MIT Startup Tests Top Million Sites for Spyware

torrentami writes "An MIT startup called SiteAdvisor has downloaded over 100,000 programs from the top million Web sites and tested them for adware and spyware using an automated system they've built. They've got a blog entry where they dissect 5 of the worst adware bundles they found. There is some amazingly invasive stuff in there."

Comments

What about the rest?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they have a "submit site" function for people to test random sites....

No reason to be vulnerable to spyware.

[CyricZ]

Have you tried the recent Kubuntu releases? If not, give it a try. It is by far one of the most easiest systems to install these days. Even easier to keep up to date, as well.

I was recently asked to set up some computer systems at a seniors home. Now, many of these people have never used a PC. So we were able to acquire several used PCs for almost no cost, and I installed Kubuntu on their systems. We got them set up so that they could check their email, browse the WWW, use various instant messengers to chat with relatives, and even play games (bridge and backgammon were big favourites).

Now, why did I go with Kubuntu? Mainly because it is free, and it is quality software that is quite easy to use. But more importantly, I wanted these systems to always be available to these people. I know that they might visit malicious sites. I wouldn't want that resulting in their systems being compromised just because of that.

You may deny it, but the fact of the matter is that Linux systems won't get infected with spyware at this time. Sure, that may change in the future, but I'm doubtful about that. The basic (yet significant) differences in code quality and architecture are enough to leave Linux (and other non-Microsoft) systems far more secure and usable, even in the fact of malicious software.