Slashdot Mirror
Gator Will Replace Ads On Sites
Bill Dimm writes "This CNet article says that a new version of Gator, a browser plug-in for managing passwords that also can display pop-up ads for competing products when you visit web sites, is being developed that will launch its own ads over top of the banner ads on the sites you visit. The software achieves wide distribution by bundling (much like TopText) with file-sharing utilities, with over 18 million installations of the current version claimed on their web site."
Also, with IE and Mozilla/Netscape now offering password management, is Gator relevant anymore?
15 million uninstalled it twice, the other 3 million just reformated.
We all hate ads, but remember, the ads you see help pay for the pages you see.
Gator, on the other hand is a complete and total leach. They are selling advertising on other peoples content without compensation.
In my opinion, Gator is a virus. It is attached to the software installations for other products, and it usually installs itself on user's systems without their permission. When you try to remove it, it creates a copy of itself so it is not deleted.
It also interferes with the running of your computer. When I go to a website, I want to see that website, and view the ads that paid for that website. Gator changes that, and thus in effect is altering content without my permission. It uses up my computer's cycles and bandwidth to alter the contents of my computer's memory.
So is Gator only legal because it is a company, and has corporates paying them? Gator does appear to be a protection racket as well - pay us money, or we will take away your business (by showing competitor's ads on your page).
Christ, someone set the FBI onto this company. IMHO, of course.
The problem is that the users don't know what's being installed. Gator is a program that silently piggybacks itself on other popular programs like Gozilla. It doesn't bring up its own screen saying "Now installing Gator." The only indications that Gator is installed is a blurb buried deep in the fine print of the twenty page click-thru license agreement, and Gator showing up in the Add/Remove Programs dialog. Worse, when you try uninstalling Gator, a piece of it still remains that continues to perform stealth advertisement hijacking until you uninstall it as well. Most non-computer-geeks won't have the time or inclination to figure this out.
Gator is almost virus-like in its attempts to conceal itself from the user, do things without their consent, and spread itself to more machines. It includes only the bare minimum required to make a paper-thin claim of ethical behavior. With Junkbuster, the user knows exactly what's going on. Gator does its best to make sure the user doesn't know it's working.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
No, but if my Tivo replaced ads put in by the broadcasters, they would be sued, and it wouldn't really matter whether I had agreed to it or not.
I would say there is a difference between removing something (ie, adding a 30 second skip or allowing me to fast forward through ads) and replacing it with different content that is represented as the original.
Like I said, I wouldn't have a problem if the popped up ads were clearly seperate from the original content, such as in the task bar, or the toolbar of your browser, nor would I object to software that allowed the user to block out some or all ads. That is merely allowing the consumer to choose what parts of a webpage they view. Replacing content is fraudulent. End of story.
Gator does its best to make sure the user doesn't know it's working
There's an obvious reason for this type of behaviour. Consider: if users were informed of exactly what they are installing and exactly what it does, and then given a choice about whether to install it or not, how many users would willingly install it? My guess, none, whatsoever. Thats why they have to try hide their behaviour. If this alone doesn't make it glaringly obvious that such software should not exist (i.e. exactly 0% of users would ever willingly choose to use it), then nothing will.
Its sad how much the computer industry relies specifically on the lack of user education amongst its client base. Software companies and hardware companies thrive on it. The success of Microsofts business is built on it. "Keep the users in the dark ..". All you see in the computer industry these days is companies attempting to trick their customers, lying to their customers, fooling their customers, suckering their customers, all relying on lack of user education. Its all around. I saw a banner ad today "if this ad is flickering, you've won! click here to claim your prize". Its an animated GIF, if its not flickering it means your browser doesn't support animated gifs .. but its just another case of relying on the cluelessness of your own client base. If a company NEEDS its users to be clueless in order to survive, it shouldn't be allowed to survive, period.
Firstly, I use Mozilla on both OSes. I configure it to ask permission before loading images, and remember the choice. This quickly populates the database of junk image sites. Same is done with cookies, of course. Animated GIFs are set to never loop.
Secondly, I use Squid + Junkbuster chain on another computer. It acts as a caching/filtering proxy to block ads and cookies that slipped through Mozilla.
Thirdly, the firewall is configured to direct all traffic to/from known Evil Sites (tm) to where it belongs. Input packets are denied, outgoing are rejected. Doubleclick and friends are all there, as well as some "legitimate" Web sites that have questionable privacy policies (like Real). This blocks a spyware traffic from apps like RealPlayer - which require 15 minutes to properly set up, otherwise they send everything they can to an unknown 3rd party.
Fourthly, though I haven't done that yet, you can disable outgoing traffic through your firewall, except the proxy server. This makes the whole Web accessible only through your proxy.
If you want to "sponsor" some Web site and give it an ad image request without actually seeing the ad, you can use Mozilla's CSS hacks. Then the image will be downloaded but not displayed. This is also necessary in SSL mode because the proxy becomes transparent and can't block images for you; then only Mozilla itself can help.
Comment removed based on user account deletion