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Spyware More Common in Popular Software?

Posted by Cliff on from the watch-what-you-install dept.

Keith Young asks: "Over the past month, we have seen a 1500% increase of spyware denials on our firewall primarily due to WildTangent 'spyware' installed with AOL IM 5.5 and adware installed with Weatherbug. Since many of these widely-installed types of applications have an automatic upgrade feature, how can these be tested for license agreements, spyware, and security 'irregularities'? Is this another reason to approach management to choose only open source alternatives?"

5 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. GAIM by Schezar · · Score: 5, Informative

    Gaim

    Just a friendly reminder in case there's anyone out there in slashdot land who still doesn't know about it. Works perfectly with AIM/ICQ and Jabber (and those other services no one actually uses ^_~) Even has a Win32 installer.

    --
    GeekNights!
    Late Night Radio for Geeks!
  2. Use Gaim by KingOfBLASH · · Score: 4, Informative

    I use gaim instead of AOL instant messenger. It's got just about every feature that AOL instant messenger has, plus a slew more (plus it can consolidate chat clients). It is easy enough to use for non techies that all my friends and family are on it instead of the AOL version. There are OpenSource projects out there for everything. Check out Sourceforge. And, if you really like the product, and it saves you some money, donate some money to the project so it can get even better.

  3. Weatherbug? by Asprin · · Score: 2, Informative


    I know older versions of Weatherbug included Gator, but my understanding was that they had stopped bundling this garbage in favor of a more unintrusive ad-only revenue model. At least the last couple of versions I scanned with Spybot S&D and Ad-aware tested clean.

    Did I miss something?

    Oh, and more on-topic, YES. Spyware is a big reason why I use open-source software whenever possible.

    --
    "Lawyers are for sucks."
    - Doug McKenzie
  4. Re:I am a Mac user. by MalleusEBHC · · Score: 2, Informative

    Google search for spyware references on www.allosx.com

    There are only two references to spyware on the site, and neither refer to any Mac spyware.

  5. Re:Why even allow WildTangent? by wfsavenger · · Score: 3, Informative

    It isn't allowed at my organization; if you look at my linked article, you would see that AOL IM 5.5 installs it *automatically*. At that point, it happily reports back to WildTangent.com... --Keith Young