top | item 40629681

Adobe Swears It's Not Training Its A.I. On Your Photoshops

53 points| brie22 | 1 year ago |slate.com

42 comments

order

rlupi|1 year ago

Adobe cannot be trusted. They force you to agree to the ToS even to stop using their apps!

You cannot even uninstall Adobe CC apps without using the Creative Cloud app, and you can't use the CC app without agreeing to the ToS.

I used CC mostly on my mac studio, but I had it also installed on a older windows machine. I have cancelled my subscription, then cancelled my account; I had to agree to the ToS to uninstall them on mac studio. I discovered now the old installation on windows and I want to get rid of it, but I don't have an account anymore. I am stuck unable to uninstall their apps on all my computers and the software they provide to do so doesn't work.

On the one mac where I uninstalled it using their tools, it actually kept their software hidden on my machine and tried to reinstall it (found out via osquery). This is very shady behavior. Their installation software is basically a spyware.

everforward|1 year ago

Adobe's shenanigans are bad, but I put a lot of the blame here on Windows and its persistent refusal to implement a decent way to uninstall programs without using a vendor-provided binary/script.

It boggles my mind that Windows has no concept of "track what files and registry entries are from what apps, so we can uninstall apps even if the vendor is an asshole/malware distributor/etc", and the corollary "a page that shows what apps still have files or registry entries on the system".

This is worsened by heavy use of the registry, which allows apps to spread files all over the filesystem in a way that is very difficult for users to follow. It's further worsened by the uselessness of Task Manager (it's nearly unfit for purpose, especially considering the bizarre number of strange processes running on even a clean Windows install). Then add in opaque things like svchost.exe and it's very, very hard to tell whether there are any processes left over from an install.

Windows really needs to add better uninstall or cleanup tools for that kind of stuff. Maybe a way to audit what files and registry keys apps access, so users (or a tool) can cross-check them after an app is uninstalled. Maybe some kind of "this app has been running in the background but you haven't interacted with it in X months" info display. Maybe some kind of "you uninstalled app X but I found a folder named X in %appdata%" tools.

It really gives Windows a bad name that no one can trust that uninstalls of apps actually work.

vsnf|1 year ago

What does it matter what they say. There are no consequences to lying, so the only correct move is to assume they are.

winternewt|1 year ago

Also, you can't claim you didn't violate your customer's NDA because Adobe said something in a blog post. It's the legal agreement that matters most in court.

clipsy|1 year ago

Then they should update their ToS to clearly state that.

recursivecaveat|1 year ago

1. Update ToS to give yourself expansive new capabilities

2. Publically state that you're not abusing those capabilities (in the present tense of course) to bury the story

3. In a year quietly turn it on in the backend with no public fuss. Preferably in a confusing incremental way so no one step feels too far and nobody with less than superhuman patience can keep track

Microsoft has gone through their version of the path before and will do it again with Recall. In a decade you will technically be able to disable cloud-recall, only on business windows versions, by editing a registry key every 24h.

bhhaskin|1 year ago

This. Actions speak louder than words and right now the actions are a free license to do whatever they want with your work.

yieldcrv|1 year ago

The default save location to creative cloud is very sus

mikae1|1 year ago

Drove me crazy that the option to save locally kept resetting back to cloud.

t0bia_s|1 year ago

Fact, that you cannot use their software legally offline is enough for me to not trust them.

floppiplopp|1 year ago

Sure, buddy corpo, we can trust you.

mediumsmart|1 year ago

They want to talk with me about my adblocker but I don’t have one. Orion is a zero telemetry browser.

dear Slate. I swear that I closed the tab and did not read anything behind your weneedtotalkaboutyouradblocker popup, scout’s honor. And I am not going to read the comments either

JohnFen|1 year ago

Big Tech promises are without meaning.

threeseed|1 year ago

And I believe them.

Because whenever there is an uproar it makes sense to wait for things to settle down and then start training on your images.

iamyemeth|1 year ago

Wolf swears it's vegan

uwagar|1 year ago

what is the proof?

b3lvedere|1 year ago

How does one prove they did NOT do something?

rrgok|1 year ago

Yeah? How about put it in writing with the CEO signature?