[rfalter]

I had downloaded Pandora about two weeks ago, was very impressed with the way it worked and it's clean interface. Plus the choice of music the 'radio stations' selected was much to my liking.

I read a post that Slacker was the 'cat's meow'. So I deleted Pandora and downloaded Slacker. From the start I didn't like the interface, the ads (just more obnoxious than Pandora's), and the general tenor of the program. So I went to Desktop Manager (4.6) to uninstall it, and every time I checked the box to remove the program, the program unchecked it. Seems that there is a delete entry in the menu. So I used that and the program was uninstalled, or so I thought. I use Filescout, and was looking to see if there were any files of pictures I didn't need to free up some space (don't ever delete the 'sample' tones, they are the actual tones. But what I did find were two files left by Slacker, one a reinstall file. So Slacker's uninstall program doesn't really do a clean uninstall.....no wonder they set the program up so that it cannot be uninstalled the standard way through DM just like every program I have ever tried and decided to uninstall.

I suggest you stay away from Slacker, these are not honorable people. If someone has a reason for their methods, plese let me know.

[applejosh]

Um, I just uninstall from the Applications menu in the Advanced Options on the BB. Since it was installed OTA, I uninstalled it from there. I put it back on; I don't have any reason not to use it. Could be that those files were kept there to retain settings and such. I've seen that on other apps, and not because they were "not honorable people," but rather because it was a way to retain info during upgrades and such.

[papped]

"Delete" in DM removes the loader files from your PC...
"Evil" other apps also sometimes leave files behind after uninstall.
The checkbox problem for uninstall is not specific to Slacker. All you have to do is uninstall it on device

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[maxiang]

If these file were on your sdcard its not a reinstall file. Its the program that runs when you connect to your pc to download cached stations. Which is one of the reasons I love slacker, battery saving, no signal no problem caching

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Paulie227]

Yeah Slacker seems to hang around long after the party is over. It in my DM and seems to be ubiquitous with BB. Maybe RIM has a deal with Slacker. It was packaged with the new OS download for my Curve. Anyway, the music was tinny and it took too long to load. I figured I have a IPod, my computer, and various ways to listen to music. Anyway I was on the Blackberry website and heard people praising Pandora. I have tons of apps on my phone and didn't think it would load. The music sounds great. The loading is much faster. And right now I am listening from the web. I don't know how they do it but they actually make your device sound better than it normally does. Slacker is still on my DM but I would pick Pandora over Slacker any day. When it kep popping up I felt like the poster...Who are these evil app makers that are taking over my phone??? Be gone with you! The sound is so clear, I plan on using it as my radio at work. I can only hope I can open it at work before the spyware software shuts me down. Gotten listen to music at work.

[papped]

Whats the deal with a sudden surge of people swearing Slacker and it's software is evil?

Is this some kind of april fool's joke or something? Slacker sounds tinny and Pandora doesn't? That sounds like an ear problem...

[Username00089]

I've had Slacker, Pandora, and now iHeartRadio.

With Slacker, didn't care for it too much anymore and I uninstalled it from my apps list as well as deleted it's cache and whatever traces were left on my memory card.

Pandora, just didn't care for it.

iHeartRadio, just easy to use for me. And uses the sports stations that I like to listen to. Well except one that it doesn't have but I'm hoping that changes in the future.

[rfalter]

"Delete" in DM removes the loader files from your PC...
"Evil" other apps also sometimes leave files behind after uninstall.
The checkbox problem for uninstall is not specific to Slacker. All you have to do is uninstall it on device

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

The program is not and was not installed to my SD card. The program left behind the reinstall app. And please tell me, factually, not BS, what programs don't uninstall from the DM? Give me names so I can try them. And also please let me know what program has the checkbox problem. I'd like the name. Just want to know if what you tell is fact or opinion.

[papped]

You can't install apps to the SD card. What I mean is that it installs a cache utility to the SD card that is used by Slacker to cache stations to the sd card.

Easier for me to have you not believe me than spend the time collecting app names for you.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[snowindec9]

i cant use either slacker or pandora because im currently out of the u.s.
but i have heard so much praise for pandora from many people. i plan on trying it out when i return back to us.

[taddley]

I use them both. I like Pandora's selection of music a little better. Slacker's cache feature is terrific - use it all the time.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Edwina#IM]

I have used both programs on my iPod Touch and like the interface of Pandora better, although I was satisfied with both. I sometimes use Pandora on Opera on my laptop, but not very often.

[digitalb0y]

This thread is ridiculous. Yes, slacker works a little differently than most apps, because it includes an executable program on your SD card for caching. Learn how programs work before putting them on your phone, or at the very least, read about them before getting on public forums and screaming unfounded accusations.

I have put slacker on more than one phone, and have removed it from this one twice with no problem. You remove the app, then the extras on your SD card, and it's gone. As for why you can't use DM to remove it I'm not sure. I noticed the same thing and realized I'd have to remove it from the phone instead. This is a silly oversight but it's not indicative of some kind of plot against you.

What would slacker have to gain by making their software harder to remove? Nothing. There is no virus, there is nothing evil going on here. The exe is not a reinstaller, it's a caching app. It's there to let you cache stations, which is the only feature that makes me seriously miss slacker. Chill out, delete it, and stop spreading panic about a decent app.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[mces0421]

I am using Pandora and Slacker for a almost 6 months now. So far so good, I haven't encountered any problem. Good luck!

[rfalter]

Dear Digital Boy,

It seems that once again you have weighed in as the father figure of crackberry.com. I respect your opinions and knowlege, but let me tell you a thing or two. I am 57 years old, with a masters degree in systems engineering. I have had computers at home since the model 80 from Radio Shack. Was an Apple fanatic from day one. I installed the first car cellular phones when you had to burn the eprom chip and install unit in trunk. I had the Motorola Brick, and probably 20 cell phones since then, and BB's since they came out.
My beef with the site is that newcomers do not read the first four postings on the site, which would answer 95% of their questions. They certainly don't read any manuals, or even fool around with the unit to get the lay of the land. All they keep asking is 'when is new OS coming'. I get sucked into looking at some of these because their titles suggest they may know something, but they don't. I am a fairly proficient computer programmer, and know that when a program such as Slacker leaves an install file on the unit, knowing full well that unless you have a program such as Filescout, you will never know it's there. Dirty pool, they have a reason, otherwise they would do a clean uninstall. They would also use DM to uninstall the program, which is really RIM's protocol, if not law. So to me, Slacker is not a decent app, Pandora is. We were all beginners with these units at one time, I'm all for that, it's the way you learn. But doing a bit of research on your own is smart, just posting anything that passes through a pea brain without even doing a search or reading a google search is immature, and does not lead to a better and smater community of users, it creates dumbells who are lazy. Maybe that's the younger generation, and I pity them for attempting to learn instead of continually asking 'dad'.

So let's call a truce, as I said I truly respect your postings, maybe mine could be a bit softer, and I will make that effort.

Sincerely,

Rich Falter

[synwars]

A little bit paranoid, no? Even Windows programs leave behind files that you have to manually clean up. BBfilescout is awesome for cleaning up junk like that. No harm done.

[papped]

eOffice is another "evil" app where certain components of it won't "uncheck" in DM.

Seriously, this isn't some kind of evil conspiracy...

Also, assuming that "most" people will install and uninstall through DM seems like a stretch. It requires a lot more work and Slacker has OTA install anyways and appworld + any other online site will give you an OTA install not DM. So they could load up DM, uncheck modules and remove them, or just go on their own device and uninstall it from Options.

[championart]

I am using slacker and have no issue with it at all.

[digitalb0y]

My beef with the site is that newcomers do not read the first four postings on the site, which would answer 95% of their questions. They certainly don't read any manuals, or even fool around with the unit to get the lay of the land. All they keep asking is 'when is new OS coming'. I get sucked into looking at some of these because their titles suggest they may know something, but they don't.

I agree, but I don't know what this has to do with me or the topic this thread. Until you mentioned it, I didn't notice that you were the same person who posted in the other thread calling people names. I did not call this thread ridiculous because of some personal beef with you about anything said in another thread. Not searching isn't what cause me to post here, and not searching doesn't apply to anything that's been said in this thread, unless you count your own failure to read about Slacker. If you want to discuss personal issues with me or anything I've said to you, let's take it to PM. For what it's worth, I agree that perhaps we should BOTH make our selves less harsh sometimes, so let me retract my "this is ridiculous" statement above with a more thoughtful, less impassioned explanation of the way Slacker works.

I am a fairly proficient computer programmer, and know that when a program such as Slacker leaves an install file on the unit, knowing full well that unless you have a program such as Filescout, you will never know it's there. Dirty pool, they have a reason, otherwise they would do a clean uninstall.

This is simply not true. I'm not trying to discredit your years of experience, but they are not sneaking this file past the users. The executable is put on your sim card because it's a companion program to Slacker. It runs along side the program WHEN YOU CONNECT YOUR PHONE TO YOUR COMPUTER AND RUN THE CACHING PROGRAM. It is well documented in all of the Slacker literature because they WANT you to know about it. It's a selling feature and is one of the biggest arguments for using Slacker.

What does the executable file do? It downloads content for stations you have chosen to cache, and stores it on your SD card so that you can listen to it later WITHOUT being connected to your data plan. This is very helpful to users who will be traveling in and out of areas with good enough coverage to reliably pull down streaming media, as well as users who are trying to limit the amount of data they use on their phone by letting their computer download the content before they leave the house. Nothing sinister, and nothing that couldn't be learned by reading about Slacker.

As far as I know, there is no way for a BlackBerry program to associate files stored outside of the system memory. This means that no matter how you uninstall Slacker, the executable file for caching will be left on the SD card. Someone who writes BlackBerry apps may correct me if I'm wrong, but removing a BlackBerry app consists of removing the .cod files that make up the program. You do this by deleting it on the phone, or using desktop manager to remove the cod files. There is, to my knowledge, NO WAY to tell DM or the device software to remove other files, such as the caching program that Slacker installs on your SD card or storage. It is not remaining because they are being sinister, it is remaining because there's not an advanced uninstallation program or registry that associates the extra files with the program you are removing. Surely, an experienced programmer such as yourself will understand that there are a couple of limitations to a modular software install/removal approach like the one used by the BlackBerry, and also that an EXE file can't be executed by the BlackBerry to reinstall the software. It's a windows executable, not a .jad or .alx file.

So, when you remove the program, then remove the caching program, Slacker is fully uninstalled. The executable doesn't reinstall Slacker to the device, it downloads content which would be useless after removing the app anyway, and getting rid of the executable is as simple as deleting it. There's no way to remove it by deleting the app, so it's not really their fault that it stays there, and it's not "dirty pool" to include a caching feature that many love and use every day, is it?

They would also use DM to uninstall the program, which is really RIM's protocol, if not law.

Also incorrect. I admit, it was silly for them not to allow the file to be removed by Desktop Manager. There is line in a program's .alx file that says whether the program is "required" or not, and it's in place to keep you from uninstalling something that the device needs to function. This is why apps like the browser have the checkmark filled and greyed out in DM. Removing them makes the phone stop working correctly. Slacker must have overlooked a setting like that little line of code in the .alx file which tells DM that their program is "required." To my knowledge there is no "law" that they broke, though I will grant you that it was a silly oversight. They should have made it possible to remove Slacker through DM. I still don't think it's malicious. I put Slacker on several phones before even noticing this behavior, and I removed the program the same way I always remove software from my BlackBerries: by tracking over the app's icon with my trackball and choosing "Delete" from the menu. It stayed gone on all three phones I removed it from. Nothing suspiciously reinstalled itself. Then I upgraded my OS on my current phone, and did a 3rd party app restore from a backup I had created before I had removed the program from the device. At this point, I noticed what you were talking about: that I couldn't uncheck the box next to Slacker. My solution was to restore it with the other programs and then remove it the way I had done the first time, by deleting it from the device. It's been gone ever since.

I appreciate your sentiments of respect and apologize if I sound condescending or harsh. But you said yourself, a lot of what people ask about would be answered had they bothered to read the stickies. Well, I'm telling you, the non-malicious nature of the files that lingered when you tried to remove Slacker would have been addressed for you had you read about the program before coming here to slander them. I would have probably been less inclined to be as "harsh" if you had asked "What are these files left by Slacker?" (although like yourself, my gut reaction would have been to point you to the search command). I hope this is helpful and doesn't sound personal. I respect your experience, I just think you need to relax and truly examine software before getting upset and telling everyone it's malicious.

[BoldGlory]

Rfalter...
We have a lot in common, though I'm in my early 40s still, I remember programming on an 80, messed with 2Es from Apple but was never a big fan of apple despite the fact that they had SCSI down way before Billy... In fact, I'm sure you remember "brun" and loading things from cassette like I did on my TI-99/4A, and don't get me started on mag tapes/reels. :-)
I'm still a systems engineer and would hope those skills wouldn't be necessary to operate a cell phone but they may come in handy from time to time.
Good posts, glad to see someone here "from the field".