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Google Pack  BETA

Google Pack Gripes  "A free collection of essential software" packaged by Google

Other Gripers

January 16, 2006 Google Pack lacks punch Lou Dolinar in Newsday. 

January 11, 2006. Google Pack: Where's the beef? by Dwight Silverman. 

January 8, 2006. Hands on with Google Pack by Paul Thurrott. A long and detailed review with many screen shots. Some of his gripes: 

• Quoting: "The sheer amount of work that a user needs to perform in order to make sure that each application Google provides is updated completely contradicts the benefits of having an integrated installer ...  " 
• About the various applications it installs: "...most of them spew system tray, Quick Launch, and desktop icons all over your system, and silently pad your PC with additional tasks to run at boot-up, slowing the boot process and taking up valuable resources." 
• The virus definitions in Norton Antivirus 2005 are 4 months old.  
• The installed version of Norton Antivirus is buggy. Applying the bug fixes (by running Live Update over and over until it finds nothing) required three re-boots of Windows.  
• Unlike me, he installed a new version of Ad-Aware. The Spyware definitions were, initially, over 120 days old.
• As I also noted, the installed copy of RealPlayer 10.5 is not up to date.  Updating to the latest version (which I didn't attempt) requires you to register with RealNetworks. 
• And in conclusion, Mr. Thurrot says: "... the flaws in Google Pack suggest that this company has a long, long way to go before it can ever justify its insanely lofty stock price. Google Pack is a mixed bag of applications, some useful and some not, though virtually all are deficient in some way as packaged here ... this initial version of Google Pack is an embarrassment to the company. It's just a mess."  Ouch.

My First Go-Round

January 9, 2006.  Google Pack was released in beta form just a few days ago. I used build 1.0.368.36062. 

It is only for Windows XP. Windows 2000 is not supported. 

The first time I ran the Google Updater it failed because it could not contact the server. Re-trying though, worked fine. The Google Updater needed two separate approvals from my firewall to make an outbound connection. 

Google says: "Already have some of this software? It will only be updated if a newer version is available." This is not true. The computer I used with Google Pack had a very old version of Ad-Aware, yet the Google Updater considered it current and did not update it. Currently version 1.05 is the latest. The computer had version 6.181 which dates back to June of 2004. 

Also, Google downloaded version 10.5 of the Real Player. Just afterward, I checked for updates in Real Player and it reported that there was an outstanding critical update. Strangely, the update was Real Player version 10.5 with Harmony. Two versions of version 10.5? Thanks, Real.  

The Google updater reports the software included in the "pack" that's installed on your computer. However, it does not show version numbers.  

FYI 

The old versions of Real Player and Adobe Acrobat Reader were un-installed by the Google Updater. 

It installed v7.05 of the Adobe Acrobat Reader which is current. It also installed the Adobe Reader Speed Launch and set it to run automatically at start-up time. 

The Google Updater sets itself to run automatically at system startup. 

I have other Google gripes.