Apple won’t tell you what your best friends know: Uninstall QuickTime for Windows NOW!

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Yeah, I like to take jabs at Microsoft – but this is just unbelievable. InfoWorld Woody on Windows UPDATE: Adobe is trying to extricate itself from th
[See the full post at: Apple won’t tell you what your best friends know: Uninstall QuickTime for Windows NOW!]

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Isn’t this the case with Safari for Windows? Apple apparently discontinues the product, does not provide any updates but still has what is likely the final version on the web site and leaves everyone guessing about future intentions.
Related to QuickTime, it just happens that few days ago I had it uninstalled as part of an Apple software cleanup following a failed upgrade of iTunes. After uninstalling everything Apple, I installed new version of iTunes only to realise that QuickTime was missing. After doing some research, it appeared that there are components of QuickTime which are now installed by iTunes, but it is still preferable to have the QuickTime full version installed to avoid other possible problems.
I understand that QuickTime is now on the way out and potentially insecure, however is it certain that uninstalling QuickTime would not affect iTunes, still needed for those of us who have Apple devices as it is the only supported method for iDevices management.

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Yes, I’ve been assured by numerous posts that uninstalling QuickTime will not crater the current version of iTunes.

All iDevices I have nowadays can support themselves – no tethering required, although sometimes it’s faster to tether and run iCloud.

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And Apple cares about their customer’s security !!! just ask Tim Cook.

Apple is the least transparent of all the big tech companies. The Isheep will not flinch and Apple are well aware of that. BUA.

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I uninstalled QuickTime and all of the other crapola that Apple installed with it some time ago. VLC does everything I need.

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Here, here.

Some people think they need iTunes to control their iPhones and iPads. I don’t believe that’s true any more – at least I’ve managed to run iTunes and iPads for years without tethering to a PC. It’s possible they’re trying to do something I haven’t….

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I’m doing this from memory, but don’t some versions of Photoshop (CS5, for instance, which I have) install QuickTime as part of the installation process?

I have QuickTime on one of two Win7 computers and I think it was Photoshop that put it there.

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There is also an open source version (or three or more of them) of QuickTime. It shows up with Linux apps quite frequently under Ubuntu. The open source community is determined to support and continue to develop this version of QuickTime for the foreseeable future. This is not the Apple product, mind you.

iTunes and the QuickTime Player do not run natively under Linux, last I checked.

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I have never liked ITunes. Too much bloat. There are alternatives that work pretty well. I have been using CopyTransManager for years.

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iTunes on the PC and tethering iPhones/iPads with a USB cable backups up the iDevices quite effectively.
However ensure that you uninstall the Bonjour program from the PC (auto-installs alongside iTunes) to avoid filling up your EventViewer administrative log with an Event 100 error every second into perpetuity. Have not found any adverse impact from uninstalling Bonjour.

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Thanks Woody. I will uninstall QuickTime again then. Not a fan of it anyway, although it used to be needed in Firefox to play mp3 and other music formats embedded in web pages.

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Transferring music still “needs” iTunes even for the latest devices, although there are other ways too. Especially for someone who still owns a very good iPod mini Gen 5.

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I use Media Monkey, and I think it can be used for iPods, etc. I hate iTunes!

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QuickTime is certainly not currently installed by iTunes, however there is a lot of other Apple software installed, like Bonjour, Apple Software Updater and some services. The additional software can be uninstalled from Programs and Features, however from past experience uninstalling the extra software always creates side-effects and even if it is only bloat, it is better left alone.
This may be the case with other Apple software, like Photoshop installing QuickTime in this case. Probably not dangerous if not used, something like what many people say about IE.

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I know well those errors for which it seems to be no solution at the moment. I tried uninstalling Bonjour in the past and while I don’t remember if there was any particular negative side-effect with uninstalling it, I know it will come back with the next iTunes update. And it gets annoying to keep uninstalling it every few weeks.

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There is also QuickTime Alternative, however it is just a clone and it is only there for those “hating” the full version of QuickTime, or maybe the perceived bloat of QuickTime, instead of using only the codecs.

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Foobar2000 is worth a look too.

With the help of a couple of Foobar tutorials on YouTube and http://wiki.yuo.be/dop:start
I recently ditched ALL the iTunes gubbins and I haven’t looked back.

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Uninstalled Quicktime yesterday, so far today, no adverse effects. And that is good, the no adverse effects part.

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Does anyone know if Premiere has ditched it yet?

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One of the lower profile competing software with Premiere which is called TMPGEnc Express (older version 4.x) is warning at launch that QuickTime is missing in the sense of missing codecs for video conversion. However it allows to proceed and works correctly without QuickTime for everything else. Premiere might behave in the same way. Here QuickTime Alternative or QT Lite might offer a solution, but also might have the same security holes like the full product. At the end of the day it is a matter of balancing security with functionality needs and if deciding in favour of more or full functionality for products relying on QuickTime, then extra care needs to be taken in the use of the less secure product.

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Foobar is worth having a look being a very good and light product. I used it for other purposes, not for managing iPhone or iPod though. I have no experience at all with Media Monkey, however I read a lot about it and I know there are hot debates in favour of against this product. It is worth giving a try at some stage. The old Winamp has its own solution as well, likely obsolete now.
The issue here is not only about managing music, but also encoding. If using the mp4 format, nothing beats in quality the iTunes encoder based on Dolby technology. For mp3 encoding, for sure there are other good or most people would say better alternatives like LAME.

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Quicktime, that’s So 1995. Nobody that don’t have a Mac don’t use it anymore

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Not so. I’ve read from several people who edit videos that they need it.. Heaven help them!

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Does VLC can be a replacement ?

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VLC is a good replacement for anything…

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VLC is a very good player replacement. However for video editing as in the earlier reply, it may not be enough.

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Unfortunately my very old but still reliable digital camera’s videos are .mov files so I purchased the full version of QuickTime many years ago specifically for viewing my own videos. Nothing MS provided in either XP or Win 7 will play .mov files.

I have disabled the QuickTime add-in for the web browsers, can anybody tell me if there’s any specific reason for me to be concerned about still having it installed?

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The two vulnerabilities listed by TPI concern malicious video files. If you’re only playing video files that you’ve created, I’d say there’s an extremely low chance of any problems.

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Just bear in mind that by default VLC installs a QuickTime plugin: libquicktime_plugin.dll.

If you have VLC installed, check the “C:Program FilesVideoLANVLCpluginscodec” folder.

Photoshop CS2 also installs a QuickTime plugin – QuickTime.apl – into the “C:Program Files (x86)AdobeAdobe Photoshop CS2Plug-InsAdobe ImageReady OnlyFile Formats” folder.

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I can research this again, but last I knew, the codec is not the source of the problem with QuickTime security. It’s things in the Player for Windows.

Under MacOS, iOS or Linux, the codec itself seems not to pose a security risk. VLC Player uses what I believe is the open source codec, and as I posted earlier, the Linux community maintains OpenSource QuickTime on their own, independently of Apple.

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I mentioned earlier that software TMPGEnc Express which is relatively popular among home users due to quality and low price compared to Premiere. After uninstalling QuickTime with VLC still installed, that software still complains about missing the QuickTime codecs, although as I said before it still fully works except for the functionality brought by the missing codecs. I think this is related to .mov files only, which I have rarely if ever used.
However it does not use the VLC codecs automatically if QuickTime is missing. The VLC codecs may be useful when playing .mov files but not so useful when encoding and some people may still need those particular files. Don’t ask me why but this is the reality and it has nothing to do with technical considerations.

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Although QuickTime Alternative (and QuickTime Lite) have also been discontinued more than 5 years ago and has not been receiving updates since then.

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Thanks, I was not aware of them being discontinued. It shows how long ago has been since I used those unofficial replacements 🙂

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Sadly, when you have an ancient iPod just for podcasting and your own music collection, you need the computer to get the music onto it (lord knows they make it hard enough to get stuff you didn’t purchase from them on there).

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Regarding Adobe products, this just in:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3058312/security/adobe-on-quicktime-youre-up-the-creek-without-a-paddle.html

Adobe is pleading that they didn’t know this was coming, and that they are completely helpless to secure their desktop and Cloud products for Windows users. there is no fix coming any time soon for these products.

Read the article for business reactions.

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