Rick Welykochy <[email protected]> writes:
> Lindsay Holmwood wrote:
>
>> That said, their update tool is totally broken. Case in point: you do
>> a clean install of OS X, the software updater runs silently in the
>> background and starts downloading the latest updates, you run the
>> software update frontend manually, and it discards any partially
>> completed silent downloads so far (this could be up to 1gb of
>> updates).
>
> Getting OT ...
>
> There is a tedious way around that. Install OS X offline. Then open up
> the Software Update preferences, and disable "Download Import Updates
> Automatically", which IMHO should be the default. You then have more
> control over when updates are downloaded.
>
> One of my Internet peeves is software that silently gobbles bandwidth
> without notifying you.
This is one of those "lesser evil" situations: you, and I, benefit
significantly from that default setting, even if we don't actually need
it ourselves.
Specifically, having automatic patching enabled by default, and easy to
use[1] means that the update rate among end users is much higher.
This, in turn, means that problems like the traditional "Windows work
exploits a security hole patched six months ago" issue are mitigated for
the average user.
That, then, means that we get to deal with less nastiness: less spam and
DDoS attacks, less "easy" Internet crime, so less people bothering, etc.
Yes, having the software download content in the background without
notification is less than perfect, but it sure beats /not/ having those
machines patched.
In the real world, sadly, it often *is* a decision between those two
options, no matter what alternatives might exist. :/
Regards,
Daniel
Footnotes:
[1] Ideally, in fact, difficult not to use automatically.
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