No, it's not impressive. It's deceptive and a dark pattern.

happyslobro · on May 17, 2016

Google is certainly not blameless here. If they had banned partners who's installers violated a reasonable set of terms, e.g. opt in instead of opt out, this would not be an issue. They would have gotten free installs until the bad installer was fixed and verified ;)

k__ · on May 17, 2016

Oh don't get me wrong, I don't think this is good.

I'm a developer and growth hacking is a mystery to me, I'm always impressed to see which "moves" are able to increase the user-base.

Aldo_MX · on May 17, 2016

Google's not at fault; Adobe, Oracle, and every other greedy software vendor are.

JohnTHaller · on May 17, 2016

Google is knowingly paying for it.

Aldo_MX · on May 17, 2016

So does Intel and many other "trusted" vendors, we all know about the power of default values.

As I said, people shouldn't be upset at Google, installing Chrome was a significant improvement, or would you rather see IE8 still as the dominant browser?

I blame Adobe, Oracle, etc. because they have the trust of the users and a piece of software considered essential by many people, yet they decide to use the shady practices that cheapskates use.

If it weren't Chrome it would be the dreaded Ask Toolbar or something even worse, so it's not the fault of Google, quite the contrary, installing Chrome as a byproduct is possibly the least negative outcome.

JohnTHaller · on May 18, 2016

Of course you should be blaming Google. They are a willing participant in deceptive bundleware. And it is specifically included in the download for Adobe Flash for Firefox/Opera Classic (aka, not IE's Flash which is different), so it is setup to steal users away from competitors. At least the last time I checked, and as demonstrated in my screenshot above.

Aldo_MX · on May 18, 2016

You talk as if you knew the terms of their deal and corroborated that Google asked to target every browser, in my experience these kind of deals are offered as "all-or-nothing", so having Firefox or Opera targeted were a side effect.

EDIT: I checked it right now, and it also targets IE, unlike what you suggest: http://i.imgur.com/XuwHs7G.png

MikeHolman · on May 19, 2016

IE (and Edge) has some custom build of Flash installed without needing separate download, which I believe is why the parent commenter excluded it.

blendo · on May 18, 2016

My ability to avoid these Google/Oracle/Microsoft mind-fucks diminishes each year. Is it good for society to have our cynicism cranked up so high?

That's a question for our best second tier psychologists and UX researchers (the first tier being too busy developing the aforesaid mind-fucks).

serge2k · on May 18, 2016

> installing Chrome was a significant improvement

Is it? Across the board they are entitled to make that decision for every user?

it is absolutely as bad as any of the crapware vendors who do this. Google is just as bad as the ask toolbar people.

Aldo_MX · on May 18, 2016

> Is it?

If you suggest the opposite, you don't do web development or live in the early 2000's.

> Across the board they are entitled to make that decision for every user?

Saying "every" is an exaggeration, since several users would opt-out. Installing a better (yes, better) browser to technically-impaired people who don't even know what a browser is looks like a good trade off to me.

> it is absolutely as bad as any of the crapware vendors who do this. Google is just as bad as the ask toolbar people.

Ask is a dying company doing questionable last ditch efforts. Google is a healthy company deliberately tweaking tech-impaired user's defaults, there is a difference whether you like it or not.