Read the article regarding 'Morpheus/Kazaa' and wondered about the security of
Audio Galaxy. (Apparently not secure; as it did include spyware by VX2 Corporation)
Wired.Com article on Spyware
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Read the article regarding 'Morpheus/Kazaa' and wondered about the security of
Audio Galaxy. (Apparently not secure; as it did include spyware by VX2 Corporation)
Wired.Com article on Spyware
:( Welcome to reality, many of those freeware-pograms (e.g. Napigator, BearShare etc. as well as ReGet, Download Accelerator, GoZilla and so on) contain "phone.home"-functions. With a good firewall you can stop many of them from doing it.
get ad aware
it tells you about spyware hidden in cookies, registry on on the drive, good stuff.
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
hmm well that is really depressing.. i guess it is true when they say "nothing is for free" they always have a price.. oh well.. alteast we're glad thats out in the open.. I think its the Anti-Virus companie's job to detec such spywares..
I've been using Audiogalaxy for the past 6 or 7 months now, paying the 6 bucks a month or whatever it is for the gold account and I've never had anything spike with Ad Aware (which I also bought, the 5.62+ version). Ad Aware is great (there's a new reference file btw, go get it here ).
A lot of these 'freebies' (as stated before) contain nice little surprises, whether it's spyware or 'phone home' abilities or something else. This is one main reason why I don't use them at all, not even to install and see what the interface is like. Burying keys in the registry or whatnot isn't my idea of a good time. Hence, why I have/use a licensed copy of Registry Healer (better than regclean as it looks at invalid directories/installs).
Short list of definite 'must-haves' for Windows:
1: a good antivirus that suits your needs (I recommend Titanium Panda)
2: Registry Healer for cleaning your registry
3: AdAware 5.62+ (or latest) for spyware checking
4: a good firewall that suits your needs (Zone Alarm pro is my recommendation)
5: a good program that cleans up your disks/cache like Norton Utilities (as well as a plethora of other goodies that help performance)
All of these will help performance, but we all know what that means in Windows. Windows crashing is inevitable. It's like death, it *will* come.
in addition to ad-aware which vorlin reccomended(spelling) BHO COP is another excellent tool for removing spyware.
BHO: browser helper objects...which is what spyware is......and if they are poorly written( like in IMESH) they can cause your browser to crash.
i have never seen or heard anything about a gold account from audiogalaxy. They specifically mention in the FAQ that the entire service is absolutely free.
AudioGalaxy Gold
Looks like the offer a free service, and a pay service....
The pay service offers extra features, such as faster dedicated servers...
You can read more about the Gold Accounts, here