The State Of Grayware On the PC

Checkers and Pogo writes "Grayware inhabits a murky area between pure malware and useful apps, and it's a growing problem. 38.1% of all malicious PC software falls into the grayware category, and so-called 'grayware 2.0' is targeting social-networking sites. Ars Technica's Jeremy Reimer notes, 'The "threat" of rogue applications like SuperWall wasn't immediately obvious: they seemed more like annoyances than real security risks. But as users entered more and more personal information into their Facebook accounts, it became clear that the possibilities for abuse were rampant. For example, because Facebook allows users to "tag" photos with the names of friends, it is possible for third-party apps to distribute photos that a user might only want to be seen by their inner circle of friends.'"

Comments

For the uninformed

[Ethanol-fueled]

These are the most popular examples of Grayware - avoid whenever possible:
-Norton anything
-Mcaffee anything
-Microsoft anything
-Myspace anything
-Facebook anything
-Sony anything
-iTunes
-"Quick"time
-Realplayer

Also:
-Never click on the duck
-Never click on the monkey
-Never click on the blinkenlights
-Never click on "yes" or "I agree" -If you still manage to get a popup, consult your country's extrortion laws

You've been warned.

Re:5 pages

[mikkl666]

don't be stupid and be skeptical Or, to be more precise, don't be a dick.

Re:Shades of Gray

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot BROWNWARE, software that is pure shit.

Re:Goddamn BonziBUDDY

[sm62704]

Yeah, WinAmp was bad

Ok buddy thanks a lot. Winamp is my second favorite media player (XMMS is my favorite). You made me RTFA.

In the heady days of the dot com boom, many software companies were happy enough to give out free software and trust that the money would somehow arrive later, magically (some, like the authors of WinAmp, would live to see this happen when their company was bought by America Online). Other companies released trial or demo copies of their software which could be unlocked for a fee.

That was the only place in TFA the word "winamp" appeared.

So what was/is so bad about winamp? Yeah XMMS is better but afaik it won't run in Windows.

Re:5 pages

[PitaBred]

A virus isn't really in the same class as this malware. They're calling it "greyware" because it doesn't try to fuck up your PC, it adds "services" which are dodgy and expose you to all kinds of interesting privacy and security exploitation. The first viruses were almost purely destructive or annoying, there were no "ulterior motives" like there is with this malware that DID start with the Internet getting popular.

You forgot:

[crhylove]

There's a few you forgot.

-All versions of Winamp after 2.81
-Adobe Acrobat
-AOL
-java
-99% of all "security" software (not just limited to Norton and Mcaffee, but those are the worst/most common!
-I'm sure I'm forgetting some more huge ones!

Also:
If you really want a very clean system, I suggest using Portable Apps (google it). Tons of great FOSS programs that will not touch the registry or do anything but run and only run when they are opened:

Pidgin
GIMP
Firefox 3 (Beta 5)
Open Office
Audacity
Sudoku
Texas Hold'em (Online and Free!)
UltraVNC
Infrarecorder (nearly as good as Nero now!)
Clamwin
Filezilla
Bonkenc
Virtualdub

Other than those programs, there are a few proprietary softwares that I must have, and there is sadly no open source alternative:

Winamp 2.81
uTorrent 1.5 (later versions are spyware)
Virtualbox
Urban Terror (though it is ioquake3, so I ALMOST trust it all the way (wish it was portable!)!
Joost
Cool Edit Pro 2.1
Sibelius
Dream Aquarium
Skype

And then there are a couple FOSS apps that I can't get portable versions of:
Mupen++
Zsnes

Using that list of software I can pretty much do ANYTHING on this machine, and I haven't had any spyware, malware, virii, or slowdowns at all.

Feel free to add whatever I forgot!!!