So I was sitting tonight, minding my business using my mac, when all of a sudden a window appears on my screen. It’s an ad for a CorelDraw sale (I’ll attach it here if I can... Looks an awful lot like the ones I see on my PC). Now I know what you are thinking… I was using Corel, I was surfing the web… nope! I had Mac mail open, I was writing in iMessage and not another thing was open and running! Most Mac users would find this peculiar I would think?
When I click it, it does not identify its host program in the title bar, only finder. I cannot resize or change the window in any way… there is only the ability to close it. I move if off to the side of the screen to investigate further. I open and close various programs, still there. I start activity monitor and look for any services running that may contribute to this… nothing jumped out at me, though I'm not sure what I'm looking for.
I figured it was because I had downloaded the Mac demo of CDGS2020. I want it to be great, the Mac version… but it’s never quite been as fully cooked as the PC counterpart, so I continue to use it in a VM. A little miffed at Corels apparent intrusion, I decide I’ll remove the demo from my machine. Wait… I already did? Thats right… my demo expired, and I tossed it in the trash, and emptied it some time ago... maybe a month or more? My PC version resides in a VM on my desktop... not even my laptop!
To be sure however, I did a search and spotlight returned a massive amount of data. My library folder is FULL of Corel files… gigs worth of information, not just a few pesky leftover files. The application is gone, but not the additional data.
So the question that begs to be asked, how was Corel able to serve up advertising to me, for software that was uninstalled from my Mac? I have never had another popup window suddenly appear like this before, offering ads, especially without identifying itself on my Mac. Especially after said software is supposedly removed from the computer? Which… with gigs of leftover data in my library folder, I would hardly consider this “removed”. Did the developers get sloppy?
A moot point, but when I hit the X to close the window finally, it rather awkwardly moved itself to the middle of my screen, and slowly scrolled itself out of site under my taskbar!
Anyone got any explanations? Corel? Care to explain?
And so it continues! Tonight, a funny thing happened… with my CDGS2020 demo STILL uninstalled from my Mac, I got another ad pop up for their Black Friday Sale! Thanks Corel, I had forgotten your unauthorized intrusion of my OS, from yesterday.
And I had a better look at what Corel had leftover for me, once I had uninstalled it.
That’s a lot of my hard drive space you’re taking, after I decided against using your software on my Mac?
Tonight I deleted all of the folders pictured, and emptied my trash. Tune in again tomorrow to see if Corel takes over my Mac again without my permission!
And to Hugh… while I have seen these applications before, I’ve never had to use them, NOR SHOULD I have to use a third party software to completely remove Corel. Look…. let’s be honest… small stray files etc, leftover… hey it happens. Thats nearly 3gb of my HD space, after I decided against having Corel on my computer, that they’ve left behind. I’d argue a large portion of the Mac “population” wouldn’t know about their Library or other system folders, to be able to reclaim that space. And why should they?
Seems rather lazy, and invasive to me! How does this all fit into the privacy policies? How can Corel continue to serve me ads, for whatever they’d like, after I have removed their software?
No less… I have manually deleted these additional files, to recover my stolen hard drive space. Let’s see if I get any more ads tomorrow!