Free spyware from HP
We do a lot of user switching these days. We’re two on a single PC, you know. And when you do Fast User Switching, you can see pretty soon who is the idiot around here. E.g., Panda Antivirus has the bad habit of drawing two icons in system tray whenever you log back to an account already open, while real-time software such as the one used by the TV tuners don’t hang for a second.
The HP drivers are a collection of 6 programs (including 2 services). It’s a hard job to keep a disconnected printer only to admire in tray a fancy blinking icon: Guess what? Your printer is disconnected, that’s why they use 6 EXE’s. And when you log back in after a Fast User Switching, some of those EXE’s crash, pretending that HP COM objects were disturbed. I’m sorry, I thought that, as long as the driver supports only Windows XP and 2000, the HP coders had an idea about multi-user environments.
Yesterday I’ve been prompted about a survey HP is conducting. I thought that here’s the chance to let Fiorina know her drivers are written by monkeys and that’s why I shut down and/or disconnect the HP printers ASAP at any PC I’m using. The HP printer that triggered the survey is registered to me, but not on the system was using (you know, it’s boring to register a printer each time you reinstall Windows, like there’s a Microsoft activation and an HP activation). Once again, I took a step to protect my privacy - I thought that the survey sucks and I don’t want to be contacted again. I’ve unchecked a box and felt better, eased.
It’s 4 AM and HP strikes back. We want to upload some stuff about your printer usage, like how many sheets you printed, how many pics of you mother-in-law are placed in "My Pictures" etc. The screen was overwhelmed with such questions, they were about 50. The good part was that I didn’t have to fill a form. They already knew, but, politely, asked me about my opinions. I’ve fired a session of network packet recording with Packetyzer - a nice GUI for Ethereal - and I was glad to see they didn’t send it through plain text and HTTP on port 80. Anyway, I didn’t have administrative rights, I couldn’t read this kind of data and I shouldn’t be allowed to send this kind of information to Fiorella (or was it Fiorina?). And, anyway, my information was not protected by the firewall that integrates in Windows’ Security Center, it just went away.
I admit. I am curious about the data in the report. I’ve always wanted to precisely count the sheets printed with my printer. Maybe I’ll ask Fiorina.