Yahoo Widget Engine 3.0 was released , a.k.a. Konfabulator 3.0.
I was quite disappointed when Yahoo! renamed Konfabulator to “Widget Engine”. I prefer the old name because it’s very original. When Yahoo bought Konfabulator I didn’t see this coming. I really thought they would preserve the name.
Seven (7) out of the 20 widgets that ship with YWE 3.0 are new Yahoo! Widgets namely Yahoo! Mail Checker, Yahoo! Maps, Yahoo! Notepad, Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Stock Ticker, and Yahoo! Weather widgets. Basically, all new default widgets have Yahoo! branding in it and it irritates me quite a bit that the good old Konfabulator days are over. I just don’t like too much Yahoo! in my desktop. I don’t like too much branding until the very widget I run.
When you run widgets made by other users, you’ll get this prompt: You are about to run <name of the widget> for the first time. This widget was not created by Yahoo! Inc, or a trusted partner, so we want to make sure you’re okay running it. That could mean two things: Yahoo! is concerned about your privacy and security or Yahoo! only recommends their Yahoo widgets. Previous versions of Konfabulator does not have this kind of bias against independent widget developers.
I also don’t understand why the default installer is a web installer — which means you have to download something in order to get it installed. The old Konfabulator does not require any download to install it anyway. YWE 3.0 also includes optional installation of Yahoo! Central. If you don’t pay attention when installing YWE you might accidentally install it. Some users reported that it installed automatically Yahoo! Messenger in their machine although I have not confirmed this yet. Beware that most old Konfabulator users were outraged when YWE 3.0 installer from Yahoo! wiped out all old widgets and configurations they have made. So if you are currently using Konfabulator 2.x, you need to backup your widgets if you don’t want to download them all once again. Too bad Yahoo! didn’t warn Konfabulator users about this.
In my opinion, Yahoo Widget Engine 3.0 is a lame upgrade. It messes a lot of things in your old preferences. There’s nothing new to look forward except better integration to Yahoo ID accounts… and that’s about it. Too bad if you’re not using any Yahoo! service. If you’re currently using Konfabulator 2.x and you don’t want to mess anything on your current setup, don’t install this yet. Wait until Yahoo makes a better upgrader from Konfabulator 2.x to YWE 3.0 or don’t install this at all.
Links: www.konfabulator.com (redirects to http://widgets.yahoo.com)
Technorati Tags: Konfabulator, widget, Yahoo
December 14th, 2005 at 12:38 am
“That could mean two things: Yahoo! is concerned about your privacy and security or Yahoo! only recommends their Yahoo widgets.”
It’s definitely about security. Yahoo wants to make sure that “unknown” widgets can’t run without a user’s knowledge or consent. It’s a measure against potentially harmful widgets (there haven’t been any, but it’s better to be prepared).
December 14th, 2005 at 12:46 am
Perhaps there should be a better way, like a signature embedded in the widgets so that every widget that is officially recognized by Yahoo will be automatically recognize as harmless. Yahoo’s warning is a bit off-putting.