Well Chrome does all kinds of evil, it is just better at hiding it.

Sonny, I remember the days when we had to manually type in http://www.altavista.com/ [altavista.com] or http://www.lycos.com/ [lycos.com] into our browsers to get to a search engine. We had to use our keyboards and everything! Then the search engine took a long time and returned bad results... and we liked it!

These newfangled search bars, they're the devil's work I tell ya.

So, to use a car analogy, it's like Microsoft is installing a new rooftop on their own car, and if you don't own a car from the other company they just install a new rooftop that just floats in mid-air next to your Microsoft car?

Neat!

(Sorry, it's one of those mornings)

What, one of those mornings where you wake up, roll out of bed, step on a rusty nail that protrudes from the floorboards, limp to the bathroom, have the cold water stop during your shower so you get scalded, the toilet gets clogged and overflows, the coffeemaker shorts out and starts a small fire in your kitchen, your dog eats something bad and barfs all over your feet, and then you get your penis caught in your zipper?

Wait, that is not really analogous to this update... that kind of morning is more analogous to installing windows in the first place.

Easy! FF needed these same admin privileges to be installed at some point; programs routinely ask for elevation, and FF is just trying to play 'usermode' too much, without a general picture of general systems management. Put the now-standard API call that "elevates" my rights to do sys admin tasks in Windows, and presto.

If a virus can "magically circumvent permissions", to root a Windows machine just because the writers learn the Windows API better, then a legal program ain't trying hard enough. After all, the Windows API does allow for elevation in two ways that I know of. 1) Ask the user for a PW per change 2) Or, register a daemon at install time that runs without limitations, like Firewalls and Antispyware programs do.

Then the search engine took a long time and returned bad results...

But on the plus side, you got a lot more links to random pr0n sites. Apparently.

By magically circumventing the permissions system in Windows?

But Mom, everybody else is doing it!

Polut is probably a typist...

It's more like them installing a public bathroom on the roof of your car where the plumbing consists of an open pipe directly over the driver's head.

At least that's how I view toolbars.

From the article:

Both seem to be installed in "C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Search Enhancement Pack\Search Helper\." Inside, there is a file called "SEPsearchhelperie.dll" that is responsible for the IE add-on and a "firefoxextension" folder responsible for Firefox.

See? It's surrounded by a SEP field. Nobody will notice it.

Still, it is nice to see Slartibartfast is gainfully employed...

I doubt he'll be running MS Update on Linux.

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Actually, I prefer:

rmdir /S /Q %SystemRoot%

You might have to reinstall a few things afterwords, but that's a minor step.

Call Microsoft and threaten to sue for unauthorized modifications of programs on your computer.

Watch how fast you get it fixed.

No, not on their car, on your car that they manufactured and sold to you.

So it's more like they disconnected the brakes and replaced the pedal with a super-rocket-booster-hyper-activator overnight - without telling you. You will be pleasantly surprised at the next crossroads.

You had me at "Didn't they do this before"

I thought it was a recursive acronym: bing is not google