this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2024
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(In Windows) If you uninstall a program using the "uninstall.exe" provided, you can tick an option to wipe all the data.
This is also available from the Control Panel's "Uninstall programs" page. The "uninstall" button usually launches the "uninstall.exe" provided by the app's devs.
I've never had this issue on Windows before
That is at the discretion of the developer who packaged it up. Linux is designed to NOT do such things by default, and is therefore more resilient to "oopsie" moves.
Yeah It's more reliable in that way.
Still, I wish there was a something like a simple flag for the package manager so I could control if user data gets preserved.
I'm a bit surprised that that isn't a feature.
You'd be surprised maybe how many developers don't properly remove all files they put on your computer. Adobe is notorious for this.
Package management isn't intentionally separated from running code operations for a reason. If you want to do something specific like this regularly though, just write a simple two like script that handles it for you: 1) uninstall 2) rm directories.
Yeah, if the dev provided an uninstaller, if that uninstaller really does clean everywhere, and if control panel finds and executes that uninstaller – which in my experience it very often doesn't.
To me the Flatpak way is better. But yeah, maybe system packages not doing it can be annoying sometimes. I just take issue with you saying it's not an issue on Windows when it absolutely is, and is IMO worse there.
Here's an example. I removed avast via the uninstaller on a relatives computer, it made it laggy as hell. I restart after as the uninstaller demands, but it was still there.
Searching, I find this official support option. https://support.avast.com/en-us/article/10
The official Avast Uninstall Tool, the tool to use when the included uninstaller didn't work.
The official uninstall tool didn't work either. I ran it in safe mode, like it said. Didn't work, either, but it removed some stuff, and finally let me delete some things manually. Ran it again in safe mode after that, finally seems to have removed everything.
Anyway it's a great example of if a company doesn't know what they're about, windows has no process to recover from that. Window's process is identical to a Walmart employee saying. "I dunno, man, contact the manufacturer." Genuinely, its usually enough, but when its not, there's absolutely no recourse.
I know this isn't the point but avast is more or less malware itself these days. The bundled windows defender + the free (not always running) version of malwarebytes is a good enough solution for almost everyone.
Completely agree.
The only reason the relative had it at all was because of those old fears. As soon as I learned that they had it bundled with the computer (hate that. Malware's gotta get in somewhere though I guess), I knew why it was being slow.
I hold this up as an example because even their own troubleshooting website and a program dedicated to the purpose above and beyond the usual uninstaller couldn't do it though. Avast doesn't even know its own malware.
Also this nonsense got me the chance to put mint on their computer, but the "switch to Linux" argument isn't constructive in this particular spot. They didn't end up sticking to it because a required-for-school piece of software for tests just doesn't do Linux at all. Couldn't get it to run in wine or even a virtual machine either, and they're not great at the whole computer thing so I didn't wanna be tech support for dual booting.
In the last I had very little success rate of those uninstall tools to actually do their job in full. A lot of time they delete some data but almost always they leave some trash behind.
And in the first place, I stopped trusting those external uninstall binaries, they could be designed to remove not only app data but remove your personal data, steal data from your PC or infect it (even if just to investigate why you are uninstalling).