Skype: Nearly half of adults don't install software updates

used to look forward to updates, but...

...nowadays, I positively dread them.

I've been using a Mac for a little over 25 years, and I used to be fairly excited over OS and application updates; my first thought was "cool, let's see what the new features are!" and I could pretty much count on some features I was wishing for to be implemented, and nagging bugs stomped.

All that started to change around the time OS9 rolled out, and updates started doing things like wiping application and OS preferences; also, this was about the time I'd started using the 'Net heavily as part of my work, and OS updates would often wreak havoc on things like TCP/IP and browser settings.

Nowadays, when OS or application updates are announced, my first thought is "oh, Christ, what are they going to break this time?" Starting with OSX "Panther", the first thing I did was to turn off auto-update features in my apps and OS, and manually update my rule sets in LittleSnitch (god bless it) to forbid any Internet connections by Adobe Creative Suite applications and iTunes, and turning off auto-update in Firefox. These days, I update only after poring over The Reg to determine what's being b0rked by OS or applications updates and when, and deciding whether or not to go for it based on that.

One upside to using a Mac -- among others -- is that I haven't yet had to deal with the fake system update pop-ups; still, there's the issue of behind-the-back auto-updates breaking my OS and applicatiions, though I haven't had too many problems with that as I can get the heads-up by reading The Reg regularly .

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What especially bugs me about this article is how all the software vendors seem to be collectively scratching their heads and asking "why don't people update when they're prompted?" as if they really, seriously don't know, even though the answers are pretty obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. I'd long thought updates were often a needless pain in the ass, but I'd never heard them described as "an act of aggression against their users"; still, when I consider what's gone on the past eight or ten years with the behavior of auto-updates, it seems a perfectly reasonable way to describe it. It may not seem that way to software vendors or developers, but from the users' end it really does often look as if they're deliberately trying to fuck our shit up.

It's mainly Skype..

It's been getting worse and worse in the UI department, so if you're in a voice call you stare at blackness no matter what.

I've been using Trillian instead for Skype voice calls. Wish it could do Video as well, then I'd never need to even look at the actual Skype client...