How can I use iTunes? (I hate Apple products and own none of them)

[Chimera]

Have you ever gone through your Windows OS and all the programs you’ve installed and taken a look at all the shit that they install that you don’t want there? If not, then you are truly pit-worthy in paranoia and irrational hatred.

[Munch]

@Shalmanese

I believe it also installs Safari which has no business being in there.

Nope. It asks if you want to, but that checkmark isn’t checked by default.

[Rigamarole]

@Chimera

Have you ever gone through your Windows OS and all the programs you’ve installed and taken a look at all the shit that they install that you don’t want there? If not, then you are truly pit-worthy in paranoia and irrational hatred.

Of course. I regularly clean them up, but I’m pretty discerning about what I install in the first place so my machine is pretty clean already.

[Skywatcher]

Never mind.

[jasg]

@Chimera

Yes yes, absolutely horrible that they install other software programs that make the original program work properly. Of course, no other company on Earth does anything like this. :rolleyes:

ituneshelper.exe makes it recognize your iphone when you plug it in.
iPodhelper.exe makes it recognize your ipod.
Quicktime is a media player. Play a video in iTunes? It’s using Quicktime to do it.
Bonjour is a service delivery protocal, used to find shared music, among other things.

None of these have ever caused me a problem and they can be disabled with standard Windows tools.

The following is not for the faint of heart or novices to Windows Installer command line use, but Ed Bott has published a good tutorial about limiting what gets installed.

The unofficial guide to installing iTunes 10 without bloatware

[Reply]

@jasg

@Chimera

Yes yes, absolutely horrible that they install other software programs that make the original program work properly. Of course, no other company on Earth does anything like this. :rolleyes:

ituneshelper.exe makes it recognize your iphone when you plug it in.
iPodhelper.exe makes it recognize your ipod.
Quicktime is a media player. Play a video in iTunes? It’s using Quicktime to do it.
Bonjour is a service delivery protocal, used to find shared music, among other things.

None of these have ever caused me a problem and they can be disabled with standard Windows tools.

The following is not for the faint of heart or novices to Windows Installer command line use, but Ed Bott has published a good tutorial about limiting what gets installed.

The unofficial guide to installing iTunes 10 without bloatware | ZDNET

I think that’s pretty much the definition of bloatware. More or less harmless except that they take up resources and slow down the system. The problem compounds the more of it you have.

[elfkin477]

@jjimm

@Rigamarole

ETA: also when I install iTunes is it going to put some kind of nefarious shit on my computer (i.e. spyware, bloatware)? You can tell I don’t trust Apple much.

No. Why would it? I’m not an Apple fanboy, but do you have any reason to think they would? What reason do you have to distrust the company?

I don’t think it would have the billions of installations were it actually to do this. Unless you call setting a user account up “spyware”.

It’s definitely bloatware these days, and it does install some extra crap including Quicktime, something called “Bonjour”, “iTunesHelper.exe” and “iPodHelper.exe”, but all of these are deleted on uninstall. But that’s cock-up, not conspiracy.

Bonjour was installed without my knowledge with my kodak printer software, and rendered my computer almost unusable as it did many other people who complained about it on boards when I looked it up to see what the hell it was, so I think the OP’s concerns about apple software are valid. You also need to clean the registry to get rid of left over traces of it even after uninstalling it.

[mhendo]

@Chimera

Yes yes, absolutely horrible that they install other software programs that make the original program work properly.

Well, as BigT points out, the biggest problem with all this is not the programs, per se (although they are awfully slow and bloated on a Windows machine), but the fact that you have to install this stuff even if all you want to do is purchase a song. Hell, if you want to even see any songs or albums outside the current Top 100, you have to download the program. It’s ridiculous.