Gizmo Project and Bonjour

Reply from mazilo on Sep 15, 2005 - 09:22 PM

ocumo :

Why did I ended getting all that crap in my PC without being asked or informed? Why does it hide inside something else to appear inside my PC afterwards like a Trojan would do?? Why does it install in such malicious way, with high privileges and creating so much trouble to uninstall? I don't want to have that in my PC. I don't want to have any application that violates my PC and my trust in such way. Today, that is probably not a crime. But some day in the future, that should be considered an international crime. I hope we, PC and internet users, some day make a strong lobby to local and international authorities to make laws against such abusive, intrusive behaviour. Today, the authorities are going after virus and worm developers. Some day in the future they might also go after anyone who invade and abuse so grotesquely our PCs. There has to be a hope. And we all have to complain, always, strongly.

The simplest answer to these questions is to use a Linux/Unix based OS.

Reply from ocumo on Sep 15, 2005 - 10:36 PM

Quote:

The simplest answer to these questions is to use a Linux/Unix based OS.

That seems already to be the absolute best answer I have read from the thread.

It does represent, though, the bitter confirmation of the decline of the traditional proprietary/comercial software into some scary and wild way were all kind of adventurers are trying to break into our PC systems and take some part of it for their busines/purposes, no matter what.

The traditional trust and respect in some old big corporation names is now disapearing, since some of them seem to have lost the sense of decency in the relationship with the customers and society, and prefer to use the lowest, more disgusting pseudo-marketing snail-oil-seller or obscure techniques to invade and force people into become their "victims", as if all the PC/internet users were necessarily idiots.

It is a pity that those involved in making applications that installs without even asking have not posted any answers to these questions.

Certainly, I am trying to convert as fast as possible to GNU/Linux, having already installed a couple of distributions and intensely reading and researching as much as I can, to learn to survive without all of this trash and escaping from many horrendously bad written code, lier companies, and gangsters of the internet associated to "good reputation" companies.

Surprisingly, there seems to be a tremendous variety of Open Source code software, with the most stonishing great quality. There seems to be a different world out there.

Reply from LouisC on Sep 16, 2005 - 05:51 PM

what is happening, please somone explain the reason behind this internet problem !!!!

Reply from LouisC on Sep 16, 2005 - 05:57 PM

after a bit of searching i found this, sounds interesting i thought you may like to have a read:
-------------------------------------------------------------
Well, I think Pink Waters is right, and if so, then the problem is solved.

To recap - Bonjour is handing out imaginary DNS addresses to computers that are quite happy with the ones that they have been obtaining automatically from their router. The computers then find they can't go online because they don't have the correct DNS settings. Despondency ensues.

Disabling Bonjour is a workaround, but to properly fix the problem, I think you need to just ensure that all computers on the network have the DNS addresses manually entered by you with your own fair hand in TCP/IP properties, and then when Mademoiselle Bonjour comes shimmying round handing out her address cards, your network boys won't take up her dubious invitations and life can carry on as normal and we can get to enjoy those playlist folders.

The fix - it's Control Panel/Network Connections/Network Bridge/Properties/General - then highlight TCP/IP in the bottom box, hit Properties and click the 'Use the following DNS Server addresses' radio button [i.e. we're changing from 'obtain DNS server address automatically].

Now enter the primary and secondary DNS Server addresses for your ISP, which can be obtained either from the homepage of your router [mine were under status /overview on my BT Voyager]or the help pages of your ISP.

Do this for every network bridge and wireless connection you can find on every computer on the network [i.e. on my laptop I've got wired and wireless, so they both needed fixing].

Restart everything, and all should be well. Do remember however, that should you attempt to use a laptop on a different network with other DNS addresses, you will have a problem - in which case, temporarily switch back to automatic.

This worked for my BT Voyager 2100, but I can't see why it shouldn't fix a Netgear or any other ADSL router that is exibiting the same problem.

Why a music player should find it necessary to fiddle with DNS settings, I really can't imagine. Sharing over a network worked perfectly well before, and should I need it [which I don't], XP contains a perfectly good zero configuration wireless network program, and doesn't need another one installed by stealth [more the sort of thing I would expect from RealPlayer than Apple], especially one which activates without being asked then malfunctions without giving any error messages.

Oh well, I'm happy now. Hope it works for everyone else.

--------------------------------------------------
Link:

http://www.expansys.fr/forumthread.asp? ... thread=603

Reply from Bugless on Sep 16, 2005 - 06:22 PM

groucho :

Bonjour Service is an Apple networking service. You can read about Bonjour for Windows here http://developer.apple.com/softwarelicensing/agreements/bonjourwin.html Unfortunately, Gizmo Project's makers tell you nothing about this very serious problem when they push their software on you

Serious problem? Pushign software on you? OMG, this is so over-blown! Bonjour is simply a name for a generic open technology for inter-application and device discovery and automatic configuration. There is nothing evil about it. No spyware is involved. No banner ads will pop up. No hijacking of browsers.. and nobody "pushed" you into clicking yes on the install screen!

What Bonjour does is essentially automatically configure programs or devices to access each other's features they need by holding a regular dialog over the network:

iTunes1 says: "Hello, I'm iTunes. Is there anybody out there?"
iTunes2 on another computer says: "I hear you iTunes1. I'll show you mine if you show me yours."
iTunes1 says: "My user requires a password."
iTunes2 says: "username: Joe, password: lemmein"
iTunes1 sends iTunes2 its restricted play-list.
iTunes2 sends iTunes1 its unrestricted play-list.

HP printer: "Hello, I'm a USB printer. Nobody owns me yet."
computer: "Hello USB printer, what's your name, model, and features?"
HP printer: "HP model # BLAH01. Color, 8.5x17 size, etc etc."
computer: "Thank you, you are configured. You may shut up now."

All Bonjour does is provide a method for discovery, and automatic configuration that does not need user involvement. This is for general average idiot-user proofing which provides complete ease of installation (it's not an option because this is the method chosen for Gizmo to find other Gizmo users on the local subnet. Without it, Gizmo will not be able to automatically find other Gizmo users locally.), complete ease of configuration (there is none needed!), and complete ease of use (it's automatic baby, how does it get easier than that?).. If there are issues with Bonjour causing excess network traffic, simply turn it off, or report it as a bug to Apple so they can fix it.

Gizmo chose not to reinvent the wheel, like many developers would do, and not write their own custom discovery and configuration code when there is already an existing standard free for them to use. There was nothing "deceptive" or malicious about it. It seems to me to be unreasonable or unrealistic that anyone demand a developer should have to disclose what open-source technologies are used in the creation of their project up front and proper when typically most programs are a hash of mixed code from open source projects and other older programs the author has coded. This is just one case where the open-source technology deployed actually has a separable task (service) that can be independently disabled from the overall program, so someone freaks upon seeing it. Well, would you prefer that it was hard-coded into Gizmo so you couldn't disable it while Gizmo is installed?

<Edit by Dean>Fixing link - A tags don't work in here</Edit>

Reply from LouisC on Sep 16, 2005 - 07:15 PM

well excuse me mr, what right does this service have to, quite literally **** about with my network setting effectivles F***ing up my network and throwing me off the net and waisting a whole day trying to figure out why i cant ping www.bbc.co.uk. How the hell was i to know that itunes of all applictions to install would mess up my interent. It just does not occour to peope. it not just me its happened to, so to be quite frank, i couldent give a toss what this app does, itunes works without it, it should be installed as an extra or be properly beta tested the it would not cause so much of a comotion.
so thanks for your nice little examples but no thanks, i know what it does and thats mess up my dns settings.

Reply from bbrevolt on Sep 22, 2005 - 08:08 AM

I installed gizmo and it installed mydnsresponder.exe as well. The thing was eating up 90-100% of my memory and I spent half the day trying to figure out why I couldn't install an apache server on my computer. Now I know why. I went to start>run>services.msc>Bonsour. No way to stop the service, disabled it in properties rebooted, and voila, I was able to install my server.
Does not make me look kindly on gizmo, at least with skype I knew what I was getting.

Reply from LouisC on Sep 23, 2005 - 12:01 AM

Thanks i dont think bugless quite understands that problem solving with these kind of things take time and time for many is valuable. Like me im sure you just did not think that somthing lie this would be installed along with itunes.

Reply from LouisC on Sep 24, 2005 - 06:44 PM

well well well, would you look at that, itunes 5.1 and bonjour nowhere to be seen. And as you can all see i still have the net. RESULT. I hope the person responicible recieves teh correct reprocussions for his f*** up
Louis

Reply from kellzilla on Sep 24, 2005 - 08:11 PM

I got here through looking at PCPitstop.com's google for mDNSResponder.exe. After reading all of the posts, I really can't believe the gall of Apple. All I wanted to install was QuickTime. QUICKTIME. This has NOTHING to do with networking, P2P, VoIP, NOTHING! I wanted to play a .mov file. That's it. Just downloaded a movie from my digital camera (see, it didn't even have anything to do with the INTERNET at all!), and wanted to see it. "OK, I require QuickTime. Let's download it, Apple is cool enough."

Problem one: iTunes is bundled with QuickTime now??? Excuse me??? I'm sorry, I don't want a new mp3 organizer, I'm MORE than happy with what I have now. However, at this point, I was only a little irked, because I could easily go and uninstall the nefarious iTunes which snuck onto my computer without my consent. (Don't tell me I didn't have to download it, thereby giving my consent by downloading it - googling did not yield me any results for the latest QuickTime not bundled with iTunes, and I shouldn't have to google for such a fix IN THE FIRST PLACE.)

I make a mental note to uninstall iTunes. Something to the effect of, "I'll uninstall iTunes when I'm done messing with this movie that I downloaded from my digital camera and had to install crap software just to get the software I need to view it." And I summarily forgot about it because I am not the best one to remember things. (This is why I have a desktop calendar that I write notes in and set up alarms with irritating noises for important dates.)

This was, oh, a couple weeks ago. Since then my computer has been really sluggish and the internet connection to my computer drops on a fairly regular basis. The router (D-Link: surprise, surprise!) and the modem themselves were perfectly fine, so I knew it wasn't a problem with them: time for PCPitstop.

Lo and behold, it tells me I've got some weird Bonjour/mDNSResponder.exe program installed and running on my computer which I seriously don't remember installing. "Hmm, curious!" So I follow their google link and end up at this thread, which with each post makes me more and more disgusted. I uninstalled iTunes finally (should have made a note on my calendar), and now it doesn't seem I'm having any problems at all. Quite interesting, really. And quite disgusting.

What I'd like to know is why QuickTime is now bundled with iTunes, which I in no way, shape, or form want on my computer. In order to get QuickTime updates, I have to install the bundle, then go and uninstall iTunes every single time, which makes no sense! It's irritating me to the point that I'm about ready to go looking for another service that can play .mov files without interfering with what programs I want on my computer.

At least give me the OPTION to install iTunes (OR NOT!) when I'm installing the bundle - but noooo! "OK, halfway done installing QuickTime, install iTunes! OK, done installing iTunes, time to finish installing QuickTime!"

My computer and I do not require iTunes to function. In fact, my computer is old enough (read: Pentium II) that installing iTunes is almost a BAD thing, as it can barely function if I try to run iTunes! Seriously, enough already with the bundling, especially of software that don't really have much to do with each other.

Reply from fruitbane on Oct 27, 2005 - 07:03 PM

OK, to answer some of your questions here... Where to start...

Quicktime is packaged with iTunes because much of the functionality in iTunes relies on some components of Quicktime. Apple's AAC codec is a part of Quicktime, as is every other music codec iTunes supports. Apple found it easier to design iTunes to rely on Quicktime for some of its functionality than to design it as a separate, stand-alone application.

This makes sense for Apple because they originally designed iTunes on the Mac, and Quicktime is essentially built in to OS X in much the same way Windows Media is built into Windows. In designing a Windows version of iTunes they probably found it made more sense, in more recent versions of iTunes, to keep the Quicktime dependency. It means more users have Quicktime on their computers, thus better market placement among computer users of Quicktime for companies who want to distribute Quicktime content.

As for mDNS responder and Bonjour... I have a Windows computer at home behind an SMC router and I have had no problems with it at all. It's installed with iTunes to allow iTunes to share the music library and to allow it to work with the Airport Express. Since music sharing is a core component of iTunes and Bonjour is an Apple-suppored (and largely designed) standard Bonjour must be installed for iTunes to have full functionality.

So, why does iTunes install Bonjour? Because it needs it for full functionality. Why does iTunes bundle Quicktime? Because it needs that multimedia foundation to play and encode music. Why does iTunes install the GearSec service? So it can burn CDs. Why doesn't Apple ship a stripped down version of iTunes to stop all the whining in this forum? Well, look how well the iPod sells... Look how many people use iTunes who don't even have an iPod... Clearly, they don't have to ship a stripped-down version. And as all the additional software is required for full functionality and is designed by the same company, they don't have to notify you that they are installing it. It's essentially part of the program.

Besides, Apple tends to be good about staying on top of bugs. Have a little patience and Apple may release newer versions of iTunes that fix the Bonjour problem.

Also keep in mind that the mDNS responder problems might not actually be the responder's fault. Maybe some aspect of your network is poorly configured. Maybe D-link tried to incorporate some kind of zero-conf (on which Bonjour is based) or mDNS functionality into the routers you have but didn't properly or fully support the spec.

So, in summary, all this crap is key to iTunes functionality and is essentially required for the program to work. While things going wrong are indeed frustrating, most users of these softwares haven't had these problems and thus, the problems are uncommon and,often, isolated. Additionally, the problem isn't always the new "element" behaving badly and is sometimes a bad interaction where the introduction of the new "element" might trigger bad behavior on the part of something else.

Now, if you are all done complaining, nobody is forcing you to use any of this software. No program is perfect. They all have bugs. Find the combination of problems you dislike the least and use whatever software matches. And instead of just crying about it, send polite, well-thought, and well-constructed emails to the companies that develop these softwares and maybe, just maybe, someone will read them and decide you've hit on something that needs to be changed.

In the meantime, stop trying to call software that installs external components because it relies on them spyware just because you don't like it. It's a mis-stating the facts and only confuses the less clueful people in the forum.

Reply from Conficio on Nov 04, 2005 - 11:44 AM

bozo :

If using Windows XP... start -> run -> type 'cmd' to bring up a command prompt type 'sc stop "Bonjour Service"' (include the double quotes but not the single ones!) type 'sc delete "Bonjour Service"' Job done. (sc.exe is microsoft-supplied tool for configuring services)

Thanks for your insight. This works and is really helpful

K<o>

Reply from Conficio on Nov 04, 2005 - 11:48 AM

Hi all,
just to add to the various experiences.

I caught "bonjour Service" by upgrading Gizmo. And it always crashed, when I locked into a VPN using Cisco's VPN client 4.0.1.

All these problems indicate to me that apple put out a very untested piece of software.

K<o>

Reply from Conficio on Nov 04, 2005 - 12:02 PM

Dear friends at Gizmo,
as a gizmo user, I'd like you to remove "Bonjour Service" from the project. Here are my reasons:

• It is crappy software as documented in this thread, crashing local networks and routers, crashing itself at start of some VPN connection, etc.
  
• It has certain characteristics of Malware as it is hard to stop, uninstall.
  
• It is not needed what so ever. To discover that two users are on a local network, all you have to do is to look at their IP addresses and to look at the network mask. Then you can build your 'superior voice quality connection'.
  
• I don't want an auto-discovery and auto-configuration service for all Gizmo users on my local network.
  
  
  • I do not want to be announced to anybody surfing with me in the same hot-spot.
    
  • I do not want to be announced to my neighbors on the same ISP
    
  • I do not want to be announced to my colleagues on the corporate network
    
  • I do not want to be announced to the people on the customer network I connect to
    
  • I do not want to be announced to anybody, period.
    
  
  

I hope I made it clear that this kind of auto-discovery is a bad idea for a personal communication device. It seems to me the "cool"-factor prevailed over common sense when you made this decision.

Please remove "Bonjour Service"!

At the very least

• Provide a version of "Bonjour Service" that does not crash in VPN's, does not crash local Networks, etc.
  
• AND
  
• make the function optional, so one can enable/disable it in Gizmo

Kind regards

K<o>

Reply from BDProductions on Nov 02, 2006 - 06:21 AM

Since nobody has mentioned it....

Those who JUST want to play their .MOV files...

Google for "quicktime alternative"

Download it, enjoy, and that will solve your troubles.

No Crapple.

Honestly, Next time you are buying a camera for still and video use.. look for one that does Mpeg/MPG or DivX or a DV cam that takes stills as jpeg...

Spending a small amount of time researching products you buy/use pays off in the long run.

I only came here after receiving a computer for repair, where the customer installed bonjour, apparently as a DirecPC satellite internet setup... Yes, it messes up internet access... strange for something used to setup the DirecPC interface box/PC connection....

The customer was maddened that he could not install Kodak's newest EasyShare 6.0 software (it's a web install) on his machine. We got the call... fixed his problems... found this site.

I hope someone else can benefit from Quicktime Alternative as much as I have these past years.

Good Luck All,
BDProductions

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