Spyware

[Negative]

Here's a (limited) list of known spyware containing software titles:

Go!Zilla download accelerator: Radius
CuteFTP: Everad
BearShare: Savenow
Audio Galaxy: Webhancer
iMesh: Conducent/Timesink
KaZaA: Cydoor (Kazaa won't even work without Cydoor installed) - Webhancer (install is optional, but is installed anyways) - OnFlow, EZula, News.net.
MS Windows 95: the registration wizard sends an installed software list to Redmond.
MS Windows XP: the registration wizard sends an installed hardware list to Redmond.
NetScape Navigator: Smart Download option makes a list of all downloaded files, and sends it to a central server. The What's Related function also does.

Feel free to ad(d) your own!

And here's a program (Ad-aware) to detect them...

[Dhej]

www.grc.com is another good resource in the fight against spyware.

He has written OptOut which only detects a few different spyware apps, but it is written in assembler and is like 24k or something nuts like that.

He also has "the anatomy of spyware."

Dhej

[petemcevoy]

Afaik Steve Gibson acknowledged the lavasoft program as being superior to his and now just directs people towards thier site for thier spy-ware removal needs.

[rnapro]

I thought I heard something about Real Player sending information on what people were listening to. What data were they collecting?

[Dhej]

Oops!

Thanks Pete, you can tell how outdated my Windows info is. Since I switched to Mac, I don't keep as up-to-date on my Windows info.

Anyway, I am glad Negative brought up the subject. It is something that I used to be really paranoid about, but then I became complacent I guess. What I needed was someone to throw the info in my face again.

Rnapo,
RealMedia admitted that their software sent info about what the user was listening to, bitrates, "diagnostic" info, but they said that it didn't send any info that it could use to trace back to the user. I think someone showed that an ID tag or something was sent back, but I wouldn't quote me on that. They have since given the user the option to disallow data to be sent back. It was a pretty big deal when it happened, I remember uninstalling RealPlayer for about a month until the whole issue was resolved.

Thanks again pete, I always claim that I need an editor, I think this illustrates why.

Dhej

[Dome]

Nitrous Anti Spy isnt bad at all Nitrous Online

Dhej, i havent used mac in forver, how is it? do you run into alot of problems w. programs that dont work on mac??
i like macs as far as their resources and everything but there isnt as much developed for it as Windows or *nix.

Anyway, some of you should check out Nitrous Anti Spy

[Stonefield2000]

I agree with with above poster, Lavasoft's Ad-aware program is a must have for anyone connected to the internet.

[knightmb]

Comet Cursor is spyware.

I mean, you can change the mouse cursor in control panel, why do people think this program does it in a different way? Anyway, my girlfriend uses this, even though I told her it was spyware. After showing her how to change it through control panel, I secretly "uninstalled" and deleted the comet cursor crap

[smellkid]

I had so much trouble with spyware **** a few weeks ago. I had all possible file sharing programs installed before I knew a thing about spyware and then when I went back to the 24/7 connection to the internet at school, i was getting like 100 popup ads a day. It was terrible. I finally found this program on CNeT that wouldn't let any browser open unless you were holding CTRL or SHIFT. It was a pain in the ass, but less so than dealing with all those popups, which would constantly drop me out of Half Life

I have since installed WinXP and it seems to have gotten rid of just about everything. Right now I have AdSubstract running just in case. Oh god how I hate spyware. There needs to be some kind of laws against that ****.

[Stonefield2000]

I had a spyware program that would drop my fps playing online games down to 4, normally 100 to 120 fps. Imagine how pissed I was when I found that one, I believe it installed with one of the file sharing programs and started causeing problems when I tried disableing it. I since switched to Morpheous (no spyware) for my file sharing needs and scan frequently for spyware, been cool since.

I am a Systems Analyst and do desktop support and it still took a long time to remove it, I can't image what the out of the box computer user would do in this instance. That could cost a lot of money in support and repair charges. I don't know where they get off thinking that our pcs are some kind of public domain for their sales people to run their spy programs to see what we are doing.