And the series continues…
This time it’s Chrome. Chrome is an excellent browser, but some dialogs are weird… And some are not taking no for an answer.
The dialog below asks us whether we want to recover tabs that were opened before the browser crashed. Curiously there is only one button for us to answer…
I’m stretching the meaning of ‘doesn’t take no for an answer’ a bit here in order to make this post fit into the broader series of posts I’ve been making on this subject recently, but apart from the fact that this time the dialog does offer me the choice of ‘Never’, the dialog *forces* me to make this choice on it’s terms instead of mine.
And the series continues. This time it’s T-Mobile.
The dutch consumer authority is investigating the telecoms provider for pushing the company’s ad platform onto the phones of its users, without giving them the option to decline, or even any warning beforehand. The investigation was requested (dutch) by the dutch consumer watchdog, de consumentenbond.
This is definitely turning into a series. I just reported recently on Microsoft’s aggressive tactics in pushing their users to upgrade to Windows 10 and today the Redmond-based firm has turned its aggressive campaign up a notch yet again.
Juli is the last month of free upgrades to Windows 10. And Microsoft is reminding it’s users of that with a dialog that asks you to upgrade to Windows 10, that has two big buttons, “Upgrade now” and “Remind me later”.
It seems this topic is turning into a series…
I wrote before about Picasa and Netflix not taking no for an answer, but it seems this is actually a widespread phenomenon. The state of our industry today is that we found ways to turn something as straightforward as asking a Yes/No question into an overly complex, almost fraudulent even, user interface, that seems to be ‘targeting’ inexperienced users, attempting to take advantage of their lack of computing knowledge.
Today it’s Microsoft turn to be confronted with the unethical way into which it has been deceiving users into upgrading to Windows 10. Paul Thurret describes on his blog how Microsoft has apparently, in it’s quest to get people to upgrade to Windows 10, stooped as low as turning that most universal NO button in Windows, the red close button with the white cross in it, into actually doing the opposite from what it always does.
Just like Picasa, Netflix doesn’t take No for an answer.
Every day (I think in fact, every time my phone connects to Wifi) it asks:
“Gallery requests permission for Picasa Web Albums”
It then only allows two ways of answering this question:
“Cancel”, “Login”
When I press Cancel, the Picasa mob leaves me alone for about a day. Only to repeat this question the next day. And the next…
My android phone is worse than a broken record
How about adding an option to DENY ?
Or better yet, why not formulate this questions as an actual question?
E.G.
Can Gallery access your Picasa Web Albums??
“NO”, “YES”
Or, even better, why ask this at all?? Instead, create an option “Synch. Gallery with Picasa” and turn it off by default. Then, when I turn it on, then ask me for permission and login details.
I wonder whether the devs at Google that came up with this user interface have children? And how these children ask for an ice cream?
Please fix this Google. I have never used Picasa in my life, but when someone now mentions its name, I see images of Godfather and cut-off horse heads because of the gangster-like way in which it is pressuring me to give it a permission I do not want to give it.
Don’t be evil.
