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Which Adware and Spyware are the Most Insidious?
the_dreadnought asks: "I was just asked today which adware and spyware are the most insidious by an acquaintance. He asked me if this stuff was really legal, or was it just not important enough for law enforcement to deal with? I know the porn stuff (not from experience,,,ok, from experience) that dials out to foreign countries is one of the more extreme examples, and Gator is well known, but if Slashdot readers could describe what adware and spyware they think is the sneakiest I would appreciate it. Also, any thoughts on whether some of this stuff is even legal, as it is almost certainly not ethical."
Windows likes to call home whenever it can. I'm sure it reports back to the mothership far more often than anyone would like to think about.
*synches the strap on his tin foil hat a bit tighter*
When I got my computer there was some kind of software that someone had snuck onto the computer while it was at the store called "Micro Soft Window". Have you ever heard of this? And they tried to get me to agree to some long legal thing just when i turn the computer on. I don't know why they think people would fall for that. It was easy to uninstall though, which is good, most spyware is not so easy to uninstall.
You're going to need something to remove Windows, if you're intent on getting rid of ALL your spyware.
;)
format.exe is the perfect program to do that.
which Creed album is the worst?
Oh no. RealOne is such a well-made program! It plays interesting, high-quality movies with a great sound quality without even installing random applications to slow down the CPU.
1. Ask Slashdot what sort of spyware is the worst. 2. Make this sort of spyware. 3. Profit!
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
With absolute certainty, the worst adware is the threadjack /. post
Especially evil is the sig line advertisement.
All these companies want to do is let you know about exciting new products and services that could entertain you, improve your life, and lengthen you genitalia.
Shutting out these innovators . . . well, it smacks of Communism, doesn't it? First TiVO, screening out the ads that broadcasters, our public servants, need to survive. Now this ungrateful attack on champions entreneurship and freedom of choice. Just a bunch of surly, consumer-choice hating Reds is what you all are.
I'm going to tell John Ashcroft what you've been up to so these SpyBot removers can be banned!
Stefan "scared to hell that someone out there might actually be thinking like this" Jones
I'd love to see the day when a "define Gator" on Google returns "bottom dwelling scum sucking spyware" yeah you heard me, GATOR IS SPYWARE!
I am not sure what this thing was, but its the biggest spyware I have seen. It came installed
on my laptop, and even after I installed Linux, it continued to exists. Everytime I forget to press
arrow key while bootup, it would boot into this spyware. Once I am there, I am given a illusion that
this thing looks very similiar to my Linux system, but everything was slow. There was an ambulance
(I think thats what they use for hijacking my laptop) which would keep yelling "Click here to update".
Then it did have something that looked like konqueror and it did show some internet sites. But I couldnt
open more than one tabs in it. Also, every 2.5 seconds it used to open up a colourful window offering
me stuff I did not want.
Then I got a message saying Cindy wants to talk to me. I didnt want to talk to Cindy, but it kept yelling
at me for not saying Hi to Cindy. Cindy was barely wearing any clothes (shudders)
I finally managed to get rid of this spyware, and everytime I think about it I shudder.
DO NOT PANIC
Recently a client came in with a PC and said it was acting funny and suspected there was some kind of virus on it. A scan detected that there was several files that appeared to be infected with something called "Downloader-DZ" and, along with the links to porn sites (my favorite one being "Operation... SEX!") and the homepage being replaced with a porn page, there were SEVERAL dialers installed, and an attempt to just delete LiveGirls.exe did nothing... it later reapeared.
To put it short, I spent two hours running spyware removal software and manually editing out bad registry keys. A pain.
Oh... and PLEASE tell people they don't need that FUCKING SHIT like hotbar and weather bug either!! I'm sick of seeing that crap on people's PCs!
it pops up porn? Hhrrmm.... where do I download this thing from again?
Glenn
The Smrt way to trade CFDs on the ASX
Obviously... you need to upgrade to the BonziBuddy Gold Membership. Yes! You can actually pay money to get a better BonziBuddy ! It's only $49. I can't believe everybody doesn't buy this stuff.
I'll drink to that.
Want to have more fun with new.net? put up a firewall on your network. New.net has problems getting through firewalls, so the internet stops working after five minutes on anything that has it installed.
I think it pissed off half the college students off in the first day the net was up. I got 100 calls the first day saying their internet wasn't working, then when I asked if they had (Insert piece of crap P2P app here), they would always say yes. Gee, I wonder why it doesn't work now.
Maybe if people would quit downloading spyware laced crap and clicking yes on anything IE wants to install my small realm of hell would be a better place.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
1. remove it using "Add/remove" programs
2. if still not working, remove the WinSock and WinSock2 registry keys from CurrentControlSet
This is the "easiest" way? Slow down there Turbo... Now, over the phone, YOU try to talk my mother through this "easy" way. Believe me, I'll Make Money Fast selling you a couple of Valium when (and if) you ever get the job done
"Fear is the rootkit of democracy.." Blarkon
"Is there *nix spyware?
Why not?"
Because *nix users are already subscribed to porn sites.
I use the "rm" command with "rm" files under any flavor of unix, rm really is the best way to deal with low quality realmedia files anyway.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
I DO disagree with EVERY frickin app wanting to park itself in the tray.
I went to a bioinformatics conference a few months ago. These biologists would come up and plug their laptops into the projector so they could do their Powerpoint presentations. And it was amazing. ALL of them had tray icons spanning more than halfway across the screen! I completely stopped paying attention to one guy- it was more interesting to count how many spyware icons I could recognize in his tray. And they kept apologizing to the audience because their laptops were slow!
Simple. There is no adware for Linux as companies know that we don't have any money. Isn't that why we use it?
(Easy there mods, don't let the sarcasm fool ya.)
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
Autopr0n, your sig is an especially insipid sort of inline advert, because your website is so terrible.
I would never think of advertising my ventures in a slashdot post.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
So if I understand 'The Matrix Reloaded' correctly, the Matrix is basically a Microsoft operating system - it runs for a while and then crashes and reboots. By design, no less. Neo is just a memory leak that's too hard to fix, so they left him in... The users don't complain because they're packed in slush and kept sedated.
That's a great tip! Thanks. You're going on my friends list, Mr. Anonymous Coward!
my girlfriend came home from school last winter with something really odd.
Two weeks of penicillan should clear that up.