One kind of malicious functionality mediates developer's interference into the use of the software. This page describes how various proprietary programs harass or annoy the user, or cause trouble for the user. These actions are like sabotage, but the word “sabotage” is too strong for them.

• 2024-03

  Microsoft is using malware tactics to get users to switch to their web browser, Microsoft Edge, and their search engine, Microsoft Bing. When users launch the Google Chrome browser Microsoft injects a pop up advertisement in the corner of the screen advising users to switch to Bing. Microsoft also imported users Chrome browsing data without their knowledge or consent.

• 2023-11

  Microsoft has been annoying people who wanted to close the proprietary program OneDrive on their computers, forcing them to give the reason why they were closing it. This prompt was removed after public pressure.

  This is a reminder that angry users still have the power to make developers of proprietary software remove small annoyances. Don't count on public outcry to make them remove more profitable malware, though. Run away from proprietary software!

• 2023-11

  Samsung's Push Service proprietary app sends notifications to the user's phone about “updates” in Samsung apps, including the Gaming Hub, but these updates only sometimes have to do with a new version of the apps. Many times, the notifications from Gaming Hub are simply ads for games that they think the user should install based on the data collected from the user. Most importantly, it cannot be permanently disabled.

• 2023-11

  Chamberlain Group blocks users from using third-party software with its garage openers. This is an intentional attack on using free software. The official garage opener proprietary mobile app is now also infested with ads, including up-selling its other services and devices.

• 2023-02

  Microsoft is remotely disabling Internet Explorer, forcibly redirecting users to Microsoft Edge.

  Imposing such change is malicious, and the fact that the redirection is from one unjust program (IE) to another unjust program (Edge) does not excuse it.

• 2022-11

  Obeying a demand by the Chinese government, Apple restricted the use of AirDrop in China. It imposed a ten-minute time limit during which users can receive files from non contacts. This makes it nearly impossible to use AirDrop for its intended purpose, which is to exchange files with strangers between iMonsters in physical proximity. This happened after it became known that dissenters were using the app to distribute digital anti-government fliers anonymously.

• 2022-01

  The Norton 360 antivirus updated its program to install a cryptocurrency miner on users' computers without people's permission. The miner is not turned on by default but there is no way to completely uninstall the crypto mining software, which has upset some users.

• 2021-10

  Facebook's nonfree client forces its useds to look at the newsfeed. A used of Facebook developed a browser add-on to make it easier to unfollow everyone and thus make the newsfeed empty. Many of the people used by Facebook loved this, because they regard the newsfeed as a burden that Facebook imposes on them.

  If the client software for Facebook were free, useds could probably make the newsfeed disappear by modifying the client not to display it.

• 2021-08

  Microsoft is making it harder and harder to replace default apps in its Windows operating system and is pressuring users to use its proprietary programs instead. We believe the best approach to this would be replacing Windows with a free (as in freedom) operating system like GNU. We also maintain a list of fully free distributions of GNU.

• 2021-06

  Google automatically installed an app on many proprietary Android phones. The app might or might not do malicious things but the power Google has over proprietary Android phones is dangerous.

• 2021-05

  Apple is systematically undermining interoperability. At the hardware level, it does this via nonstandard plugs, buses and networks. At the software level, it does this by not letting the user have any data except within one app.

• 2021-05

  Ford is planning to force ads on drivers in cars, with the ability for the owner to pay extra to turn them off. The system probably imposes surveillance on drivers too.

• 2021-04

  The WeddingWire app saves people's wedding photos forever and hands over data to others, giving users no control over their personal information/data. The app also sometimes shows old photos and memories to users, without giving them any control over this either.

• 2021-02

  Microsoft is forcibly removing the Flash player from computers running Windows 10, using a universal backdoor in Windows.

  The fact that Flash has been disabled by Adobe is no excuse for this abuse of power. The nature of proprietary software, such as Microsoft Windows, gives the developers power to impose their decisions on users. Free software on the other hand empowers users to make their own decisions.

• 2020-10

  Microsoft is forcing Windows users to install upgrades it pushes using its universal back doors. These upgrades can do various harms to users such as restricting computers from some functions and/or forcing users to defenselessly do whatever Microsoft tells them to do.

• 2020-05

  Tesla's cars have a universal remote back door. Tesla used it to disable the autopilot features on people's cars to make them pay extra for re-enabling the features.

  This kind of malfeature is only possible with proprietary software—free software is controlled by its users who wouldn't let do such things to them.

• 2020-04

  Riot Games' new anti-cheat is malware; runs on system boot at kernel level on Windows. It is insecure software that increases the attack surface of the operating system.

• 2019-08

  Apple is putting DRM on iPhone batteries, and the system proprietary software turns off certain features when batteries are replaced other than by Apple.

• 2019-01

  Google is modifying Chromium so that extensions won't be able to alter or block whatever the page contains. Users could conceivably reverse the change in a fork of Chromium, but surely Chrome (nonfree) will have the same change, and users can't fix it there.

• 2019-01

  Samsung phones come preloaded with a version of the Facebook app that can't be deleted. Facebook claims this is a stub which doesn't do anything, but we have to take their word for it, and there is the permanent risk that the app will be activated by an automatic update.

  Preloading crapware along with a nonfree operating system is common practice, but by making the crapware undeletable, Facebook and Samsung (among others) are going one step further in their hijacking of users' devices.

• 2018-09

  One version of Windows 10 harangues users if they try to install Firefox (or Chrome).

• 2018-07

  A nonfree video game, available through the nonfree Steam client, included a “miner”, i.e. an executable that hijacks the CPU in users' computers to mine a cryptocurrency.

• 2018-05

  A cracker used an exploit in outdated software to inject a “miner” in web pages served to visitors. This type of malware hijacks the computer's processor to mine a cryptocurrency.

  (Note that the article refers to the infected software as “content management system”. A better term would be “website revision system”.)

  Since the miner was a nonfree JavaScript program, visitors wouldn't have been affected if they had used LibreJS. Some browser extensions that specifically block JavaScript miners are also available.

• 2018-04

  Pearson's proprietary educational software did an experiment on real students, treating students differently to observe the results.

• 2018-03

  Microsoft is planning to make Windows impose use of its browser, Edge, in certain circumstances.

  The reason Microsoft can force things on users is that Windows is nonfree.

• 2017-12

  Learn how gratis-to-play-and-not-win-much games manipulate their useds psychologically.

  These manipulative behaviors are malicious functionalities, and they are possible because the game is proprietary. If it were free, people could publish a non-manipulative version and play that instead.

• 2017-03

  Windows displays intrusive ads for Microsoft products and its partners' products.

  The article's author starts from the premise that Microsoft has a right to control what Windows does to users, as long as it doesn't go “too far”. We disagree.

• 2017-01

  An upgrade package for Acrobat Reader silently alters Chrome.

• 2016-12

  The Microsoft Telemetry Compatibility service drastically reduces the performances of machines running Windows 10, and can't be disabled easily.

• 2016-08

  After forcing the download of Windows 10 on computers that were running Windows 7 and 8, Microsoft repeatedly switched on a flag that urged users to “upgrade” to Windows 10 when they had turned it off, in the hope that some day they would fail to say no. To do this, Microsoft used malware techniques.

  A detailed analysis of Microsoft's scheme is available on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's website.

• 2016-03

  Microsoft has made companies' Windows machines managed by the company's sysadmins harangue users to complain to the sysadmins about not “upgrading” to Windows 10.

• 2016-02

  A pacemaker running proprietary code was misconfigured and could have killed the implanted person. In order to find out what was wrong and get it fixed, the person needed to break into the remote device that sets parameters in the pacemaker (possibly infringing upon manufacturer's rights under the DMCA). If this system had run free software, it could have been fixed much sooner.

• 2016-01

  Microsoft has desupported all future Intel CPUs for Windows 7 and 8. Those machines will be stuck with the nastier Windows 10. AMD and Qualcomm CPUs, too.

  Of course, Windows 7 and 8 are unethical too, because they are proprietary software. But this example of Microsoft's wielding its power demonstrates the power it holds.

  Free software developers also stop maintaining old versions of their programs, but this is not unfair to users because the users of free software have control over it. If it is important enough to you, you and other users can hire someone to support the old version on your future platforms.

• 2015-10

  Adobe nonfree software may halt all other work and freeze a computer to perform a license check, at a random time every 30 days.

• 2015-06

  Oracle made a deal with Yahoo; Oracle's nonfree Java plug-in will change the user's initial web page, and default search engine, to Yahoo unless the user intervenes to stop it.