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Digsby IM Client Quietly Installs Badware
An anonymous reader writes "IM company Digsby has quietly included malware in an update to their client software that utilizes users' computing power and bandwidth while idle for a quick buck. When questioned, developers at Digsby claim that they have done no wrong and that users should not complain because the client software is 'free.'" The money-making distributed computing software is in addition to six "crapware" apps that users must refuse during installation. The terms of service that no one ever reads does describe the CPU- and bandwidth-robbing moneymaker, and its off switch is located behind the "Support Digsby" menu item.
Again, Ubuntu didn't do anything wrong. They just changed the default "new tab" page from about:blank to the Ubuntu-themed Google search page that's already the default home page. They log usage of their web search service, like everyone else.
Also paying for software doesn't protect you from crapware. Just because they have less incentive to include that stuff doesn't mean they don't.
The power of choice: change IM client. There are tons of free IM client, just change it to something else like Pidgin.
Perhaps this is a good point in time to switch to Pidgin (multi-platform and my personal choice), Adium (Mac OS X), Empathy (Gnome), Kopete (KDE), or some other, more trustworthy client?
This started up back in December of last year according to the forum posts. To top it off, Steve the administrator, shut off the research module since then. Why the stir now? Plura is the one that needs to be hammered that provided the software for this.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.