Mac users have had it pretty good when compared to Windows users, at least on the adware and nuisanceware front. Even Oracle, who has bundled the Ask.com search toolbar with Java for Windows for years, has abstained from infecting its Mac users with adware.
Sadly, though, that era now seems to be an end, with Oracle opting to bundle its most recent versions of Java for Mac with the Ask.com search toolbar.
ZDNet reports:
The unwelcome Ask extension shows up as part of the installer if a Mac user downloads Java 8 Update 40 for the Mac. In my tests on a Mac running that latest release of OS X, the installer added an app to the current browser, Chrome version 41. (In a separate test, I installed Java using the latest version of Safari, where it behaved in a similar fashion.)
Although you can opt not to install the Ask.com toolbar, the installation process is now pointedly designed so that a user who is clicking through will accidentally opt to install the extension on their default browser.
As a search engine, of course, Ask.com sucks. Compared to Google, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, or even Bing, it offers pretty terrible, low-accuracy search results. That’s why they are willing to pay Oracle to trick users of Java to make it their default search engine.
Java, of course, is a necessary installation for any Mac. That said, if you read each step of the install process carefully, you can avoid installing Ask.com on your system to begin with. If you do accidentally install the toolbar, it’s easy to remove: on Chrome, just remove Ask.com from Manage Search engines, and uninstall the extension On Safari, go to Extensions under preferences and just switch the damn thing off.
Source: ZDNet
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
6 responses to “Oracle Java is now installing adware on Macs. Here’s how to avoid it”
Thanks for the info as ever, guys (& girls)!
In
the Java Control Panel found in System Preferences, Advance tab, at the
very bottom under Miscellaneous, you can check off “Suppress sponsor
offers when installing or updating Java” to prevent future prompts.
O RLY? ”Java, of course, is a necessary installation for any Mac…”
“Java, of course, is a necessary installation for any Mac”. That’s if you wish to live in the 1990’s. Like flash, Java is old tech and developers need to just stop using it. This desire to hold on to the past is dumbfounding.
Java is, most assuredly, NOT a “necessary installation for any Mac.” Not even close.
Java was the king of the hill when it came to cross platform applications. Now there’s a brilliant alternative in the form of Mono and C#. I’m proudly Java-free.