the trouble Microsoft got in for bundling IE and Media Player with Windows, I would expect the people at Google (or Yahoo) to be a little smarter. Just how many million dollars do they actually want to get fined? I don't know about the USA, but the EU competition authorities do regard product bundling as an anti-competitive practice and illegal.

And frankly, Microsoft had at least a decent case that integrating a web browser and a media player in an OS makes sense, but bundling a search engine with a media player or a document viewer does not make any sense at all. Next they bundle them with the cornflakes.

hmm?? firefox

firefox bundles google search and defaults to google (..and makes millions) and no one on ./ says anything

Adobe Acrobat: The Intervention

Scene: Adobe Acrobat comes home after a hard day of making side-deals with other companies and binging on smaller applications. Once, Acrobat would have leapt up the stairs to reach his 2nd-floor apartment. Once upon a time this valued member of the community helped countless others read and share documents. But now, after years of bloat, Acrobat reaches his second floor apartment sweating and turning purple in the face. He wipes the sweat from his eyes and unlocks the door to his apartment to find all his friends there...

Acrobat: Wha... what are all you guyes doing here?

Photoshop: Acrobat, first we'd like to say the-- WE LOVE YOU... Everybody in this room loves you... And we're worried... about YOU.

Acrobat: What's going on?

Photshop: Acrobat, you have to stop this.

Acrobat: Stop what? What do you mean "stop"? Stop what?

Photoshop: Here, read this...

Acrobat: Humm... RrrRRrrrrRrr... Humm... Would you mind if I just call the office and make sure there's no updates before I read you this document? No? Ok, but there' could be a security issue.... Hummm... RrRrrRRrr... Hummm...

Foxit: Give me that! [Snatches document from Acrobat's hands] You know what this says, Adobe? It says you've put on weight... AGAIN. No one can remember the last time you were under 10Mb! And at this rate, you'll be pushing 30Mb by the end of the year!

Acrobat: Hey! Today's document rendering world is COMPLEX, I've just be putting on a little extra CODE to get the job done!

Foxit: Oh that is such bullshit Acrobat! I do nearly everything you do, and I'm still under 3Mb!

Photoshop: Acrobat, it's time you admitted you have a problem. For starters, you're going to have to stop haning around with those Google and Yahoo kids, they're TROUBLE.

Foxit: ...and here's some reading material on how to curb your bloat [drops large pile of documents in Acrobat's lap]

Photoshop: Foxit, oh god no! Acrobat hasn't been able to manage documents of that size for years, he's so out-of-shape! What have you done? Call 9-1-1!

End scene

600 x 768 web pages..

with all the damn tool bars trying to install themselves we're going to have to change our pages to be best viewed at 600 pixels in height.

google, msn, yahoo, viewport?, and others. Whats left for the webpage itself?

Google's Target Audience

Google doesn't need to bundle the Google Toolbar for other browsers as well, because users of alternative browsers already know that Google is better than Yahoo or MSN, so they use Google. The computer illiterate, who use Internet Explorer because they don't even know that other browsers exist, are the target audience.

Google should pay me a "significant amount"

... because know those $billions that Google makes? I think it's a zero-sum game because they load equivalent costs onto users and companies like mine -

• User: "Your Website stopped working. It's a disaster".
• Me: "Do you have Google toolbar installed?".
• User: "No, I've not installed anything".
• Me: "Because if you've installed Google toolbar, you need to click to allow popups".
• User: "I just told you, I've not got Google toolbar. It's a bug in your program".
• I waste hours trying to sort out the bug, without success.
• User: "Hey, I fixed my problem, it was Google toolbar all along."

When will they ever understand that....

....we DO NOT WANT bundled shit with the applications we intend to download. This is like someone giving you a side order of sh1t sandwich with your order at dinner. Complete asshattery that drives me nuts. I don't care how 'useful' it may be...let me decide if I want to install another app.

Competition

Microsoft looks like it could be getting into bed with Yahoo [slashdot.org] (to compete with Google apparently) whilst adding technology that mimics PDF functionality (XPS the XML Paper Standard [microsoft.com] (that competes with Adobe)) into the core of its next OS. Now Adobe gets into bed with the company that is giving Microsoft a headache over search and online applications. This could be a very clear case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend....

Hmmmm, This is either simply Google bidding the most for their tool bar to be bundled with some very widely used software, or the battle lines within the IT sector are getting a little more defined.

Personally I would prefer to be able to download and install an application that does whatever the job is I want doing; without installing any other "useful" application's - regardless of which "well selected" partner it comes from. However from a non technical perspective this may well become interesting.

Now to me it is starting to look as though Microsoft are feeling less in control of their ability to "lock" users to their software. This appears to be the reason for the plethora of new proprietary file formats that they can force into the main stream with Vista. It will be interesting to see if there is any fight against the formats or if the rest of the software industry will carry out its own embrace and extend exercise... After all this time round they are not providing "new" functionality but rather revamping existing standards and encroaching on other companies areas of expertise.

Google should add a decent dedicated document search feature that is purely an index of ODF, PDF, Rich/Plain Text etc.. and exclude XPS until it sees mainstream use at least, and offer links to - the original document - html version - adobe acrobat / open office. Im not certain if Adobe will or even should, but I would also like to see adobe and open office support the XPS standard for reading, if not necessarily for export.

What happened to..

.."Do No Evil"?

Bundling Google Toolbar with other products is evil in my book. I don't want Google's toolbar. I don't want Yahoo's toolbar. I don't want their crap on my machine.

Will this come bundled with Flash?

It only says it will come bundles with Shockwave, not flash. Yet as I look at their site now, the Flash download page includes an option for the Yahoo toolbar, while the Shockwave download does not. I'm not sure if it asks you to download it later along, though. Please, news writers, do some reasearch about what you're talking about. The Flash and Shockwave players are two different things. The later, last time I checked, not available on Linux, and likely never will be.

Anti-Microsoft bias?

Isn't that summary just a bit of anti-Microsoft bias? I see this as a move to outflank Yahoo, who bundles their toolbar with a wide variety of apps, not Microsoft, who only bundles with their own products. I'm sure the #1 search engine sees the #2 search engine as more of a threat than #3.

Claim dial-up

If you dont want the crapware in Adobe reader and shock wave, there is usually a "dial;up users" button on the download page, click that, and Reader is suddenly ~5MB...

Other software already doing this

I ran into a video the other day that was some obscure divx format, so I decided to install the "official" divx software. I didn't read the installer super-closely, but on the 'select components' step, I unchecked everything I didn't want.

But wait! Lo and behold, Google Toolbar for Firefox was installed. And Google Desktop Search. Yeah, just start indexing my entire drive without asking, thanks! I should've known something was up with a download size of 14 megs.

And yes, I know about ffdshow and all those super-mega-happy "codec packs". I can never get them set up to just play the damn videos.

Downside(s) to Google Toolbar?

What (else) does Google Toolbar actually do? What might it do?

I'm serious. I've been an avid user of Google since early 1999 or so, and Gmail since a few months after it came out. Like many technologists, I am somewhat of a Google evangelist.

What worries me is that Google records one's clickstream as one searchs and I can only presume that Google Toolbar could easily be modified to "phone home" about anything of interest to Google (or the NSA), particularly about what it finds on your local hard drives if you use Google Desktop.

From the Google Toolbar Features Page:
[....]
Auto Update

There's no need to check for new versions of Google Toolbar; updates are installed automatically, so you'll always have the latest and greatest version.

Your Privacy Google respects and protects our users' privacy. Periodically, the Google Toolbar's auto-update feature will contact our servers to see if you're running the most current version. In addition, Google may collect information about web pages that you view when you use advanced features such as PageRank, SpellCheck, AutoLink, and WordTranslator. However, these advanced features can be easily disabled or re-enabled at any time by selecting "Privacy Information" under "Help" in the Toolbar's "Google" menu. To learn more, please read the Toolbar privacy policy

From the Google Toolbar Privacy Statement:
Your copy of Google Toolbar includes a unique application number. When you install Google Toolbar, this number and a message indicating whether the installation succeeded are sent back to Google. Also, when Google Toolbar automatically checks to see if a new version is available, the current version number and the unique application number are sent to Google. The unique application number is required for Google Toolbar to work and cannot be disabled.

(emphasis added)

How likely is it that some "new version" that users casually allow to be installed might become increasingly snoopy?

Given that I already trust Google to handle my email, I might just be being paranoid. If that is the case, then my thought is, "It's a tough, thankless job, but somebody's gotta do it!"

I worry that the vast majority of people will cheerfully ignore invasions of their privacy and monitoring of their activities if you offer them something helpful, convenient, and very shiny.

Is there anything that doesn't try to install it?

I already knew about the flash thing, because the other day I had to get the latest version to view some web art. I can't recall exactly what else tried to install Google toolbar, but I know I've seen others. I always say "NO" to Google's spyware. Yeah, yeah. Google is a bunch of intellectuals with high ideals and a philosophy. So was communism.

The only thing that pisses me off more is Quacktime installing iTunes. I've got Yahoo Music Unlimited, I was quite concerned that it would step on my player (fortunately it didn't). All I wanted to do was watch some video, and I had to download the whole stinkin' iTunes player I'm never going to use. Bite me! It was roughly 50 megs. Good thing I'm getting 4-6 Mbps with cable.

So. This isn't just a Google problem. It's an industry-wide problem. I'm not sure who to blame. Perhaps these people are putting download stats in quarterly reports, and I've just added one more iTunes download to that report. Well, Apple shareholders, not only is that report bogus, I am also that much more annoyed at Apple and that much less inclined ever to buy their over-priced overly-proprietary sweatshop labor crap. Put that in your quarterly report!

Google ignores one market

Tried to download the Google Toolbar for FireFox yesterday and was presented with a message that they don't support Windows 9X. Funny thing is that the GTB for IE runs just fine on 9X. Leads me to wonder just how much Google really is trying to move into all available markets.

old news

I've been stoping updates to Acrobat Reader from installing Google's search bar for for months now.

Adobe assault

I broke down and put the acroread application on my computer because the xpdf and stuff never seem to work right and it was great and all.. Well... I was over at a friends, an XP guy that didn't have the viewer on his XP box kind of in the fasion that I refuse to run the flash plugin. I was showing his kid (12 yrs old) a pdf, but I needed to install their reader and I says, "OK, check this out..." while it's installing. The goddamned thing installs and then starts hijacking the media/image viewing defaults on his maching and to impress me or something the installer opens these windows with all of his porn - thumbnail style. I don't even have a virtual desktop or console to flee to, & hafta frantically make her get the hell out while trying to close all this stuff with installer status indicators and porn everywhere. What in the....? That was totally lame.

Huh...

I originally read that headline as "Google Blunders Toolbar With Adobe Apps". I'll just have wait and see if my mistake turns out prophetic or pathetic.

Re:Toolbar?

It an extension for IE that adds stuff like a search field, a pagerank display and a popup blocker. Probably only necessary because the current versions of IE suck.

Re:Did I miss something?

Anyone have a better source then this article?

I see you didn't install a google bar.

Re:Correct me if i'm wrong...

And here's the relevant Google blog post: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/adobe-and-g oogle-team-up-for-toolbar.html [blogspot.com] Related, from ITWire: http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/4721/53/ [itwire.com.au] (troll my hole.)

Re:Only with IE? Good!

You can go here: http://www.dslreports.com/ [dslreports.com] and do a quick search for setting up ATT/Yahoo without using the installation CD and all the crap it installs. This works on all platforms and with whatever software you use now.