Project64: Adware in the installer

Created on 18 May 2015 · 15Comments · Source: project64/project64

friends of mine who seem like intelligent people are still getting adware on their computer even after saying no to all the prompts

remove this shit, fucking hell

Source

dsx-

Most helpful comment

it is also removed completely from the site as well, not just the source

project64 on 14 Jul 2016

👍6

All 15 comments

I install the emulator dozens of times a week, and have never gotten any adware installed. The problem, however, is that the prompts are extremely confusing -- likely deliberately so. (And for the record, that part of the installer is controlled by a third party.)

AmbientMalice on 18 May 2015

yeah its misleading bullshit to make money or whatever

dsx- on 18 May 2015

I made this few time ago: https://github.com/project64/project64/pull/354

MELERIX on 19 May 2015

Nobody in a position to be able to do anything about it has inclination of removing the installer's random-ad sourcing.

I recommend compiling from source, as compiling source code concerns nothing with programmer knowledge prerequisites and in an ideal world is no harder than learning how to use Microsoft Word to open and save changes to a text document / Word document. If compiling Project64 is such a tech-savvy and elite experience then so is all the other hundreds of random gigabytes of Microshit that ships with your operating system. Like any other program you install and run for the first time, it initially requires observation on how things are applied.

Past that, there's a command-line param to call the exe in a batch file to void the installer out, or you can keep clicking No/Cancel and exit the installer, restart it until it comes up with an ad where canceling and restarting the next time skips the ad. (Mysteriously that's what happened to me.)

cxd4 on 19 May 2015

yeah i'm gonna whine at zilmar about it

yeah they can compile from source, but the fact is that users are being provided with an installer, and having it full of SHIT is still a dick move

either provide a clean installer or provide no installer at all, this is my view

dsx- on 19 May 2015

I would say, provide no installer at all. The best software is always simplest--it's not a matter of "free" in terms of money, but "free" in terms of purity and socially free engineering.

All the installer really does is rearrange a bunch of DLLs/EXEs for you--it causes people to think this is necessary for Project64 to work right when really the only component you need is Project64.exe--the installer just bundles other options like personal preference of plugins.

Of course there also are people who wouldn't agree to that--they would say every proper piece of Windows application programming should have some form of installer (at least a zip) and that using the latest optimizing compilers to build the software from the beautiful C principles used to describe it is a thing of restriction and forcing users to be programmers. So, those are the people who would be proud to use arbitrary installer applications or even risk having to dodge malware and would rather go through that than my "no installer at all" philosophy or build from source.

cxd4 on 19 May 2015

Sorry for the spam, but I believe I found an alternative to the installer and building from source (after having downloaded, installed and lost 5GB of storage to Visual Studio):

https://github.com/project64/project64/pull/354#issuecomment-146863715