Annoying Mistakes Even AOL and Microsoft Make

When my AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) prompted me to upgrade to the newest version, I was a little hesitant. The last time I upgraded, it hijacked my home page and installed a browser tool I didn't want. However, this blog is giving me such delusions that I almost see it as my responsibility to try these things out and then report to you the results, in hopes of sparing at least some of you from the same problems. So here's what I found:

To my surprise, during the install, AIM asked me whether I wanted to install the toolbar and make AIM Today my homepage. Furthermore, the options were NOT selected by default.

"Wow," I thought. "Maybe AOL has been listening to us little people." So I planned on praising AOL in a future blog post.

However, the next time I rebooted my computer, without being prompted, Firefox opened up -- you guessed it -- the AIM homepage. What's more, through some technical hiccup that I haven't had the time to figure out how to overcome, it actually loaded an old version of Firefox, which reminds me to upgrade unavailable extensions every time it loads. My boot-up sequence is already pretty slow with all the virus checks and updates it has to go through, so this little annoyance just delayed my journey to productivity that much more.

Not sure how this happened (since I left the checkbox unselected), I looked at my AIM preferences and found the culprit.

Yep. So, to AOL, "no" means "yes." And I know that "technically" one question isn't the same as the other, but in practice, when a window is opened, unless prompted by an email link, it should go directly to the user-designated homepage. I didn't ask for this, I wasn't asked for permission. They just took it upon themselves to interrupt whatever it is that I was doing.

Similarly, my Windows Media Player asked me if I wanted to upgrade. I love the automatic notices, by the way. There's no way I'd be able to keep up-to-date without them. But every time I upgrade, it asks me if I want to associate all manner of file types with its program.

Most of them I recognized, and I was able to tell which program is associated with the files I normally used, but I must admit that I didn't know all of them, and I had no idea how they were being handled by the time this program asked me. And since I didn't know, I had no clue how to answer the question.

First of all, AOL, quit putting junk in front of us that we have no interest in reading. And next time, Microsoft, remember that we want to be in control. So if you want to "recommend" that we use your program with all of these files, have the decency to tell us what program is currently handling each type. We'll get around to using your program for some things, but the more you try to force us, the more we want to resist it. - Cam Beck