Auto-launching of applications

[Alan Pope]

2009/2/23 Mackenzie Morgan <macoafi at gmail.com>:
> Having a window pop up won't make them install the updates.  It'll just 1)
> make them annoyed that the darn thing keeps asking them things they don't care
> about 2) scare my mom into thinking that maybe she got a rare Linux virus
> because the computer's doing even more things on its own than it usually does.
>
> We can't really discount the type of user that sees something happen on its
> own, thinks "VIRUS!" and hits the power button (or pulls the plug) without
> even a proper shutdown...which is the type I'm used to living with.
>

The logical extension to which is that in the future we can look
forward to web based apps that look a sufficiently like Ubuntu popups,
inviting users to install firefox extensions which hijack their proxy
settings for example.

If people get used to popups being "normal" we'll end up in a similar
state to that which Windows is in. People randomly click stuff to make
it go away. Recent studies have shown that they don't even bother to
read it, and even if they do, they can't discern a "real" popup from a
fake one.

I'd rather not have to start explaining to people "No, no, that's a
_bad_ popup", "no, that's a good one, you can click that".

Cheers,
Al.