Slashdot Mirror
An interview with Ad-Aware's Nicholas Stark
Andrew Leonard writes: "In the wake of the Ad-Aware/RadLight spyware vs. anti-spyware showdown, Salon has an interview with Ad-Aware's Nicholas Stark, who explains in no uncertain terms Lavasoft's determination to match every move by the spyware developers."
Well, except that's *not* what Ad-Aware and similar products do. They *don't* make a clear connection between uninstalling 'spyware' and decreasing functionality of a program.
I've worked personally on both sides of this fence, with one of the companies named in the interview. I can't tell you how many times I had email exchanges with users that ran like this:
USER: Suddenly my version of [Product] won't work! I get a message it's missing [filename]; what happened?
RESPONSE: You may have installed a program that "removes spyware" that has removed that program element. Programs like that are designed to remove advertising software from your computer. You're welcome to do that, but if you don't want to see ads, the free version of [Product] is not for you. You should try [Pay Version of Product] or some other product that is not ad sponsored.
USER: But I don't understand! The program said it would get rid of evil viruses and bad programs! It didn't say it would remove parts of the programs I use. Why doesn't it say your programs might not work any more?
RESPONSE: We suggest writing to the support address of the "spyware removal" program with your concern. Maybe they will change their documentation to make that more clear.
I myself was *personally* responsible for making sure that software that included ad components had clear, readable EULAs. The software had to all but slap the user in the face with the information -- it had a first line that said, in all caps, that the program was AD SUPPORTED and would DISPLAY ADS. It urged, in all caps, that users *read* before they agreed. I fought with developers who wanted to make the EULA less visible, to ensure that it couldn't be dragged off the desktop or otherwise avoided.
The bottom line is that it didn't matter. I could explain to a user in simple plain language what was going on, and the user would still *ignore* the whole text.
I've become increasingly frustrated by the topic of late. From what I can tell, there are people who feel justified in robbing others of income by repackaging software to remove advertising components. For almost all advertising supported software I'm aware of, an ad-free version is offered for a cost. If you don't want ads, or don't want "spyware", pay for the software. It's that simple. But to actively take income from people simply because you don't approve of their business model is heinous.
Actually, now that I think about it, this is not the first instance of this sort of activity. I remember a developer with a popular product which was ad-supported that used to check for ad-removal programs and bring up a popup window that said something like:
"[Anti-adware program] has been found on your system. It may remove files that this software needs. Do you want to remove [Anti-adware program]?"
A pretty nice bit of turnaround, I always thought.
The problem I see is that you are not TOLD about the advertising software upon installation of certain software. I'm sure there are a few people who are willing to put up with some ads, or donate a few CPU cycles, in exchange for something free, but, I am not. However, I was not told about that fact and allowed to make my decesion based on the fact that program XXX would also covertly install advertising and distributed computing apps as well.
:)
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In sort, it's MY computer, _I_ should be the one who decides what is on it. Not only for my own desires, but also to be polite to other people on the 'net. What if one of these spyware programs were to catch (or come with) a virus? My computer would (without my knowledge) spread this virus to other people....
Of course, I run Linux anyway so this does not *really* apply to me. That is, until some large corporation buys the rights to Linux and starts releasing an adware-enabled version...
Bringing up eth0 [OK]
Downloading new artwork and features [OK]
Installing new ads [OK]
Oh the horror...
Excuse the brain wanderings, I've been up all night coding...
-RickTheSleepyWizKid
As a freeware developer, I now have to invest extra time to get the latest list of targeted filenames by Ad-Aware and similar software.
Ad-Aware is simple-ware with a noble cause - I can't fault it for that. Perhaps it needs to do more fuzzy searches, such as "expected registry keys", "expected support files", "exe file size greater than 2mb (to catch patched exes)" to ensure a positive match, and report the results "98% chance it's a positive match.".
Where is this cold war taking us?
Morph-ware: The ability to change the signiature of your software dynamically - filesizes, filenames, icon pixel color variations, title bar text manipulation, and randomizing the internal exe identifiers for windows.