(Blog)

My first inclination upon seeing a process whose description is ##Id_String2.6844F930_1628_4223_B5CC_5BB94B879762## in my list of currently running processes is to think it’s some kind of virus, spyware, or some other malevolent piece of garbage. My first inclination would be wrong.

Bonjour

A quick Google search found that it’s part of Apple’s Bonjour service, which gets arbitrarily installed with iTunes, and apparently anything from Adobe these days. Bonjour is basically Apple’s version of zero configuration networking, and the service behind the ability of iTunes users to broadcast and share their playlists. That’s fine and all, but what is it doing on my PC?

After all, Windows already uses its own implementation of Zeroconf, so what’s the use of having a second? I don’t see Microsoft unloading a bunch of Windows services onto unsuspecting Mac users every time they install third-party software that has nothing to do with Microsoft. Thus, I don’t expect to find Apple’s services bundled with third-party software either.

Of course, I’m not especially surprised. These are the same people who pushed Safari on unsuspecting Windows iTunes users a few months back. At any rate, it was not an ordeal to simply right-click the offending process, stop it, and set it to “disabled”. Perhaps I’ll re-enable it the next time I actually need Bonjour (read: never).