Shame on Viewpoint!

I still haven't heard back from Nova Scotia Historical Vital Statistics website re incorrect images being linked to their searchable index, but it's only been 5 days since I reported the problems.

However I want to warn everyone about the Image Viewer you must download and use to view the images of the records. It's Viewpoint Media Player and you must install it to see the online images. I installed it on Tuesday when I first went to the site. It works great, that's not a problem. BUT two days later, I turned on my computer and a popup window informed me that Viewpoint had an "update" and asked if I wanted to install it. I thought the update would result in even clearer images so I clicked on OKAY.

Imagine my surprise a few minutes later to be informed that Viewpoint TASKBAR was now installed on my browser. I didn't want their Taskbar, I use the Google Taskbar. I had refused it once already. But here it was and I was also sitting on the Viewpoint home page (not my choice).

I tried opening a second browser window but it flashed on my monitor and closed. I tried going to another website and could not. The so-called "update" was nothing more than a sneaky way to get me to take the Viewpoint Taskbar.

I was annoyed but immediately went to my Windows Add/Remove Programs icon, found Viewpoint and removed it. Gone. Next surprise -- I opened a second browser window and the Viewpoint Taskbar was back! I went back to Add/remove -- the Viewpoint files were back. I removed them again. The same thing happened. This went on several times until I was finally able to remove the unwanted Viewpoint Taskbar permanently.

I wasted a lot of time getting rid of something I didn't want in the first place. And to the skeptics, no, the popup did not advise me that the Taskbar was going to be installed. At no time did I get an opt-in or opt-out choice.

Shame on Viewpoint! That's very underhanded!