I just installed the Flash 7 player, and was thinking back to my Linux install experiences. I might even have written something nice, but then I noticed my browser windows had vanished. I had obviously been expecting to have to restart the browser after then install finished, but just quitting it without asking me? !@#$%^&*

Now, I can understand the motivation. I’ve done usability testing on software like this, and I know the fewer things the user actually has to think about the better, but even just a warning telling me it would restart the browser would have done.

Let’s think about this though. Why does something install a new version of Flash? Because they went to a website which requires it, which told them they needed to install it perhaps? Now you’ve closed the browser and with it the site I actually wanted in the first place. I’ll go searching through my history for the site, but if you though most users would have trouble with a few extra dialog boxes in the install, how many are going to be able to use their browser history?

Of course, I’m also annoyed at Safari (and every other browser except OmniWeb as I understand it) for not reopening the windows after it was restarted, but perhaps there’s a good reason behind it.

Sigh…oh well, time to go and find them again I guess.