Startup Monitor.
Real Player is evil, it seems. I actually like and use Real Player
every day – both on my Windows box and on Linux. I love the new
TiVo-like capabilities of the newest player, and the fact that it's
supported by a bunch of different websites so I pretty much don't ever
have to use Windows Media (except to watch streaming media of the
DNC… Grrrrr…).
So if I like Real Player, why in the world am I calling it evil? Well, the masses have spoken
on my previous post. I must be highly ranked in Google for some search
about installing the player as I get a comment ever few days from some
super-frustrated Real user who's been completely screwed over one way
or another by installing this app. 28 comments and counting…
From what I can see, it mostly has to do with TinkerBell or
whatever that crap Real installs which automagically starts up when you
start Windows. I don't have that problem because I've got a program I
installed months ago called Startup Monitor
which protects me every time I install a new app on Windows. It's
written by a guy named Mike Lin, who also has another small program for
seeing which apps have already filled your machine with startup-crap so
you can clean them out. Both insanely useful. (In writing this it seems
I've never donated to his PayPal… I'll be doing that shortly.)
This is just another area where Microsoft's monopoly has made
them complacent. This has been a problem for years and affects every
Windows user, but Microsoft continues to pump out versions of the OS
which do nothing to alleviate the problem. Like pop-ups in IE, this has
to be a really simple fix, no? Why don't programs have to ask
permissions before they're allowed to install crap in your startup
registry? And why can't I find a list of these apps anywhere without
installing some third party solution or digging around in regedit? If
there was competition in the market, Microsoft would realize how much
frustration this causes users and do something about it, but they don't
care. Their solution to the system-tray overflow problem in XP? Hide
the apps. Niiiice, that really helped. Not only does my Mom's machine
barely run because of all the memory-resident programs, but she can't
actually see all the crap that's slowing down her machine either
because they're behind a small arrow button. Perfect. What frigin'
bozos.
And to shift the blame away from M$ for a bit, why does every
frigin' software company think they need to install crap that starts up
automatically and don't ask your permission? Install anything that's
USB-enabled lately (printer, scanner, dongle, etc.) and with it comes
some mini app that sucks up resources for no reason. Quicktime? Same
thing. IM clients? Same thing. What the hell are wrong with these
companies that they publish such user-hostile software? Amazing. [Russell Beattie Notebook]