I would hesitate to blame the developers of the software for piggybacking software onto an installer.  That's a marketing descision.

It's surprising to me that in the year 2006 some of the largest software companies around have still not gotten the message.  If Microsoft were still doing this they would have their asses pinned to the ground in 3000 courtrooms across the planet.

No I do not want Yahoo Searchbar, iTunes, or what-have-you.  If you are a software company and provide a free utility find a profitable business model that does not require you to covertly load my machine with stuff I don't want.