Dear SunnComm.
Dear SunnComm,
Please be so kind as to jump off a cliff. Yes, any cliff will do.
Too harsh? I don’t think so. When I first put my new Imogen Heap CD in my computer, I read and declined your EULA. But guess what? You installed files anyways. That’s right, I declined your request to install files and you did it anyways. I don’t know what they do, and I don’t care. You weren’t invited.
How about this? I’ll bring some boxes of old magazines over to your house and ask if I can store them under your bed. You’ll say no, and instead of leaving peacefully I’ll sneak them in your bedroom window later that night while you’re sleeping. Sure, you might find some of them one day, but I’ll make sure to hide them in places I know you’ll never look. I’ll find a nook or a cranny where they can just fill up space and clutter your room. And, just for kicks, I’ll hide a tiny camera somewhere so — you know — I can make sure you’re not using my magazines in ways I feel are inappropriate.
It’s not so much the nature or operations of the files you installed that bother me. For all I know, they’ll give me random stock tips or generate winning lotto numbers. Maybe they’ll do nothing, and maybe one day they’ll rise up and overthrow the Kingdom of XP. How should I know? All I do know is I said “No beans, please,” and you flung a plate of beans onto my shoes. Classy.
Since your product is designed to lock out anyone who declines your EULA, I hesitantly decided to accept it, allowing you to install God knows what onto my computer. Once it became clear that ripping my music to mp3s in iTunes was going to end up being some song and dance where I rip to Windows Media Player, burn to CD, re-rip to iTunes blah blah blah, I decided to just junk the whole project and uninstall your software.
But your software is conveniently not located in Windows’ Add/Remove Programs list. I had to dig around to find references to SunnComm on my machine. I searched in C:\Program Files\Common Files\ and deleted the “SunnComm Shared” folder. A quick Google search pulled up this article which revealed that you also installed a sneakily obscure file in my C:\windows\system32\drivers\ folder called “sbcphid.sys.” Oh, you clever devils! This is the file you use to monitor my CD’s activity over the internet? Well, say goodbye to “sbcphid.sys!”*
In conclusion, thank you for your inept CD backup software as well. It has failed to create the backup CD I am allowed under the EULA three times now. Thanks for not being compatable with iTunes, and importing fragmented, butchered mp3s into my library. Thanks for making this so hard. Thanks for making it more difficult for the honest majority of customers to get the most out of their music purchases. Thanks for taking the joy out of a new music experience, you heartless savages.
Rusty Nails and Razor Blades,
Jaredigital
*Note to readers following along: you will need to empty your Recycle Bin and shut down (power off) your computer to shut down the sbcphid.sys file. I have not yet discovered how to totally remove the driver.
