Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Skype's Message to Users: What Do You Want For Free? Your Money Back?

I suppose everybody in greater metropolitan Christendom knows about Skype, and probably has a Skype application on their computers and/or phones.  Skype seems to provide a useful service at a reasonable price - free being "reasonable" in my book.

But recently, they've begun an insidious effort to take over their users' computers (in a small way, but who asked them to, eh?).

They've begun circulating upgrades, and these "demand your attention" by popping up, un-asked-for, on your desktop.  Bad enough, but apparently justifiable.

After all, what do you want for free?  Your money back?

But now they've taken it a step further. If you do try to upgrade, unless you are VERY careful, they will - as part of this upgrade - automatically make Bing (instead of Google) your default search engine, and MSN (instead of Dilbert or Drudge or DancingCatsOnCatnip.com) your default home page.

Who asked them to do that?

Well, obviously, the corporate masters (the ones with fat checkbooks) at MSN and Bing.  But I mean, if I wanted those, I'd have set them up myself, right?  But I don't. I want Dilbert and Google, and I DID set them up myself.

What's that got to do with upgrading Skype?  Not much.  But they seem to feel it's OK to try and sneak this one past you. 

After all, what do you want for free?  Your money back?