It’s been a while since I last downloaded anaconda. But I remember when clicking on the download page, it would show the usual “choose your OS > download binary” (eg this archived version in 2019).

Recently I helped someone else set it up and it showed a form to put on email, with smaller gray text near the bottom of the form about skipping it.

Does this count as a dark pattern?

  • Max-P
    202·
    3 months ago

    Yes and also not sure why you’d use Anaconda. What’s wrong with plain regular Python?

    • inspxtrOP
      180·
      3 months ago

      thanks for confirming my suspicion. as for your question, conda in general is good for installing non-python binaries when needed, and managing env. I don’t use anaconda but it provides a good enough interface for beginners and folks without much coding experience. It’s usually the easiest to use that than other variants for them, or the python route of setting up environments

    • bionicjoey
      50·
      3 months ago

      Conda package manager is like pip on steroids. It’s great for science, especially when working on Linux servers where you don’t have root

      • ftbd
        30·
        3 months ago

        What’s the benefit over pip in a venv?

        • moonpiedumplings
          30·
          3 months ago

          Pip in a venv doesn’t get you non python tools.

          Conda also has venvs, for seperate environments for stuff as well.

        • bionicjoey
          20·
          3 months ago

          Conda environments can encapsulate more than just Python packages, it brings the pip/venv model to the ecosystems of many languages (R, Go, etc.), and does so at the user level rather than in a folder for one project. The other Anaconda stuff is pretty useless IMO, but Conda is exceptionally useful. Although I would echo what the other commentor said that the mambaforge version is even better than vanilla miniconda