Update Available, Shmupdate Shmavailable

It seems these days that more and more software comes with a feature that will automatically check whether a newer version of itself is available for download, and if there is, "helpfully" inform the user. Frankly, I find this behavior annoying. When I launch a program, it's to perform a task. I don't want it to throw a dialog in my face immediately after launching, interrupting my workflow and train of thought, to suggest I take a completely different course of action from that which I was anticipating. Such a course of action amounts to maintenance of my computer, and computer maintenance is something I do on my own time, when I'm in the mood for it. If a program is buggy, or lacks a feature that I expect will appear in the next version, or is simply a program that I use regularly and like to keep up to date on, I will check from time to time to see if a new version has been released. This is true for many programs. Though for some old standbys, I may not bother to check for updates much simply because the program already does everything I need in the way I'm used to, and thus it doesn't call attention to itself. For these programs I may be using a version that is over a year old.

For those programs that do check for updates, there is usually a preference to turn this behavior off, though it is on by default when you first install it. Sometimes a program that I've been using for a long time suddenly gains this "feature" in a new version (which I've successfully managed to acquire on my own initiative, thank you very much), and of course this new behavior is enabled by default. But it irritates me the first time I see that dreaded dialog, after having used the program for years over many versions without it having bugged me before. So then I have to go digging through the preferences to find the newly added one that will restore peace to my world.

One noteworthy offender is Acquisition, a Mac-native Gnutella client. I remember that in the early days of this program, new versions were released so frequently, especially compared to how infrequently I used it, that it would inform me of a new version literally every time I launched it, even if I had already acquired the latest version the last time I had used it. But somewhere along the way it must have gained the ability to turn off update checking, because it hasn't bugged me in a while. Or maybe it always had that option, but back in those days this feature was so rare that I always upgraded immediately whenever a program told me to.

An especially egregious offender is Firefox 1.5. By default, not only does Firefox check for updated versions, but now as of 1.5, upon finding one it will automatically download the update silently in the background, and then display a dialog informing you that it has done this! I guess the Firefox team has taken the old saying "It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission" to heart.

Firefox? More like Spyware-fox!

Finally, there's the Dashboard widget Flip Clock by Widget Machine. When you invoke the Dashboard, this widget will check for a new version, and upon finding one will display a distracting red banner in its upper right corner, as shown in the picture below. This banner includes an "X" button which will (temporarily) remove the banner, and an arrow button which will download the new version.

Flip Clock whining to be upgraded.

Wait, did I say "new" version? I meant old version. For you see, I'm using version 1.2 of Flip Clock, and clicking the download button in the banner causes it to retrieve version 1.1.3 of the widget. It turns out, however, that this isn't actually an older version of the software. Version 1.1.3 is actually newer than version 1.2. This can be verified by checking the creation dates. Apparently, the creators decided that the version numbers should decrease rather than increase. Assuming that this was a mistake, I emailed them about this, but have yet to receive a response.

Flip Clock version 1.1.3 was released five months after version 1.2.

Unfortunately, Flip Clock does not provide a preference for disabling the update check. Fortunately, Dashboard widgets are distributed in source code form. Thus, I dug into the code, and was able to fairly easily find the line that checks for an updated version, and comment it out. As a result, I no longer have to worry about Flip Clock bugging me when a new (lower version) release is available, and I am thus protected from the fateful day when the version number gets so low as to regress to prerelease form.