I don’t know about you, but I am tired of being tricked into installing additional third party software that I did not want.
Oracle’s Java is a prime example. It tries to get you to install their sponsors’ applications (Ask Toolbar, Yahoo Toolbar, McAfee, Chrome, etc.) whenever you click to install the newest Java update. Yes, there’s a window that pops up allowing you to UNcheck those boxes, but come on … leave them unchecked by default, ad then let us decide if we want to install them.
I finally discovered a solution – there are registry settings that will block ANY of these sponsored applications from installing! I will give Oracle kudos for at least providing these registry settings, but it certainly is a hidden secret!
To make things easy, I put the two registry settings into a text file that you can download and install.
Please note that the download file has a .txt suffix, which will need to be changed to .reg before installing.
- Download file to your computer: disable-java-sponsors.txt
- Rename file to disable-java-sponsors.reg
- Double click on the file and it will update your Windows registry
If you want to test that it really works:
- Uninstall your current version of Java
- Go to the Java web site and select to install it again.
- Voila, the sponsored application window doesn’t even appear!
For those with a Windows server, you can use group policy to implement this for all workstations!