Junk Uniblue Machanic being advertised and endorsed here

[kukla]

This came up with the 2.6.8.34, just below the little NS donations window. Besides Uniblue getting a very negative rating from WOT https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/uniblue.com, I am really quite dismayed and shocked that NoScript (Giorgio), which I trust for its integrity, would endorse (apparently) this kind of junk. I have yet to hear of a Mac "cleaning" or "maintenance" or "App remover" program that actually works properly and/or doesn't cause actual damage. Perhaps Onyx, if used very judiciously, and Applejack (no longer supported), but no such programs are needed on a Mac. They are known to do more harm than good.

[barbaz]

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=17368
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4224
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=19767
(I've previously seen several other threads on this subject also, but not finding them now.)

With so many similar threads on this subject springing up, I'm wondering if Giorgio might want to consider vetting those products again?

[kukla]

I have donated in the past, and was thinking of making a new donation now...until I saw this crap being advertised and my jaw dropped.

EDITED: I don't know if AMO would allow it, but it's a do or die situation pressing Giorgio to allow something like this, I would be much happier if he takes NS to a fee for license/key model; that is, provided the fee is reasonable.

[barbaz]

OK I'm not sure if you're serious or trolling now.


BTW it should be noted that on Linux, the ads I get on noscript.net are for various "not-cleaner/manager" software, notably VLC media player which I personally use and is definitely legitimate. (Speaking from personal experience) If VLC media player is of comparable quality / style to all other products noscript.net advertises to Linux users... then noscript.net advertises awesome products to Linux users

[kukla]

OK I'm not sure if you're serious or trolling now.


BTW it should be noted that on Linux, the ads I get on noscript.net are for various "not-cleaner/manager" software, notably VLC media player which I personally use and is definitely legitimate. (Speaking from personal experience) If VLC media player is of comparable quality / style to all other products noscript.net advertises to Linux users... then noscript.net advertises awesome products to Linux users

About turning NS into a fee for license? I wasn't trolling. Why would that be trolling? I really meant that if Giorgio is genuinely so hard up for revenue that he's resorting to advertising this kind of garbage, I would happily pay a one time fee, as I have for other stuff that I really depend on, like Little Snitch. AMO probably wouldn't allow that, though. Oh, and yes VLC is completely legit. I use it too. I've never seen any of the other ads here. Just this one, which appeared after updating.

[barbaz]

About turning NS into a fee for license? I wasn't trolling. Why would that be trolling?

Not just that but the post taken as a whole, sorry for misinterpreting.
Also I just really dislike the idea of any DRM anything so directly in my browser, so I really appreciate NoScript being free software. (Thanks Giorgio. )

I've never seen any of the other ads here. Just this one, which appeared after updating.

Because when NS shows the release notes after updating, it's adding an extra request header that I guess allows Giorgio to keep more reliable track of NS updates and seems to tell noscript.net to show additional ads.
Odd though, IIRC the "scan your PC for speed issues" ads used to only show up for Windows users... maybe it's some server issue that is causing it to show up for Mac users too? (I have a Mac on which I haven't yet seen any ads on noscript.net despite disabling adblock on noscript.net...)

[The Grumpy Old Lady]

I'm making this post because a friend pointed the thread out to me. I haven't lurked around here for years, but this needs saying.
It's amazing how many believe everything they read on the Web.
You want something advertised, just put it in the hands of the Web's Chinese Whispers machine.
That includes promulgating a poor reputation. WOT is used very nicely to that end in many cases besides the company in question. I also recall a very much dirtier campaign run inside our own sainted Mozilla walls some years back. It stank, and this one is starting to smell not nice too.

It's fairly clear that the OP has some emotional investment in apple, but nothing else of fact is evident in their post, except that they consider themselves knowledgeable enough about their own system. Kudos to them.

However, I'd suggest that before participating in the destruction of a valid business (however a person views their practises, they aren't breaking any law) a contributor to this forum at least installs and inspects in some detail the workings of the badmouthed products in question. Also, by association this criticism will begin to smear Maone too, however the OP may not mean to, so due diligence is double important when a user of NS wants to speak out so forcefully.

Without any prejudice to Maone, I'd like to suggest that the typical new installer of NS may well have found themselves at a point where their system is clogged to the eyeballs - why else would a person voluntarily put themselves through the drudgery of coming to grips with the Web as shown through the NS whitelisting method? And thus this user, coming to grips with controlling access to their system by genuine crims would very likely appreciate any help they can get with any kind of system cleanup.
I've been down the novice road, tried and discarded automated system fixers, learning from each one as I learned to look after my system myself. I don't however look down my nose at others who may be starting from ignorance and say that I know best for them.

How the Maone business model stacks up is nobody's business but his. He is fully free to host ads out the wazoo.
I've done due diligence with NS and Maone. Both meet ethical standards just fine. I hope Maone is profiting hugely from advertising for others, especially because he doesn't resort to click fraud like so many advertising setups do; all he does by obscuring the url is make sure for the ad company that the novice kind of user actually visits the site advertised It's no crime. If Maone says he's investigated the relationships of his advertisers then he has.

My vote goes with those who would preserve NS as a free and openly available code, without any third-party connections or licensing (outside the Open one, that is) at all. It's getting rarer and rarer on the Web these days. I donate. Often. Lots of places. I also restrict scripting on most sites, even though I'd like them to get revenue from ads, precisely because many webmasters don't do the right thing like Maone does.

TLDR? You don't like a product or its methods? Don't use it. There's no fraud, or even any bad advice, going on here.

Mods should bury this stupid thread in the General Forum. Too many will read the first post and the heading as gospel.
Hi Guardian, btw. Come and turn this rubbish off please

[kukla]

I'm making this post because a friend pointed the thread out to me. I haven't lurked around here for years, but this needs saying.
It's amazing how many believe everything they read on the Web.

And I suppose that, by definition, that would include what you have written here.

You want something advertised, just put it in the hands of the Web's Chinese Whispers machine.
That includes promulgating a poor reputation. WOT is used very nicely to that end in many cases besides the company in question. I also recall a very much dirtier campaign run inside our own sainted Mozilla walls some years back. It stank, and this one is starting to smell not nice too.

I am not running a campaign of any kind, and if there is any stink, I would have to say it is coming from your post. I have responded with what I consider to be a suitable warning to anyone who might consider installing any kind of cleaning program (automated or not) on a Mac. While I have not used Machanic, I am well enough informed to know that most cleaning programs range either from useless to quite harmful. Because one would have to trust that Machanic would not delete critical system files or even important user data, I would never let this kind of thing loose on my Mac. This program costs $39.95 and there are free programs which can duplicate most of its functions, should one really need to do that. I have already mentioned Onyx, which can run any number of tasks (but must be used with care), and for regaining drive space there is OmniDiskSweeper, which will allow one to inspect where possible data bloat exists. But another caveat: unless one knows enough about OSX system level processes, ODS (which can also be used to inspect for duplicate files) should only be used to remove dispensible user data. Machanic purports to remove unwanted applications and related files. The fact is that there are many applications which can simply be removed by trashing them. Their related files are usually negligible in size and don't warrant removal. But those too can be removed manually. There are app removal programs, but they are not to be trusted, not only because they may miss related files, but because they may possibly delete important or critical files, especially in shared libraries. However, if one wants to remove those related files, they can be found and removed manually from a search using EasyFind (free) or FindAnyFile (shareware.) However, another important caveat: programs which had made system modifications, especially kernel extensions, should not usually be removed manually. If an uninstaller is not provided, one would want to contact the developer for instructions. This is where automated cleaning programs can probably do the most damage, since, in that area, they really don't know what they're doing.

It's fairly clear that the OP has some emotional investment in apple, but nothing else of fact is evident in their post, except that they consider themselves knowledgeable enough about their own system. Kudos to them.

I have zero emotional investment in giving advice about not using a cleaning program. If anyone has any kind of emotional investment here, I think it would be you.

However, I'd suggest that before participating in the destruction of a valid business (however a person views their practises, they aren't breaking any law) a contributor to this forum at least installs and inspects in some detail the workings of the badmouthed products in question. Also, by association this criticism will begin to smear Maone too, however the OP may not mean to, so due diligence is double important when a user of NS wants to speak out so forcefully.

If by that you mean that I am intent on destroying NoScript, that is the furthest thing from my mind. I have been a NoScript user for many years and have donated to NoScript. It is only because I have such respect for Giorgio's integrity and his devotion to making NS the excellent program that it is that I reacted with dismay to finding that such a program would be advertised here.

Without any prejudice to Maone, I'd like to suggest that the typical new installer of NS may well have found themselves at a point where their system is clogged to the eyeballs - why else would a person voluntarily put themselves through the drudgery of coming to grips with the Web as shown through the NS whitelisting method? And thus this user, coming to grips with controlling access to their system by genuine crims would very likely appreciate any help they can get with any kind of system cleanup.
I've been down the novice road, tried and discarded automated system fixers, learning from each one as I learned to look after my system myself. I don't however look down my nose at others who may be starting from ignorance and say that I know best for them.

I am not looking down my nose at anyone who may be tempted to buy such a program. But I do think that many who will be tempted might not be sufficiently informed in this area to make a knowledgeable decision. In that regard, I highly recommend The Myth of the Dirty Mac as required reading. (Although I would disagree with the recommendation to keep a minimum of 10% drive space free. That might have made sense years ago, when drives were tiny, but it makes no sense to keep 200GB free out of a 2TB drive, for example. Apple recommends that OSX needs a minimum of 9 GB to operate properly, and to be on the safe side, I would probably recommend keeping 20-25GB free, as a ballpark.)

How the Maone business model stacks up is nobody's business but his. He is fully free to host ads out the wazoo.
I've done due diligence with NS and Maone. Both meet ethical standards just fine. I hope Maone is profiting hugely from advertising for others, especially because he doesn't resort to click fraud like so many advertising setups do; all he does by obscuring the url is make sure for the ad company that the novice kind of user actually visits the site advertised It's no crime. If Maone says he's investigated the relationships of his advertisers then he has.

I see nowhere that Giorgio has actually used or vetted this program. Of course, Giorgio is quite free to host ads on his site. I never said anything to the contrary.

My vote goes with those who would preserve NS as a free and openly available code, without any third-party connections or licensing (outside the Open one, that is) at all. It's getting rarer and rarer on the Web these days. I donate. Often. Lots of places. I also restrict scripting on most sites, even though I'd like them to get revenue from ads, precisely because many webmasters don't do the right thing like Maone does.

I was never for a single minute suggesting that Giorgio should switch to a pay for license model. I too would prefer that NS remain free. What I was saying was that if Giorgio is so strapped for revenue that he needs to allow advertising from a source as dubious as this, and if it's a question of NoScript not being able to survive otherwise (again, I would refer anyone reading this thread to the WOT comments, not necessarily the rating, about Uniblue https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/uniblue.com), then, and only then would I rather see NS become pay for license.

TLDR? You don't like a product or its methods? Don't use it. There's no fraud, or even any bad advice, going on here.
Mods should bury this stupid thread in the General Forum. Too many will read the first post and the heading as gospel.
Hi Guardian, btw. Come and turn this rubbish off please

The shrillness of your post is beginning to make me wonder if you are not a shill for Uniblue.

[barbaz]

I see nowhere that Giorgio has actually used or vetted this program.

You would have seen that if you had read the threads I linked

[The Grumpy Old Lady]

@kukla
Who's calling who a puppet then?


I don't shill for any individual business in here, but I do despise pile-ons run by know-eff-all zealots.

[kukla]

I see nowhere that Giorgio has actually used or vetted this program.

You would have seen that if you had read the threads I linked

I did read all those threads, but they are mainly about whether the programs in question are spyware or malware, and they are for PC, not Mac. Besides that, two of them are rather old and predate, I assume, the arrival of Machanic; none of them discuss Machanic, which seems to be new. Nowhere in any of those three threads does Giorgio mention Machanic, or that he has personally vetted it. If he has I would like to know.

I never said that Machanic is malware or spyware, as is the main topic of those threads (but who knows, it may be that, or at the least install some kind of adware. I don't know and I would never take the chance to find out). My issue with it, as with a lot of other programs which purport to be for Mac cleaning or maintenance is that they are generally not needed on a Mac, may do more harm than good, and, in this case, at a rather pricey $39.95, almost everything can be accomplished using readily available free or shareware.

Another comment: most of these cleaning programs (MacKeeper is probably the most egregious of the lot-- advanced Mac users usually classify this kind of stuff as "crapware") are aimed either at first time Mac users, or relatively inexperienced Mac users, who are often fooled into thinking that whatever symptoms they happen to be seeing (often freezes or slowdowns, and, ironically, the cleaning program itself may be the cause of a slowdown (badly written AV programs are another common culprit)) can be "cleaned" away, or prevented by some kind of proactive maintenance. There are exceptions, but a Mac generally takes care of itself (again, The Myth of the Dirty Mac is required reading.) They are also aimed at sucking in users who are either too lazy or too intimidated to learn the basics of their computer, or who think that if they don't use some kind of maintenance program terrible things will happen. They may also be aimed at former PC users, who, based on their experiences with PC, think that a Mac needs this kind of "PC type" maintenance or attention. I would add that a company with a background in PC, such as Uniblue appears to be, is usually ill suited for creating proper or effective programs for OSX. But that is only an educated guess, since I haven't used this program...nor would I ever.

As for Grumpy Old Lady's latest post, that speaks volumes about the author and needs no further comment.