Last night we had a power outage, so I left my PC off all night. When I rebooted, guess what happened?
Slack - a program I had very clearly configured to run-on-demand suddenly decided it needed to launch on startup. I don't now and never have used Slack as a primary means of communication, and the thought that they would take ownership of my PC because they think they know what's good for me is - well it's unforgivable.
Uninstalled.
When you write code, I know it's easier to think your customers, pirates, and family members love your software so much that they want it front and center 100% of the time, but mostly, they don't. In fact, my computer boots so slowly that I purposely turn off all those autoupdaters that run on startup.
Google Updater, Adobe Updater, Java Updater, Daz, Unity, Apple (for iTunes, another program I rarely use), Avast, Malware Bytes, Carbonite. All of these updaters are disabled, because when I reboot, it takes my hard drive 15 minutes to fully boot. The mouse and icons are there early, but if I try to launch anything it takes 300x as long and it's just not worth it.
Every time I have to disable these malware bots, I have to search startup, the task scheduler, and 4 other places to make sure they haven't found some new, hidden way to infiltrate my system. It wouldn't be so bad if there was a task in the scheduler that would launch the updater, say at 3:46AM and check for a patch, then CLOSE THE UPDATER, but no, the updater must remain running for the rest of time. Some software companies even have a second program that makes sure the first program is never stopped.
Programmers: These practices will get you into the Special Hell. The one reserved for child molesters and people who talk in the theater.
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Bryan Valencia is a contributing editor and founder of Visual Studio Journey. He owns and operates Software Services, a web design and hosting company in Manteca, California.
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