The software tentacles.....


Along with my post about robber-barron-800lb-gorilla-godzilla (i.e. Microsoft) earlier, I should tell you about RB800GG software, too.

We bought the wife a nice, new, fancy-shmantzy, glow in the dark printer (HP 1320 or something, $400 list price before the discontinued it), and yeah its nice. Installing the printer driver software was glitchy, but it works, too. Funny thing, first thing it does is try to call the mother ship. My Zone Alarm popup said "Do you give HP Printer permission to access the internet?" (Get lost!). I "Xed" that one off for sure. And, while it is calling the mother ship, what else is it snooping on and reporting back?

Now, why the hell does a printer driver need 110 megabytes of disk space? I looked around in that directory (three dozen layers deep!!!) to find all kinds of filenames that sound like they have absolutely nothing to do with printing! Not that many years ago, a megabyte of software was all you need for a printer driver.
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Relevant Pages

  • Re: The software tentacles.....
    ... We bought the wife a nice, new, fancy-shmantzy, glow in the dark printer, and yeah its nice. ... Installing the printer driver software was glitchy, but it works, too. ... first thing it does is try to call the mother ship. ... It's like selling a car complete with a CD stereo, air conditioning, GPS, and cellphone and, in order to buy the vehicle, one has to take all those features. ...
    (sci.research.careers)
  • Re: The software tentacles.....
    ... while it is calling the mother ship, what else is it snooping on and ... A printing industry does. ... the HP Laser cranks, that your ... why the hell does a printer driver need 110 megabytes of disk space? ...
    (sci.research.careers)