Lately every day I give five or six ‘helpful’ notices that updates to programs are available. Flash, java, Windows Office, my pdf reader, some others.
The thing is, I DON’T CARE. All of those programs do what I need them to do as is. I only do basic, minimal tasks with them. I don’t care if you’ve made some marginal improvement to how it lays out text in Cyrillic in tables whatever other feature I never use anyway – it will never improve my life enough to make up for the time I’ll have to spend dling and installing.
If the programs stop working, or if I start not being be able to do something I start actually wanting to do, THEN I will search for updates.
Until then, I just want them to STFU instead of plastering popup windows on top of what I am working on.
Unfortunately, all the windows I’ve checked out offer me only two choices: install the update or ‘remind me later.’ (Windows updater itself is a happy exception – they let you ‘ignore’ updates that you don’t want/need.)
Heck, I’d settle for remind me later if I could at least choose to let a month pass between notices.
But, nope, it’s every damn day and sometimes every single time I actually connect to the internet.
Please, is there a way to stop this? Short of uninstalling the damn programs, because I actually use Office a handful of times a year…
Some software has this listed in the options somewhere, so you need to check out where.
Are you using windows? Search for and run the program msconfig.exe
There will be a section called Start which lists the programs which run at startup. For example I think Java has a program there which checks for updates. Shut those which are update programs off.
Most programs will have an option to disable checking for updates. You will need to search for the method to do so. For example, you can find the instructions for Windows Update for Windows 7 here.
The reason that updates are generally automatic by default is that often they are often created to fix security problems and experience has taught companies that users generally don’t go looking for updates and won’t install them unless they are prompted to do so.
I don’t wish to threadshit, and I don’t have the solution you want, but do you realise that many software updates are to address security vulnerabilities - if you avoid them, your computer could be compromised and become unusable - or all your data could be lost.
Not updating Java? Pretty short-sighted, if you ask me.
Cisco company released a report in 2014 about all the attacks against them and 91% of attacks were trying to exploit Java vulnerabilities.
Java isn’t just some random application that only starts up when you run it. Not updating Java is pretty much just asking for trouble.
FWIW, in another security study, Cisco sampled 30 large multinational companies and found that 100 percent of them at some point accessed web pages hosting malware. The bad guys are out there… in force.
You’ve managed to hit on some of the top vectors for malware infection. It’s critical that you keep these applications up-to-date. Otherwise you can easily be infected by malware simply through browsing the web. In the past I’ve had malicious ads on the SDMB itself attempt to install malware on my computer, so this isn’t a theoretical threat. Keep your software up-to-date!
ETA: Cross-posted. Flash is very important. The PDF reader is also very important if your browser is set up to automatically open PDF documents in it. Office(and the PDF reader) can be a problem if you end up downloading and opening documents from the web from untrusted sources.
I haven’t found allowing the updates to be all that disruptive, if telling you that helps at all. It seems that way to you right now because you’re egregiously past due and all the programs that needs updates are nagging you about it. I’ve found Windows to really need it about once a month - so instead of sleeping, I’ll do a shut-down that does updates and finishes them on the next start-up. Then whenever Firefox does updates, that’s when Java, Flash and Adobe want updates shortly after. Those each take a few seconds and don’t require a restart or anything. My virus/security stuff all updates and scans in the background. All told, it probably takes five minutes of my time a month. Worth it not to get infected!
Pro-tip: Refresh the page or Go Advanced before posting, so you don’t post something stupid after the OP clarifies something significant and makes you look like an ass.
You might be able to uninstall Java. A lot of people don’t actually use Java for anything, it just wound up on their computer somehow years ago. Some banks use Java, and some wireless modems use Java, but it is less common that it used to be, particular for home/personal computers… Out of the computers that I support, only about 5% have Java installed now.
Oooooh. That’s a great idea! I mean, I can always put it back if it turns out I do need it.
Maybe I’ll do that with flash, too.
I use this computer 80% for writing and 20% for wasting time on message boards. I bet I really don’t need either – Scrivener and a browser, that’s about the extent of my ‘needs.’
Yesterday I got Office out of the Start up list. I see light at the end of the tunnel!
With modern software, the best guidance is “update it or uninstall it”, as you’re coming around to.
Operating web-facing software with known deficiencies is like driving a fuel tanker around with known recalls for fuel tank integrity and spontaneous engine fires. You’re not just at hazard for yourself, but you can have consequences for other computers.
Being on dialup mitigates that some; it’s like a fuel tanker that spends most of the time in the garage, not on the roads around other vehicles. But smart malware can dial up and connect, and you may not notice.
It’s always interesting to read the “update software” treads, I am having NO updates ever for anything, AND surprise my system works everyday without a problem. being a bit more flexible in the way to use your computer at home is the way to go, I don’t use and I don’t want any of the so called BIG companies “crapware”, Adobe, Java, MS, etc. since many years I am using Linux OS and the distribution of “Linux Mint” is my prefered choice, http://www.linuxmint.com/ it comes with everything preloaded, no need for pdf, office, zip, sound, video or many other programs from the BIG guys, it’s all there and ready to use. Linux allows you to switch off “updates” for the whole distribution so you dont need to do it individualy (but you can do that too). It’s not for everybody but it is NOW a very good alternative to MS crapware…
Yes, this is a solution.
Today it seems every program wants to start a background process to check for new updates. Even programs that only get updated every 3 months or so. All those background process can really slow down your machine.
What I do is shut them all off, then install a program like FileHippo App Manager (or similar). This program examine your computer to see what programs you have installed, then compares that version to the current one from the creators’ website. If you have an outdated version, it notifies you and gives you a link to download & install the latest version.
I run that once a week or so, look at what updated versions it has found, and install the ones I want. That seems to work fine, without all the nagging messages or background overhead. And you can start the downloads when you want, like before you go to bed, and just let them run overnight.
