Proprietary Interference

Nonfree (proprietary) software is very often malware (designed to mistreat the user). Nonfree software is controlled by its developers, which puts them in a position of power over the users; that is the basic injustice. The developers often exercise that power to the detriment of the users they ought to serve.

This page describes how various proprietary programs harass or annoy the user, or cause trouble for the user. These actions are like sabotage but the word “sabotage” is too strong for them.

If you know of an example that ought to be in this page but isn't here, please write to <[email protected]> to inform us. Please include the URL of a trustworthy reference or two to serve as specific substantiation.

Google is modifying Chromium so that extensions won't be able to alter or block whatever the page contains. Users could conceivably reverse the change in a fork of Chromium, but surely Chrome (nonfree) will have the same change, and users can't fix it there.
Samsung phones come preloaded with a version of the Facebook app that can't be deleted. Facebook claims this is a stub which doesn't do anything, but we have to take their word for it, and there is the permanent risk that the app will be activated by an automatic update.

Preloading crapware along with a nonfree operating system is common practice, but by making the crapware undeletable, Facebook and Samsung (among others) are going one step further in their hijacking of users' devices.
One version of Windows 10 harangues users if they try to install Firefox (or Chrome).
A nonfree video game, available through the nonfree Steam client, included a “miner”, i.e. an executable that hijacks the CPU in users' computers to mine a cryptocurrency.
A cracker used an exploit in outdated software to inject a “miner” in web pages served to visitors. This type of malware hijacks the computer's processor to mine a cryptocurrency. (Note that the article refers to the infected software as “content management system”. A better term would be “website revision system”.)

Since the miner was a nonfree JavaScript program, visitors wouldn't have been affected if they had used LibreJS. Some browser extensions that specifically block JavaScript miners are also available.
Pearson's proprietary educational software did an experiment on real students, treating students differently to observe the results.
Microsoft is planning to make Windows impose use of its browser, Edge, in certain circumstances.

The reason Microsoft can force things on users is that Windows is nonfree.
Learn how gratis-to-play-and-not-win-much games manipulate their useds psychologically.

These manipulative behaviors are malicious functionalities, and they are possible because the game is proprietary. If it were free, people could publish a non-manipulative version and play that instead.
Windows displays intrusive ads for Microsoft products and its partners' products.

The article's author starts from the premise that Microsoft has a right to control what Windows does to users, as long as it doesn't go “too far”. We disagree.
An upgrade package for Acrobat Reader silently alters Chrome.
The Microsoft Telemetry Compatibility service drastically reduces the performances of machines running Windows 10, and can't be disabled easily.
After forcing the download of Windows 10 on computers that were running Windows 7 and 8, Microsoft repeatedly switched on a flag that urged users to “upgrade” to Windows 10 when they had turned it off, in the hope that some day they would fail to say no. To do this, Microsoft used malware techniques.

A detailed analysis of Microsoft's scheme is available on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's website.
Microsoft has made companies' Windows machines managed by the company's sysadmins harangue users to complain to the sysadmins about not “upgrading” to Windows 10.
Microsoft has desupported all future Intel CPUs for Windows 7 and 8. Those machines will be stuck with the nastier Windows 10. AMD and Qualcomm CPUs, too.

Of course, Windows 7 and 8 are unethical too, because they are proprietary software. But this example of Microsoft's wielding its power demonstrates the power it holds.

Free software developers also stop maintaining old versions of their programs, but this is not unfair to users because the users of free software have control over it. If it is important enough to you, you and other users can hire someone to support the old version on your future platforms.
Adobe nonfree software may halt all other work and freeze a computer to perform a license check, at a random time every 30 days.
Oracle made a deal with Yahoo; Oracle's nonfree Java plug-in will change the user's initial web page, and default search engine, to Yahoo unless the user intervenes to stop it.